The refusal by Senate Republicans to consider the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court vacancy has rightly prompted indignation. But it is only the most glaring example of unreasonable intransigence by lawmakers who have turned the process of appointing senior federal officials into a political game.  The nominations of many of the 143 people awaiting confirmation for nonjudicial federal jobs are stalled in the Senate as committee heads and the majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, dither and delay. The result is a federal bureaucracy with an ever-growing number of corners subject to paralysis and indecision. It’s clear that for Republican lawmakers, carrying out political vendettas and thwarting the president’s prerogatives are more important than having a functioning government.  Take, for instance, the case of Adam Szubin, the Treasury Department lawyer nominated to serve as under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. The under secretary is tasked with enforcing American sanctions against North Korea and Iran and cutting off funding for terrorist groups.  Mr. Szubin, who has served under Republican and Democratic administrations, waited 325 days for a Senate banking committee vote, which was held on March 10. The full Senate has yet to consider his nomination. The blockage has deprived a critical division at Treasury of a leader who is fully empowered to make decisions and coordinate a unified response to international challenges. Mr. Szubin’s experience is not an isolated case. The banking committee has moved forward only one of 19 nominations put before it since the beginning of 2015.  Meanwhile, the post of secretary of the Army has been vacant since Nov. 1. Eric Fanning, who has had a swift rise at the Department of Defense, was nominated for the job in September. The Armed Services Committee didn’t schedule a hearing for him until January and waited until early March to vote in favor of the nomination. The full Senate has yet to schedule a confirmation vote. That has left the Army, which has a $140 billion yearly budget and more than one million soldiers, without a civilian leader with the authority to set priorities and address the needs of a force that has been at war since 2001.  At the State Department, Roberta Jacobson, one of the government’s foremost Latin America experts, has been waiting since last summer to be confirmed as ambassador to Mexico. The embassy, one of the largest in the world, has been without an ambassador since June. Ms. Jacobson, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, had a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July. The panel waited until November to approve her nomination, which the full Senate has not yet voted on. There are few diplomatic jobs more crucial than that of the ambassador to Mexico, who has to deal with border security initiatives, the influx of Central American immigrants and counternarcotics efforts. Ms. Jacobson is exceptionally qualified to tackle that long list of challenges and opportunities in Washington’s fraught relationship with Mexico, America’s third-largest trading partner.  Mr. McConnell could put an end to these inexcusable failures to conduct routine Senate business. But, of course, he and the rest of the Republican leaders long ago stopped doing anything in the interest of the country. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush got 528 and 545 officials confirmed during their last two years in office. Mr. Obama has managed to get only 193 nominees confirmed since early 2015.  Mr. McConnell and his colleagues are driven by a desire to retaliate against the administration when they have lost policy debates. So we have Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas holding Mr. Fanning’s nomination hostage over the administration’s efforts to shut down the prison at Guantánamo Bay. There’s Senator Marco Rubio petulantly blocking Ms. Jacobson’s appointment because she had a role in negotiating the change in relations with Cuba. And Mr. Szubin is being punished for the Iran nuclear deal.  Beyond having crucial positions unfilled, the bruising nomination battles are making senior government jobs unappealing to the most qualified and sought-after individuals. Understandably, fewer people are willing to become collateral damage in Washington’s political feuds.
By failing to confirm scores of qualified nominees, Senate Republicans are giving credence to the view that official Washington is irreparably broken.