Executive Deference or Legislative Constraint? Senate Committees and the Exercise of Decentralized Authority over U.S. Executive Nominations

Despite the combination of strong parties and insecure majorities in U.S. legislative institutions, Senate committees play a vital role in confirmation politics. A theory of selective committee delay is proposed that predicts that ideologically-vulnerable Senate committees constitute a primary source of confirmation delay. Evidence supporting this logic is obtained from nearly 10,000 U.S. federal PAS executive nominations between the Reagan and Trump administrations. Unified (divided) partisan alignment between the Senate and president is associated with protracted (swifter) committee confirmation processes when committees' policy interests diverge from those of the presidents. These findings highlight how the confirmation process serves as both a decentralized and variable procedural constraint on the executive branch appointment process within a separation of powers framework. More broadly, presidential nominee selection choices must account for the relative ideological positions of Senate committees, and that chamber-oriented rule changes to the confirmation process are unlikely to affect confirmation delay.