Team Trump is scrambling to fill more than 4000 jobs. Of those, more than 1200 need Senate confirmation-- an enormous task for Trump's transition team and for Senators trying to vet them. If you want to keep score, the Partnership for Public Service has set up a "confirmation tracker" that will help you follow the progress of nearly 700 of those appointees as they work their way through the confirmation process.
Rather than try and handicap any of the confirmation hearings, I thought I'd take a stab at suggesting you watch a lot of it as through it is Great Theater.
It might seem as though my suggestion is yet another attempt to mock legislative branch, or suggest that this entire confirmation exercise is a farce. On the one hand, it is farce. Watch Ted Cruz reading Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor.
In many ways, it was the epitome of farce, and was part of his equally farcical attempt to force the de-funding of ObamaCare via filibuster. Yet, it was it also turned out to be an important effort to establish his bona fides in a policy area that anchored his 2016 presidential bid.
Even in farce, there is a lot of purpose. Seeing Congress through the analytical lens of Great Theater is not my idea. Indeed, I recommend you check out Herbert Weisberg and Samuel Patterson's great book about Congress that adopts exactly this theme.
Why look at the Senate confirmation process as Theater? Because these hearings are a big stage upon which the next four years (and beyond) are being previewed in a lot of different ways. People like Weisberg and Patterson are far more insightful on these things than I, but I offer below just a few things to keep your eyes on if you watch (or see highlights) of the hearings.
1) Grandstanding
There will be plenty of grandstanding, especially by the Senators. The nominees will get their share of air-time and have their statements "submitted for the record," but in these confirmation hearings, it's really the U.S. Senate's show. As such, committee chairs (Republican because they are in the majority) and ranking members (Democrats because they are in the minority), will each take turns filling up air-time with "questions" with very long preambles that make what they are saying hard to distinguish from a political speech. To a lesser extent, this is also true of the rest of the committee. In general, Republicans will offer up puff-piece speeches for many of Trump's nominees while Democrats will use their time to take shots at the incoming administration.
At times, the speechifying and questions for the nominees are less about the nominee's suitability for the job or their record and more about re-litigating last fall's election, establishing themselves among their Senate colleagues on some issue or set of issues, grinding some axe with a Senate colleague on the other side of the asile, or even (imagine) because of some gripe with the nominee themselves.
As an example, have a look at Ted Cruz (R-TX) "questioning" Jeff Sessions on Tuesday.
2) Big Fish vs. Mass Confirmation
As noted above, there's a long line-up of people to be confirmed. The confirmation hearings of a number of key cabinet appointments will be broadcast live on the 24 hour news networks and then interpreted and re-interpreted over the subsequent 24 hours. Big fish nominations for Attorney General, State, or Defense will get loads of coverage-- lots of opportunity for grandstanding on the part of everyone, a perfect time to send a message whether a Senator or nominee. But what of the hundreds of others that also need confirmation? Few of them will end up on television. Indeed, a lot of them will be confirmed en mass by Senate committees, 2, 3, or 4 at a time. Each of these lesser nominees will have prepared for their hearing in great detail, pouring over their professional and personal lives to present an accurate portrayal of themselves for Senate consideration. Each is supposedly given a thorough vetting.
Unfortunately, once most of smaller fish get their hearing, it's often to field just a single question from Senate inquisitors. It's a sober, but practical, consequence of the sheer number of appointees to be considered in such short order. Members of Congress know when the cameras are on and the lights at their brightest. They and their "quarry" (nominees, or those they've hauled before their committee) know the stakes are high and prepare accordingly. The small fish confirmations don't get television ratings and don't advance Member's agendas with each other, with the Administration, or with their parties. High stakes show-downs do.
Remember last fall's duel between Hillary Clinton and the House Select Committee on Foreign Affairs chaired by Trey Dowdy (R-SC)? The topic was Benghazi. The hearing lasted 11hours. With less than a month to go before the election, the stakes for everyone were high. Clinton rose to the challenge and emerged the clear winner, undermining Dowdy and the Select Committee.
3) POTUS 2020 Already Looms Large
Two clips should make it clear 2020 already looms large. Watch Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Cory Booker (D-NJ)-- who by the way, is the first Senator ever to testify against a fellow Senator that has been nominated for Cabinet. Rubio and Booker are among the younger members of their respective political parties, and both could end up running against one another for president in 2020.
