As published for The Roosevelt Room:

As have his predecessors under similarly frustrating circumstances, President Obama — once an ardent opponent of President Bush’s recess appointments – is now taking advantage of the Senate’s absence to exercise his own constitutional authority to make appointments.

Ironically, not so long ago, then-senators Obama, Biden, Clinton, and Salazar – all now members of the Executive Branch – gamely joined their colleagues in the Senate Democratic caucus to block or delay President Bush’s nominees during his Administration.

Sauce for both gooses and ganders is in ample supply in Washington, DC, these days.

Listening to the White House, you’d think they were the first ever Administration to have to deal with a recalcitrant Senate. That’s a rich sauce indeed. As this White House believes history began on January 20, 2009, they would like everyone else to recalibrate to the same calendar. Unfortunately, memory reaches back a bit further.

So we can do without the White House’s whiny hypocrisy when it comes to the presidential nominations process. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a seriously screwed up system for allowing a president to put in place his staff. We do.

I don’t decry President Obama’s use of his recess powers. If the President of the United States wants to nominate a radical, pro-labor lawyer on the National Labor Relations Board, that’s his prerogative. He won the election, and elections have consequences. I also have no problem with a relatively thorough Senate review of presidential nominees. It is not unusual that problematic, sometimes even corrupt, activity turns up during Senate review of a nominee. And I make a distinction between Executive-Senate squabbles over the nomination of judges vs. the Senate’s advise and consent role over Executive Branch nominees. It’s good and appropriate to have a vigorous debate between the first two branches of government over the lifetime appointments of nominees to the third branch.

I’ve been on both sides, having worked in the Senate during the Clinton Administration, and more recently having helping to shepherd scores of Bush Administration nominees through the Senate confirmation process. I’ve even successfully been through the process of Senate confirmation myself. For many nominees, what should be a proud, career-highlight achievement has instead devolved into the political equivalent of a proctology exam. And even if a nominee comes through the staff review process clean and relatively unscathed, there’s always the possibility (increasingly, a likelihood) that he or she will be held up without a committee hearing, a committee vote, or a floor vote. After putting their lives on hold, often at great financial cost, nominees are frequently blocked from advancing to the jobs for which they’ve been nominated, not because they’ve done anything wrong, but because – in a fit of hostage-taking – they become bargaining chips for unrelated parochial or policy issues.

The Senate’s advise and consent powers have long been abused by both parties. Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid, routinely blocked and delayed executive branch nominees during the Bush Administration. Reid even took the bizarre step of keeping the Senate nominally “in session” during holidays in order to prevent the same kinds of recess appointments he will now allow President Obama to make. Republican senators now holding up the confirmations of President Obama’s nominations sometimes held up the nominations of President Bush’s nominations. In fact, it took the shock of September 11th for the Senate to confirm a number of key Bush Administration officials in 2001.

So what? So, the jobs in question matter. They exist for a reason and they deserve the best and the brightest Americans a president can recruit to fill them – whatever their policy views. It is outrageous that the U.S. Treasury Department, trying to represent the U.S. government in international financial negotiations should do so without a Senate-confirmed Under Secretary for International Affairs. Whatever my views on the Obama Administration’s policies in this area, Lael Brainard is exceptionally qualified, and she has been forced to live in professional limbo for a full year awaiting confirmation – while her colleagues, reporters, market participants, and future counterparts all left to speculate as to the reasons for the delay.

Presidential nominees have careers, and families, and they deserve a basic level of respect and dignity when called to serve by their President. As it’s currently practiced, the system is unfair, unseemly, and not at all what the founders had in mind.

It’s long past time for Senate Republicans and Democrats to find an accommodation to fix this process. The Senate should not do away with its advise and consent powers; neither should the President abandon his recess appointment powers. Each provides needed balance. One solution could be to set firm deadlines for Senate confirmation, but only after a nominee has delivered the required collection of security and background information to the appropriate Senate committee of jurisdiction – a process that would guarantee an up or down vote on the Senate floor after a predictable time period.

The process today so broken that it makes a mockery of the effective functioning of the Executive Branch of government regardless of which party wins the White House, and it is a system that driving away highly qualified Americans from agreeing to serve their country. A reasonable system of checks and balances is appropriate, but what we have today isn’t reasonable and contribute to Americans’ loss of faith in their government.