Opinion: Senate Confirmation Apathy Symptom of Executive Bloat
Written by Deepest House
(Europeia – March 3, 2020) - On Monday, March 2, Xecrio abruptly announced his resignation as minister of communications to focus on real life obligations. Shortly afterward, First Minister Sopo nominated Istillian, a veteran of the post, to the role. Despite six senators holding office, it was more than 24 hours after the nomination was posted before any senator acknowledged the nomination.
Speaker of the Senate Lloenflys acknowledged the nomination and apologized for the delay. The senator asked a sole question, which while meaningful in its formulation and purpose, underscored the lack of interest in the confirmation by the Senate as he also announced his intention to move the nomination to a vote within just a few hours. At time of press, it is very possible that the Senate will have voted on a nominee with only the speaker performing a perfunctory confirmation hearing consisting of a single question.
To be clear, this is not an indictment of the Senate at all. Rather, this is an observation that the role of the Senate in confirmations has become rote and nearly meaningless. With the implementation of the executive split, there are now 14(!) executive officers. With three of these officers being directly elected, 11(!) of these positions are left to be confirmed by the Senate. With the dearth of qualified candidates to fill the bloated executive, the Senate has rightly come to view the confirmation process as more of a chore than a meaningful oversight duty. A review of recent confirmation hearings betrays a lack of interest and meaningful participation by the Senate in the now rote chore.
Simply put: the executive split has diluted the prestige and importance of cabinet posts to such an extent that the region is simply filling the positions with anyone who is willing, with minimal experience and qualifications. Such a tenuous and untenable situation is not healthy for the long-term health and viability of the political side of our region.
For the political side of our region to prosper, we must have competitive elections (since the executive split, we generally haven’t) and ministers and cabinet positions should be earned through exceptional and outstanding service in a particular ministry and vetted through meaningful confirmations. While we generally do continue to place individuals with some degrees of experience and success into positions, we are also generally searching for able bodies to fill roles rather than selecting from multiple, highly qualified individuals interested in the same post.
Looking back at my term as president, which occurred shortly before the executive split, I nominated a total of eight individuals for initial cabinet posts. This number was largely consistent with other administrations prior to the split. Even so, that was a lot, and could likely have had some ministries combined to increase efficiency and reduce bloat. Expanding this pool from eight to 11, with the additional 2 executive officers created by the split (though this has been somewhat mitigated post-split by modifying the role of the second minister), simply reduces the opportunity of the executive to identify and select the best and brightest to perform the most important roles in an administration.
The issue is clearly illustrated by the forum itself. Note that the header for the forum section housing the various ministries is titled “Ever-Expanding Bureaucracy.” While I believe HEM made this note in jest, there is also significant truth to it.
There is no question that the political dynamism of the region has dwindled since the executive split. We have created a region where the most important positions aren’t competitively achieved – to such a degree that the Senate has, largely, become ambivalent about confirmations and performing them in a routine manner. This isn’t a value judgment on that as much as it is a reflection and call for us to evaluate what we want Europeia to be.
If we value our traditions and roots as the preeminent political region in NationStates and harbor a desire to return to what we had in the past, we need to return to the governmental infrastructure that allowed for that dynamism to foment political activity while also motivating many to achieve status and prestige by earning positions over their peers. If we don’t have a desire to return to being a region driven by politics and setting the political standard in NationStates, perhaps we end the charade and become a social region.
Either way, the current path is unsustainable.