The good folks at the Center For Economic Policy Research reminded me on Tuesday that one of my original mental images of Camp Runamuck was of hundreds of telephones ringing plaintively and unanswered in hundreds of government offices, because the new administration was too lazy, or ignorant, or deliberately negligent to fill the positions, thereby lazily, or ignorantly, or deliberately and negligently crippling the administrative functions of the national Executive. The CEPR regularly reports on this very real phenomenon, concentrating on the more obscure agencies and departments.

Its May report, for example, has set the ringtones off in my imagination again. To wit:

Of the aforementioned 179 positions, 42 are filled by members/commissioners who are serving expired terms (the same as last month). 20 of those terms expired prior to President Trump taking office and 1 expired prior to President Obama taking office. Those 42 members have served on average 990 days, or just under 3 years, past the end of their term. In addition to these expired seats, 42 seats are vacant (down 3 from the month before). In total that makes 84 seats that are either expired or vacant, almost half of the total. There are only 30 pending nominations to fill these seats, a mere fraction of the total. That is 2 fewer nominations than there were last month. Moreover, only 10 people have been confirmed to independent agency boards since the start of the 116th Congress. Only 4 people were confirmed in May. President Trump put forward 2 new nominations this month.

The CEPR report also contains some shocking (!) details.

Many of these agencies’ boards are statutorily designed to be politically balanced. The President selects nominees from his own party but, for appointees of the opposing party, generally nominates those recommended to him by senior Senators of that party.*** To avoid partisan battles, nominations for vacancies are often, though not always, advanced in pairs made up of one Democrat and one Republican. In the absence of a natural pair nominations will advance alone. This President, however, has chosen to break with precedent and has consistently put forward nominations for Republican seats without a corresponding Democratic partner even when they put boards out of political balance.

I don't think El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago is aware any of these agencies even exist. I'm not sure he is aware of his own butler, and he certainly isn't aware of any tailor in the western world. But some of the sharpies who see in him a delightfully useful personal vacancy know about them, and they are presently wrenching them toward the right. Some Democratic legislators are on to the scam—most notably Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio—and are working to bring it to light. Put it on the list of things about which we should be concerned. If necessary, buy a roll of newsprint.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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