The U.S. Senate did something for the very first time this week — confirming the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Whether it really helps the agency is another question.
Following through on a change made in 2023, the Senate voted 51-47 to install veteran government scientist Susan Monarez as the new head. Previously, directors of the Atlanta-based public health agency had been appointed by the president with no Senate involvement.
On its face, voting on a CDC leader sounds important.
Instead, the Monarez nomination captured the somewhat bizarre evolution of the U.S. Senate, which has gone from being the world’s greatest deliberative body to a group which blandly processes presidential nominees.
The Monarez nomination drew no impassioned floor statements about recent cuts at the CDC. There was no discussion about internal changes which have sapped morale inside the agency.
In fact, the only person to say Monarez’s name was the Senate reading clerk.
“I cannot in good faith endorse this administration’s reckless actions with a vote for Dr. Monarez’s nomination,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock in a written statement, as both of Georgia’s senators joined the chamber’s other Democrats and voted against Monarez.
The Monarez vote came amid a very public Senate tussle over nominations, with Democrats slow-walking the approval of dozens of President Donald Trump’s picks.
“We have never seen in history anything like what the Democrats are now doing,” complained Senate Majority Leader John Thune. “These are just dilatory tactics.”
But Republicans were engaged in a bit of semantics, claiming that Democrats were behind a historic slowdown of Trump’s “civilian” nominations.
Why was the word “civilian” suddenly part of the GOP vocabulary this week?
That’s because two years ago, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn University football coach, had blocked Senate approval of hundreds of senior military promotions for months.
Even GOP senators realized that it looked a bit hypocritical to complain about delays by Democrats in 2025 when Republicans had been responsible for big delays back in 2023.
But the debate over which party is to blame for the Senate nominations debacle is almost meaningless.
The process is broken. There is no reason to hold two votes and a two-hour debate on a new CDC chief if no one talks about her nomination. That’s a waste of time.
Does the government function better if the Senate votes twice on the assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information? How about the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment? Probably not.
The Senate of my youth no longer exists. There is little legislative work, as senators vote on presidential nominations, day after day, week after week.
Both parties should do better. Both parties can do better. But both parties probably won’t do better.
Jamie Dupree has covered national politics and Congress from Washington, D.C. since the Reagan administration. His column appears weekly in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For more, check out his Capitol Hill newsletter at http://jamiedupree.substack.com
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