The increasingly dysfunctional nature of the U.S. Senate has reached absurd lengths when one of its members can unilaterally prevent a vote on every pending presidential nomination on the calendar in order to pursue his own selfish agenda.

That's exactly what Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., did for a few days until he dropped his "blanket hold" on about 70 pending nominations Monday as critics of his naked power grab became more vocal and President Obama vowed to make recess appointments to circumvent the holds. These political theatrics are not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they gave the Senate the power to provide "advice and consent" on presidential nominations.

It was supposed to be a way to put a check on executive authority, to keep political hacks and presidential cronies out of sensitive positions and ensure that nominees were qualified for their jobs. But over the years it has become an all-too-easy way for Senate members to pursue individual political agendas — and sneak pork their way, too.

To exercise this stranglehold on government, all any senator has to do is let it be known to Senate leadership that, when a nomination comes up for a vote, they will not go along with the "unanimous consent" rules. It gives each senator extraordinary power to throw a monkey wrench into the democratic process.

In this most recent case, Shelby was trying to use his senatorial privilege to force the Obama administration to select Alabama to build new Air Force tankers and construct an FBI counterterrorism facility. There's nothing surprising about any member of Congress trying to win federal contracts, but this is not the way to go about it.

Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of abusing this custom. They've been doing it for years, particularly in the wake of the 2000 election, but it has clearly gotten out of hand when one senator feels he can bring the entire nominations process to a halt in a fit of political pique and suffer no consequences.

In most instances, this is an indefensible practice, particularly because senators are allowed to place most "holds" against nominees in secret without disclosing their action to anyone but the Senate leadership. They can stop the process simply by making a declaration behind closed doors, thus shielding their actions from public scrutiny.

The Senate should either drop the "unanimous consent" rule altogether or amend it so that the blocking action would expire after a short period.

The tradition of using senatorial "holds" is a blow against the proper functioning of government, along with the frequent resort to the threat of filibusters. They give the minority the power to block major pieces of legislation and stop government from conducting regular business, such as voting on nominations.

That's not the way it's supposed to work in a democracy, and that's a big reason that Congress is held in increasingly lower esteem by the public.