How Often Does The Senate Reject Cabinet Nominees?

[GraVandius]

How Often Does The Senate Reject Cabinet Nominees?​

Over the past few weeks we've seen a multitude of discussions on the topic of Senate confirmations and the need or lack of need for a cap on the number of Ministries. After the pehaps hyperbolic suggestion by Darcness that simply increasing the required threshold from simple majority up to 3/4ths rounded up would have pretty much no effect on the number of frivilous cabinet nominees pased through, I decided to go back and look at past nominations to see how that change would have impacted them. What was intitally going to be another relatively small project quickly spiraled out of control as I, with a little help from Astrellan, spent hours over the past week cataloging every single minister confirmation avalilible in Swakistek and the archives. Thus, over the next few weeks I'll likely be presenting that gathered data in some other interesting ways but I'll first be starting off with just the intial scope of this study.

From the start of HEM's first Presidency in July of 2007 the Senate has considered 674 cabinet nominees. Of those 674, nine have been explicitly voted down by the Senate. The first of which was one of our most presitgeous citizens who was shot down for not being Alied Alliances. It's worth noting that the vast majority of these examples where shot down becuase of the nominee themselves rather than the position, with the exception of Rand for Minister of Orientation and Lia Moss-Firen as MWP. Additionally, McEntire was rejected as Minister of Media (or as it's now called Communications) due to the Senate deciding to draw a firm line in the sand on serving in both the legislative and executive branches.

In addition to those nine, a further 10 nominees that have been pulled from consideration due to the Executive not beliving the nominee would be confirmed and wanting to save them from the debacle of being actually voted down. Again though, with perhaps the exception of Darcness for Domestic Advisor most of these rejections were due to the nominee rather than the position itself.

In the next chart bellow you can see the number of nominees rejected (in some form) per year. There are noticably some signficant gaps between the years. For example between 2011 and 2014 not a single nominee was rejected after the historical high point of rejections that was 2011. This longest streach was over 1,022 days between the failed nomination of McEntire to Communications and the Withdrawl of the Nomination of Seven Deaths to Grand Admiral after a lot of citicism was expressed in the Senate. The shortest is the afformentioned voting down of McEntire and Lia Moss-Firen which occured on the same day.

Overall, that is a total of 19 rejections caused by the Senate in some form, which accounts for approximately 2.8% of the nominations overall, which is what I would have probably guessed that statistic would be around. From here though the question turns to what additional instances would the Senate have rejected a nominee if the threshold was 3/4ths rounded up. Given that threshold the number of effectively rejected nominees jumps from 19 to 29 (4.3% of the total nominations). Additionally a few of these such as Swak for Cheif of Staff or Seven Deaths for Role Play show that given a higher threshold the Senate is at least slightly more likely to shoot down a frivilous nominee.

While thse numbers do not show huge percentages of frivilous nominees being rejected they do suggest that the Senate will not just simply ruberstamp nominees if they have a concern. One hundred and fourteen nominations attracted some derision from the Senate, either in the form of explicit nay votes or so called "Protest Abstain" votes. Generally, if those "protest abstain" votes could be coaxed over to the outright nay collum and addtional 15 nominations would not have eeked their way past the Senate. Hopefully, given some of those were posted after a nominee had already reached simple majority, situations where that higher threshold is required would have people step up fully for their beliefs.

In conclusion, this data does not really make a decisive point either way on the question of a cap. I do think it suggests that the Senate has had the political will on many ocasisions to stop a flawed nominee or misguided appointment and that will definetly be signifcantly increased by raising the bar on confirmations.

What are your thoughts? What would you like to see next from the ERI? Let me know in the comments or in my DMs!​

 

[Calvin Coolidge]

Definitely good data to have. I'd like to think it shows that we make the right choice for nominees most of the time, though I know that's probably an optimistic viewing. If you went through all previous confirmations, I hope this means we will soon get the fabled record of every single minister in Europeian history, though I know that would be a massive undertaking!

 

[Astrellan]

It was nice to help contribute to this article; I think the data is very interesting and extensive. It also suggests, in my opinion from looking at vote counts directly, that many nominees seem to be a good choice for the position at confirmation, because I don't think the Senate would be historically scared of denying a nominee should they have a good, explicit reason to do so. Nice writing though, GraV, and I can't wait to see what other forms you present the data in.

 

[Aexnidaral]

It also suggests, in my opinion from looking at vote counts directly, that many nominees seem to be a good choice for the position at confirmation, because I don't think the Senate would be historically scared of denying a nominee should they have a good, explicit reason to do so.

