Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution lays out the U.S. Senate’s “advice and consent” role in the oversight of treaties and federal appointments including the “Heads of Departments.” It is not there by accident. The Framers of the Constitution were clearly concerned about maintaining a legislative check on executive authority and the possibility of putting truly terrible individuals in positions of great power and influence. Over the years, U.S. Supreme Court justices (who face their own Senate confirmation, of course) have made clear that Senate approval is required of cabinet posts, agency heads and, indeed, anyone who wields “significant authority,” as spelled out as recently as 1976’s Buckley v. Valeo.

Nowhere does it say that the president of the United States gets a free hand from members of his own political party.

That critical section of the Constitution ought to be required reading for Senate Republicans who face a number of questionable, and worse, nominees from President-elect Donald Trump. Just when it seemed Trump was serious about governing the country, appointing a reasonably qualified U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio to be secretary of state, for instance, or conducting a cordial meeting with President Joe Biden on Wednesday, Senate Republicans were gut-punched. Not just with former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, a post for which she is clearly unqualified, or with Fox News personality Pete Hegseth to be defense secretary (whose attention seems to be focused on ridding the military of “wokeness”) or even with vaccine skeptic and family disappointment Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human services secretary. The nomination of U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, 42, a fiercely loyal MAGA type but a legislative lightweight under an ethical cloud, is nothing short of jaw-dropping.

There has been much speculation on why Trump would choose such people. To fulfill the Project 2025 goal of gutting the government with mass firings perhaps. To signal to others how loyalty is rewarded. Or maybe it’s simply a test of whether Senate Republicans will do his bidding. Under Sen. John Thune, the incoming Senate majority leader, will Republicans behave like Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn football coach with a willingness to drink the Gatorade, if not Kool-Aid, by posting an immediate Truth Social endorsement of Gaetz as attorney general? Or more like U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski who have already publicly expressed doubts with Murkowski suggesting it’s not “serious” and Collins saying she was “shocked”?

It’s time for a reality check. A senator is not supposed to put his or her party first. That’s not how our system of government was designed. It’s one thing to be allied with an incoming president, particularly when he’s a member of your own party, it’s quite another to mindlessly treat him as some kind of supreme leader who shall not be defied. Trump has already pushed GOP senators to give him recess appointments — essentially blanket authority to nominate whomever he likes without Senate oversight (customarily only allowed when Congress is in a lengthy recess). That would be a total abdication of their constitutional role. Americans should be appalled by this. But then Trump is likely to do or say something outrageous tomorrow or the next day and it will all seem like bad reality television. And that’s likely what he’s counting on.

Appointments matter. This isn’t just about D.C. insiders versus outsiders, conservatives versus liberals, political appointees versus bureaucrats. If you are serious about reform and making the federal government work for all Americans, if you want to disrupt the influence peddlers and others who profit from the status quo, you don’t recruit the inexperienced. That’s like hiring a surgeon who has never lifted a scalpel. You need someone who knows his way around, who knows these institutions, who understands the challenges. Corporations don’t recruit their CEOs from the bottom ranks, so why would that work at the U.S. Department of Justice which employs roughly 115,000 people?

Is this a loyalty test? Yes, but not to Trump. It’s about whether Republican senators are loyal to their constituents, to their Constitution and to their country: No rubber stamps. The stakes are too high.