The questions they posed to the nominees were tough, but were as much about their own political futures as they were about the nominees.
3) Who's in the Background?
Take note of who is sitting behind each of the main speakers. Behind each of the Senators asking the questions are a number of young-looking members of that Senator's staff. A lot of what you are hearing from the Senators came from those staff members-- statements, research, and the drafting of the questions themselves. I don't want to suggest the Senators simply show up and say what they are fed by their staffs, but the sheer volume of the work required for these hearings necessitates a division of labor in which key Senate staffers are never far away.
Pay attention also to who is seated behind the nominees. Demonstrations of support from family members are a requisite part of the theater, but so too are key political supporters to whom the nominee often makes reference during their remarks. The message being conveyed is obvious--- there's a large group of people in my corner who support me, everyone in the Senate should too.
4) Semi-Collusion Between Trump Staff and Senate Staff
Note the degree to which Senate inquisitors and nominees in each hearing seem to have anticipated the questions being asked. This will be particularly easy to detect coming from Republican Senators who overtly support the nominee. The Senator will offer up some preamble, a bit of spin and context, and then throw a bit of a soft-ball question at the nominee they seem unusually well-prepared to answer. Actual questions may not have changed hands between those in Trump's transition team and Senate staffers about what will be asked of the nominee. However, there is plenty of communication between those groups about what to expect and how best to orchestrate discussion of sensitive issues. For example, if a nominee is likely to experience some difficulties because of their past record on a set of issues, a sympathetic questioner can use their time and questions to help the nominee soft-peddle a response. After all, it's better to respond to a sympathetic inquisitor on a tough set of issues than to someone hostile to your nomination.
Trump's nominees are also well-prepped by transition advisors as to what kinds of questions Democratic Senators are likely to throw at them in an effort to trip them up. There is obviously far less overt communication between Democratic Senate staff and Trump transition team people, but tremendous effort goes into anticipating (research, past positions on issues, etc) what might be asked of the nominee.
5) The Art of the Non-Answer Answer
The "dark art" of responding to Senate questions with non-answers is constantly being perfected. In theory, Senators are supposed to be asking probing questions about important policy positions that might be taken by presidential appointees once in office. Yet, even after hours of testimony, Senators and the public are often left feeling like they didn't get the answers they wanted. Nominees want to avoid making mistakes, particularly in the midst of senatorial grandstanding, nor do they want to be pinned down or boxed in on policy by responding to hypothetical questions.
This phenomenon of the "non answer" has really taken hold in the context of Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominees. Indeed, some have argued that it was the SCOTUS nomination of Robert Bork back in the late-1980s that started it. Some concluded that Bork sunk his confirmation by being too forthcoming about hypothetical case scenarios posed to him by the Senate. Indeed, the warning given to subsequent nominees is that you "don't want to get Borked."
Sadly, this kind of jousting is not exclusive to SCOTUS nominees or the the confirmation of presidential cabinet posts-- try listening to Alan Greenspan's "Fed Speak" when he was Chair of the Federal Reserve and testified before Congressional committees.
Theater of the Non-Absurd
It's all enough to make a lot of people cynical about the political system, but it all nevertheless serves an important purpose. The great theater on display right now in these Senate confirmation hearings might often be about a lot of other things apart from the suitability of the nominees for the jobs Trump wants them to do. But the whole process also provides small windows into what we can expect, from who, and on what issues, between the two branches of government in the next four years. A rough ride for Rex Tillerson in his confirmation hearing may be a sign of things to come in terms of Congressional scrutiny of Trump's foreign policy. The issues raised by Senate questioning send important signals to the incoming administration and to the public about the ways in which the Legislative Branch may challenge or exercise oversight of the Executive. Yet, what we are watching might also be about more parochial issues such as the distribution of power among Members in the Senate, in Capitol Hill generally, or in terms of party leadership. On the last point, in particular, members of both parties may be sensing opportunity; Democrats are in disarray and seeking new leadership in the aftermath of November 8's result, Republicans, especially those doubtful as to the success of a Trump Administration, are seizing the opportunity to lay the foundation for a 2020 run.
The point is, Congressional hearings and testimony represent a big stage for everyone involved. Some of it might be appropriately described as theater of the absurd. However, there's a lot going on substantively as well. Watch with some of this in the background, and you'll see a lot more than some boring Q&A designed to fill air-time on cable news.
Happy watching!!!!
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