I do not agree with this interpretation of the data, though I understand why some may. I think that you've got to do a deeper dive into the data to contextualize who the people were who voted against or abstained from nominees; especially in the context of the players at the time and their "political age" It's been my experience in the Senate that the older, more established members, are more willing to take risks on rocking the boat to deny or not vote for a nominee than newer members who feel they don't. In my opinion there should be more nominees that should've been denied, or at very least, questioned a bit more rigorously. I also think this data is a pretty good showing for the soft cap/threshold raising idea.

 

[GraVandius]

If you went through all previous confirmations, I hope this means we will soon get the fabled record of every single minister in Europeian history, though I know that would be a massive undertaking!

This will definitely happen at some point relatively soon. There are a lot of data integrity problems that result from manually inputting ~670 pieces of data so I’ll have to go back and fix those. Additionally after doing this for a huge chuck of my week I kinda don’t want to look at that spreadsheet again for a little bit . Also there is at least one other time relevant article on the Drew Boom I want to finish up first. So I promise it’ll happen, it just won’t be the next article.

It's been my experience in the Senate that the older, more established members, are more willing to take risks on rocking the boat to deny or not vote for a nominee than newer members who feel they don't.

While I have no intention of going back and cross checking join dates and Nay votes, I think this rings true from what I saw. Our older, more politically “abrasive” members, such as noto or CSP, were usually the ones who would throw in a lone no vote and older senators were generally more likely to challenge the executive with questions ect. Additionally, given that there are some significant gaps between denying nominees it’s quite possible newer Senators simply were not around the last time it occurred and without knowing that precedent, it’s definitely more intimidating to do.

 

[Lethen]

This was really interesting! It'd be interesting to see this data with Justice nominations, too.

Also I distinctly recall Anumia nominating Swakistek multiple times in a short span (2 weeks maybe?) for the same office or the same office and then a different cabinet post, with the Senate repeatedly rejecting the nominee. Partly to put Anumia in his place

Edit: without checking, it may have been two nominations in a row for Swak to be his new VP now that I think about it

 

[Maowi]

Thanks for presenting what must have been a colossal amount of work GraV. I agree that these results are pretty positive for the soft cap camp - there's a noticeable difference between the two thresholds of confirmation.

 

[PhDre]

Thank you for putting this all together. Not to grave dig, but I did really enjoy this article and wanted to add some color to this question of "How often does the Senate reject Nominations" by provided some links to one of the most interesting and eventful Senate nomination struggles I recall.

This story takes us back 2011, when Rach was President of the region. July 2011 was a busy month for the Senate, as in quick succession we had the following movements in the Cabinet:

Early July
Welfare: McEntire -> Ogastein
Link

July 10
Culture: Panlu Dismissed
Interior: Aurora Dismissed
Link
Interior: Boots Nominated
Link
Boots Steps Aside as Interior Nomination

July 14:
Culture: Boots Nominated
Link
Senator Swak says" I'm still not entirely convinced, but I'm prepared to let this go through"

July 15:
Interior: PhDre Nominated
Link

I write an article revealing I did not accept the nomination. Skizzy reveals that this is not the first time that this has occured in Euro history (but I cannot currently recall any other incidents like this). The article also contains some details on threats by the President regarding the nomination process, including some language directed at Sopo threatening to withhold Culture nominations.
Link

The Presidency doesnt survive another 2 weeks. President Rach resigns, and the VP calls for a Vote of No Confidence.
Link

 

[Sopo]

Truly my favorite memories of this region are from that time.

 

[Prim]

Did Rach ever serve a full Presidential term? She seems to have racked up a few partial terms.

 

[Sopo]

At

Did Rach ever serve a full Presidential term? She seems to have racked up a few partial terms.

At least her second term in 2011 was completed (she was elected again later in the year).

 

[GraVandius]

Skizzy reveals that this is not the first time that this has occured in Euro history (but I cannot currently recall any other incidents like this).

As far as the spreadsheet is concerned there weren’t any instances prior to this unless the nominee went all the way through the process without it being noticed that they were not asked prior to being nominated. Ironically though in 2012 Skizzy nominated Montana Max for Interior without first consulting them here.

 

[Lethen]

Truly my favorite memories of this region are from that time.

That time period is a mixed bag for me. Lots of good memories, lots of bad. I feel like late 2010/all of 2011 was a tumultuous time in Europeia.