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Bill would strip Senate of ability to indefinitely delay confirming governor’s cabinet
‘Politics is getting in the way of the most qualified candidates,’ bill author says
DFL Sen. Bobby Joe Champion presides over the Senate. Photo by Glen Stubbe/Star Tribune pool.
Much of Gov. Tim Walz’s cabinet limped through his first term without Senate confirmation — and several were sacked by the Republican-controlled Senate.
In the past six weeks, however, the newly DFL-controlled Senate has confirmed more commissioners than in the past six years combined.
As the political pendulum swings, future governors are likely to face the same kind of obstacles to getting their nominees confirmed.
Which is why Sen. Steve Cwodzinski, DFL-Eden Prairie, authored a bill (SF1220) that would give the Senate 60 legislative days to reject an appointment, or the commissioner would be automatically confirmed.
During a Tuesday committee hearing on the bill, Cwodzinski said confirmations shouldn’t be weaponized by either party.
He has taught U.S. government classes for 33 years, and said he doesn’t take lightly our government’s system of checks and balances and separation of powers. But gone are the days when Harry Blackmun, Warren Burger, Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy were overwhelmingly, sometimes unanimously, confirmed as U.S. Supreme Court justices.
“There was no political theater; they were judged on the qualifications,” Cwodzinski said.
Now justices’ confirmation votes divide along party lines, often after nasty confirmation hearings that have become national spectacles. The president’s cabinet nominees cannot serve until they’re confirmed by the U.S. Senate, which can be a long, drawn-out, politicized process. Presidents in recent decades have frequently been forced to rely on acting administrators to run departments in the absence of confirmations.
Cwodzinski said the confirmation process has been weaponized by both parties in Minnesota. Senate Republicans waited years to hold confirmation votes, which Democrats said was an abuse of their “advice and consent” role set out in the Minnesota Constitution.
“Politics is getting in the way of the most qualified candidates,” Cwodzinski said.
Cwodzinski said he was “bummed out” by the Senate’s delays. A commissioner once told him they hadn’t slept well in 2.5 years because they didn’t know when they would be let go.
Former Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Commissioner Laura Bishop served two-and-a-half years in the job before abruptly resigning in 2021 before a confirmation hearing. The Republican-led Senate was expected to fire her over environmental policy differences, and Bishop said she didn’t want the agency to be politicized.
Assistant Minority Leader John R. Jasinski, R-Faribault, said he comes from the private sector, where employees may lose sleep every night if they’re not doing their job.
“I think that keeps people on their toes,” he said.
Sen. Steve Drazkowski, R- Mazeppa, said the bill would tie the Senate’s hands and cede more power to the executive branch.
“It’s in our best interest… to hold onto whatever authority we have,” he said. “There’s a lot of wisdom that we provide.”
The Senate would still have 60 legislative days, or nearly an entire legislative session, to reject an appointment.
But what if an appointee made a “big faux pas” right after being confirmed, Drazkowski asked. Sen. Jim Carlson, DFL-Eagan, said people still serve at the governor’s pleasure, so if there’s a problem, the governor can deal with it.
Sen. Andrew Lang, R-Olivia, said he doesn’t disagree with the bill’s premise, based on some of the “hard-fought discussions” in the GOP caucus in recent years.
“A lot of senior Republicans had a tough time going through this,” Lang said. “It’s something you never want to have to do.”
Lang suggested the bill be changed so if an appointee isn’t confirmed by the deadline, they’re gone.
Sen. Mark Koran, R-North Branch, said the GOP moves were not “pure politics” and weren’t taken lightly. In the past 20 years, governors have gone from appointing “functional, capable” commissioners who ascended from within agencies or industries they regulate, to unqualified people, he alleged.
The confirmation power is a tool to hold agencies accountable, he said.
“You need that leverage to act when they fail,” Koran said.
The State and Local Government and Veterans Committee laid the bill over for possible inclusion in a larger bill.
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