his fight is over whether or not a president gets to choose his own cabinet to run the Executive Branch.
For too long, I believe the Senate has encroached on the Executive Branch's powers in regards to appointments.
The framers of the Constitution granted the Senate and the president shared power to appoint judges and civil officers.
That shared power remains in place, but the way in which the Senate has exercised that power has changed.
In its first decade, the Senate established the
practice of senatorial courtesy, in which senators expected to be consulted on all nominees to federal posts -
within their states.
This influence over filling federal jobs empowered senators, and many became leaders of the political parties that emerged in the early 19th century.
That's when Democrats invented the Spoils System that poisoned American government with petty partisan political patronage.
By the late 19th century, in the Boss Tweed/Tammany Hall era, Republican presidents and Democrat senators began to clash over control of these positions, prompting some to push the notion of "advice and consent" of the Senate beyond the scope of the Constitution, while also expanding the federal bureaucracy that was beholden to the party.
What started as Senatorial “courtesy" morphed into Senate “approval".
As the federal government grew in size in the 20th century, the number of appointments subject to Senate confirmation continued to grow until the 1980s, when a Republican majority in Congress passed legislation that has gradually reduced the number of positions supposedly subject to Senate confirmation.
President Trump is taking us back to the Constitution.
As the founders intended, Congress will no longer be able to prevent a president elected by the people from fulfilling his promises by appointing the people he wants.
This is the beginning of reining in Congressional encroachment on the Executive Branch and re-establishing the separation of powers.
www.senate.gov
