Policy by Acting Official: What Vacancies Do to Decisions

1 The Stall

Senate Republicans are holding up President Trump's nominees for key Pentagon jobs to signal displeasure with the Defense Department's policy shop. Two of the White House's picks have sat in limbo for more than a year: Alex Velez-Green, tapped to become deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, and Austin Dahmer, the nominee for assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans and capabilities. Both were announced in June 2025 and appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee that November; lawmakers chose not to vote them out of committee, forcing the White House to resubmit the picks when a new session began in January 2026.

One congressional source described the slowdown as reflecting little interest among Republicans in confirming the pair rather than a formal hold by a particular senator. The objections were said to stem from unhappiness with Pentagon policy boss Elbridge Colby and his organization.

2 What Acting Status Means In Law

When a senior position is unfilled, it is often held by an "acting" official - a career or political appointee performing the duties without the Senate's confirmation. Acting officials can run the office, direct staff and make most routine decisions. The constraints are real but specific: statutes and departmental policy place limits on how long an acting official may serve under the Vacancies Reform Act, and some decisions carry an expectation of confirmed authority. Longer, more consequential actions - issuing directives with lasting effect, making commitments to allies that bind the department, taking positions that a future confirmed appointee would have to defend - are more exposed to reversal.

The practical effect is that a vacancy does not stop the office; it changes the character of what the office is willing to do.

3 What Slows Down

Three classes of decision slow measurably under prolonged vacancies. Decisions that require durable departmental commitment, because an acting official's signature may be revisited. Decisions that require negotiating with Congress, because confirmation is the currency of that relationship and an unconfirmed official has less of it. And decisions that require personnel moves beneath the vacancy, since a thin leadership layer defers promotions and reassignments to avoid locking in choices a future appointee would unwind.

The result is an office that keeps functioning at the routine level while accumulating deferred decisions.

4 The Oversight Effect

Confirmation is not only a hiring mechanism; it is the Senate's opportunity to examine a nominee's views on the record. When positions sit unfilled and are performed by acting officials, that examination does not occur, and oversight shifts to other channels - hearings on programs, budget requests, and reporting requirements. Those channels reach the institution but not the individual's reasoning, which is a meaningful loss for a policy organization whose positions matter.

5 The Political Economy Of The Hold

The current stall is not a dispute about the nominees' qualifications. It is a lever: senators objecting to the policy shop's direction can express that objection by withholding votes for its intended leaders, and because the nominees require a committee majority and no Democrats support them, a handful of Republican abstentions is sufficient. The tactic is effective precisely because the alternative - an acting official - is tolerable in the short run and costly in the long run, and both sides know which of those horizons they prefer.

6 The Institutional Cost

Vacancy as a bargaining tool has a compounding cost. Each cycle of stalling and resubmission lengthens the period in which policy positions are held by officials with limited authority; it makes the department a less attractive place for qualified people, since a nomination is now a lengthy exposure; and it normalizes acting leadership, which reduces the perceived importance of confirmation itself. The department adapts, and the adaptation is to make fewer of the decisions that require durable authority.

7 The Bottom Line

A nomination held for more than a year does not freeze the Pentagon's policy shop, but it changes what the shop can do: routine work continues, and the decisions that require binding, durable, or congressionally-legitimated authority accumulate or stall. That is the real consequence of a hold used as a signal, and it is borne by the institution rather than by the senators withholding the votes.