“Confirmation hearings are no longer about qualifications—they’re about performance. The decision is made before the nominee even walks in.”

Cooper Rummell | January 30, 2025

*Tulsi Gabbard at her hearing before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.*

It’s time to say the quiet part out loud: Senate confirmation hearings are a sham.

Just look at the past few weeks. Pete Hegseth was confirmed as Secretary of Defense by the slimmest margin, with Vice President J.D. Vance casting the tiebreaking vote. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s hearings for Health and Human Services have been a circus of partisan attacks. And Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation is already following the same script: senators grandstanding, staffers chasing viral moments, and a vote that was decided before she even walked in.

To be clear, the theatrics of the hearings are riveting. Many politicos, myself included, watch the heated exchanges between senators and nominees much like fans of The Bachelor series watch an intense breakup scene. We sit on the edge of our seats, basking in the drama, waiting for the next jaw-dropping moment.

We live for the yelling, the name-calling, and the best comebacks and shut-downs. It is political theater at its finest—and that’s exactly why it’s so problematic.

In the early days of our Republic, Senate confirmation hearings played a crucial role in vetting a newly elected president’s cabinet nominees. Senators did not have access to the vast networks of information and research resources that are available today. Without the internet or large research staffs, many senators relied on personal connections, word of mouth, and brief reports when considering nominees. In some cases, nominees were virtually unknown before their confirmation hearings, which meant the hearings themselves were often the first opportunity for senators to learn about a nominee’s qualifications and views.

Up until the 1960s, Senate confirmation hearings were relatively noncontroversial. Very few senators engaged in political grandstanding, and many nominations sailed through with little opposition. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s nomination of Abe Fortas as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1968 marked a turning point.

Fortas, closely allied with LBJ, faced strong opposition from Republican senators. The confirmation hearings became a deeply politicized event, with many senators using the opportunity to oppose the president’s broader political agenda, rather than focusing solely on Fortas’s qualifications. Ultimately, a Senate filibuster blocked Fortas’s nomination, preventing it from ever reaching a final vote. LBJ called the outcome “historically and constitutionally tragic.”

By the late 1980s, Senate confirmation hearings had devolved into partisan battlegrounds for televised ideological clashes. The confirmation hearings for Robert Bork, President Reagan’s nominee for the Supreme Court, bore little resemblance to the process that had existed only a few decades earlier. The highly politicized nature of the hearings, combined with the media frenzy surrounding the event, marked a significant shift toward confirmation hearings as a form of political theater rather than a straightforward vetting process.

Today, confirmation hearings are no longer about qualifications—they’re about performance. The decision is made before the nominee even walks in. Senators deliver rehearsed speeches, staffers push out viral clips, and the media fuels the outrage machine. What was once a vetting process is now a spectacle, a proxy war for America’s broader political battles. But it doesn’t have to be.

There’s a simple way to fix this: take away the cameras. A return to closed-door confirmation hearings would strip away the incentive for grandstanding and force senators to engage in real deliberation. Without an audience to impress, they’d have no choice but to focus on the nominee’s qualifications rather than scoring partisan points.

Critics will argue that a private process lacks transparency. But accountability doesn’t require spectacle. After closed hearings, bipartisan reports could be issued outlining the key findings, concerns, and endorsements from both sides. The public would still get the information they need—without the circus.

A closed-door hearing is not a new concept—this used to be how Senate confirmation deliberations were held. In fact, for much of American history, confirmation hearings were conducted behind closed doors, where senators could engage in serious, focused discussions about a nominee’s qualifications without the pressure of an audience.

Of course, this would make the process far less entertaining. There would be fewer viral moments, fewer dramatic showdowns, and far less political theater. But that’s exactly the point. A confirmation hearing should be about competence, not clicks. Stripping away the spectacle might not be exciting, but it would allow the Senate to return to its actual job: vetting nominees on their merits, not using them as pawns in an endless partisan war.

And if it’s drama you’re after, don’t worry—there’s still plenty of reality TV to go around.