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An Open Letter to the United States Senate:
Distinguished Senators:
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it has become apparent that the Senate failed in its duty to insure that appointees of the president aren't merely put in their position as political payback, as FEMA Director Michael Brown clearly was. Rather, the Senate should at the very least use it's power to approve or reject presidential appointments to insure that any appointees are at the very least qualified for the positions to which they have been nominated. This is particularly true with regard to appointments of department and agency heads involved in protecting the American public during crises. It also applies to judicial appointees. Indeed, politics aside, any appointee should be able to meet the basic qualifications required for the job in question.
In this duty to insure that the public is protected by only approving well-qualified nominees, the Senate of the United States has clearly failed. In the aftermath of Katrina, this one fact has become all to clear: the Senate of the United States gave the "thumbs up" to wholly unqualified appointees to not just one, but the top three jobs at FEMA. The President undeniably failed by appointing these men in the first place. However, the Senate itself failed by allowing him to do so and following its previous benchmark of "giving the president the people that he wants". This benchmark may serve Executive-Senate relations well, but it clearly does not serve the American Public well, as the dead in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast can attest.
Therefore, the Senate should create for itself a new standard and a new precedent for the approval of presidential nominees. The president should be able to appoint the people he wants so long as they are qualified for the positions to which they are nominated. This is not a subjective inquiry: It is clear that experience as an employee at a Horse Association does not transfer into being a well-qualified nominee in disaster and emergency preparedness. And yet the Senate STILL approved such a person to head our disaster and emergency preparedness agency. No doubt the dead floating in the muck of New Orleans would have preferred someone with more competence.
As this president has shown, politics trumps policy in the appointment of persons to federal agencies charged with the protection of the American public. The only thing that stands in this president's way in continuing such a harmful policy is the advice and consent of the United States Senate, which could have and should have demanded a more qualified nominee for these positions and rejected those now serving. The consequences of not doing so are self-evident on the Gulf Coast and to the nation.
Therefore, we demand that the Senate no longer accept unqualified nominees and to give ALL nominees of this president, both executive and judicial, greater scrutiny than they have heretofore received. New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, and the American Public deserve no less from our elected representatives.
Sincerely,
Brandon, MS (formerly of Gulfport, MS)
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