Congressional leaders sent a letter to President Donald Trump asking him to nominate a new commissioner for Social Security “without delay.”
Unfortunately, Trump has pretty much ignored previous pleas to do the same, and has pretty much ignored Social Security all together since taking office about 15 months ago.
The letter, signed by three Republican congressional leaders, Kevin Brady, Sam Johnson and Adrian Smith, points out that Social Security has not had a Senate-confirmed commissioner since Jan. 19, 2013.
“For too long, this important agency has struggled without the strong consistent leadership of a Senate-confirmed commissioner. In that time, the SSA has faced unprecedented challenges like the urgent need to modernize its information technology systems and record-high wait times for claimants to receive a disability hearing decision,” wrote the legislators.
The request for Trump to appoint a new nominee for the position has recently ramped up after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that Social Security had been in violation the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 since Nov. 17, 2017 because after that period of time an acting commissioner could not run the agency. Former Acting Commissioner Nancy Berryhill recently dropped the acting commissioner title, but has seemingly been running the agency even after the March 6 notice from the GAO.
This has not been the first time legislators or other federal authorities have asked Trump to act to nominate a new commissioner and it is unlikely to make him act this time. Any candidate who Trump might nominate would have to through the Senate confirmation process and the term a new commissioner would fill would be up again for a new nomination in January of 2019. It is likely that Trump will ignore the request to nominate someone now and will probably wait until 2019 to do so.
