Matthew Dull, CPAP Alexandria, teams with Blacksburg colleague to research presidential appointees and contribute to debate on reforms

Matthew Dull, assistant professor, Center for Public Administration and Policy (CPAP), Alexandria, and his CPAP colleague in Blacksburg, assistant professor Patrick Roberts, are collaborating on a research initiative, the Appointees Project. The project was developed to inform public deliberation about the role of presidential appointees in the American political system and contribute to the debate about proposed reforms to the appointments process in federal government agencies.

In conducting research for the Appointees Project, they have found that criticism of political-appointments typically centers on two related problems -- continuity and competence, and that discussion of appointee performance rests largely on anecdote. They also found that advocates and politicians have proposed a range of reforms to the existing system which include reducing the number of appointed positions, streamlining processes for vetting, nominating, and confirming appointees; establishing minimum professional qualifications for appointees, and creating fixed-term appointments, like the five-year term for commissioners under the 1994 law making the Social Security Administration (SSA) an independent agency.

There are roughly 350 senior level president-appointed, Senate-confirmed federal agency administrators scattered throughout American government. "Our goal is to enhance public understanding about the vital role that these appointments play in the administration of federal policies, and we are using innovative approaches beyond the reach of empirical research to do so," Dull said.

Claims that political appointees negatively impact the performance of public sector organizations are a time-worn tradition in the American system, he said. But recent controversies involving appointees in the Department of Justice (DOJ), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Health and Human Services (HHS), NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and other federal agencies have drawn new attention and salience to these concerns.

"While there are many ideas out there about how the appointment process can be fixed, Patrick and I are hoping to add a measure of transparency and understanding in a policy domain about which public knowledge is critically lacking," said Dull.

To further their goal of contributing to the debate about proposed reforms to the appointments process in federal government agencies, Dull and Roberts have turned to a number of media outlets. Earlier this week, in its September 29th issue, the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call published their op-ed piece, "Is Obama Using His Appointment Power Effectively?" , in its Guest Observer column. Citing statistics from The Washington Post, Dull and Roberts point out that, while President Barack Obama is making appointments at roughly the rate of his recent predecessors, there are still 198 open positions at the very top of federal agencies, advisory bodies, and White House staff. Although tension between the president and Congress over appointments is one of the checks and balances of the American system, they suggest that the appointee system should be reformed to speed the confirmation process while still protecting these checks and balances.

Dull and Roberts offer several reforms to the current system. For one, they say, the president could draw attention to the number of extended vacancies and immediately designate an agency such as the Government Accountability Office to be responsible for reporting vacancies across agencies.

"Systematic reform will take longer but is no less essential," they write in Roll Call. "Congress could begin by reducing the number of appointed positions. While there are hundreds of senior appointees at the very top of agencies, there are thousands of positions requiring presidential nominations and Senate confirmation. Some of these positions are more technical than political or policymaking . . . An independent commission responsible for eliminating appointed positions could be politically feasible if it were structured like an earlier commission responsible for submitting a list of proposed military base closures to Congress for an up-or-down vote."

In addition to the Roll Call op-ed, Dull and Roberts also co-authored a scholarly paper on the subject of presidential appointees. "Continuity, Competence, and the Succession of Senate-Confirmed Agency Appointees, 1989-2009," appeared in the September 2009 issue of Presidential Studies Quarterly. Earlier this year, another op-ed piece, "How Congress should repair the Vacancies Act" was published in The Hill, a congressional newspaper that publishes daily when Congress is in session.

Dull and Roberts have also created a project blog, which, in part, examines appointments in the context of a new presidential administration. Topics will include: nomination/confirmation news, legal context, historical development, agency and individual profiles, and visual representation of data on appointee turnover and vacancies.

Posted October 1, 2009