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ELIMINATING THE BOTTLENECKS: STREAMLINING 

THE NOMINATIONS PROCESS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

OF THE

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 2, 2011 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

BETH M. GROSSMAN, Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

KRISTINE V. LAM, Professional Staff Member 

NICHOLAS A. ROSSI, Minority Staff Director 

MOLLY A. WILKINSON, Minority General Counsel 

JENNIFER L. TARR, Minority Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

PATRICIA R. HOGAN, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Hearing Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 1 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 3 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 21 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 23 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2011 

Hon. Clay Johnson III, Former Deputy Director for Management, Office of 

Management and Budget .................................................................................... 4 

Max Stier, President and Chief Executive Officer, Partnership for Public 

Service ................................................................................................................... 7 

Robert B. Dove, Ph.D., Former Parliamentarian of the U.S. Senate .................. 10 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Dove, Robert B., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 43 

Johnson, Hon. Clay III: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 25 

Stier, Max: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 35 

APPENDIX 

‘‘A Half-Empty Government Can’t Govern: Why Everyone Wants to Fix the 

Appointments Process, Why It Never Happens, and How We Can Get 

It Done,’’ by William A. Galston and E.J. Dionne, Jr., December 14, 2010, 

submitted by Senator Lieberman ....................................................................... 45 

‘‘Ready to Govern, Improving the Presidential Transition,’’ Partnership for 

Public Service, January 2010, submitted by Mr. Stier ..................................... 64 

Norman J. Ornstein, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute, prepared statement ................................................................................................... 98 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from Mr. Johnson ............. 103 

(1) 

ELIMINATING THE BOTTLENECKS: 

STREAMLINING THE NOMINATIONS PROCESS 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2011 

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lieberman, Collins, and Brown. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. The hearing will come to order. Good 

morning and thank you for coming here. This is one of those topics 

and hearings that attracts not much public attention, but is actually greatly in the public interest. So if we six, and everyone else 

in the room can agree, I think it will be good for America. 

I thought I would start with a bit of history. In 1789, on a single 

day, the Senate of the United States took up and confirmed 101 executive nominations President Washington had sent up just 2 days 

earlier. I guess there was one rejected, and the President, our first 

President, complained—politely, I’m sure—to the Senate about the 

one that he did not get confirmed. But 101 nominations confirmed 

2 days after they were sent to the Senate. 

My history does not go back this far, but I bet they performed 

as well as the thousands and thousands of nominations since that 

have taken months and months and months to get to confirmation. 

And, of course, that is why we are here. 

Modern presidents of both parties, I am sure, would sigh at that 

story of Washington’s experience with envy. Nowadays the process 

by which a person is selected, vetted, nominated, considered, and 

confirmed by the Senate has become—in the words of one scholar— 

‘‘nasty and brutish, without being short.’’ 

One hundred days into President Obama’s Administration, only 

14 percent of the Senate-confirmed positions in his Administration 

had been filled. After 18 months, 25 percent of these positions were 

still vacant. And this is not an aberration, of course, or an anomaly: The timetables for putting in place a leadership team across 

the government have been pretty much the same each of the last 

three times there has been a change of occupant in the White 

House. 

We have known about this problem a long time, but failed to act. 

2 

In recent history, in 2001, under the former Chairman of this 

Committee, Senator Fred Thompson, we held hearings on ‘‘The 

State of the Presidential Appointment Process’’ and recommended 

legislation, which did not pass. 

In 2003, a bipartisan commission headed by Paul Volcker recommended ways to speed up the nominations process. That got nowhere. 

And in 2004, to put it in a different context, the 9/11 Commission 

said the delays in getting a new government up and running actually pose a threat to our national security, and in its report it also 

recommended ways to speed up the process. 

Well, after years of talk, it may well be that the time for change 

has finally arrived and we will have bipartisan support. This is one 

of those things where ‘‘it ain’t over until it is over.’’ So while I am 

encouraged, I am not confident yet. 

And the reason for the change is that in January, Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell established a 

working group together on executive nominations and appointed 

Senators Charles Schumer and Lamar Alexander—Chairman and 

Ranking Member, respectively, of the Rules Committee—to lead it. 

These two colleagues of ours have been working on draft legislation, and Senator Collins and I have been working with them on 

it, and we hope to introduce the legislation shortly. 

The nature of the problem really is known certainly to people in 

this room, and, therefore, I am going to put my full statement in 

the record, which documents the problem in specific numbers. 

The legislation that we are working on will eliminate Senate confirmation for several categories of presidential appointments, freeing up the Senate to concentrate on the more important policymaking nominees. 

It will also raise and, I think, answer some other questions. Can 

we simplify, standardize, and centralize the forms and documentation required by both the White House and the Senate so a nominee is not stretched out with duplicative paperwork and information requests? 

And second, since we know that there will be a flood of nominations with each new Administration, can we create what might be 

called a ‘‘surge’’ capacity by temporarily adding personnel to the 

White House Office of Presidential Personnel and perhaps the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to handle vetting and background checks more efficiently? 

In the past, the reason nominations reform legislation has stalled 

is, I think, evident and not really acceptable. And it is because of 

the perceived fears of some of our colleagues in the Senate, particularly chairs and ranking members, that they would be giving up 

some of their jurisdiction and authority if there were fewer nominations that came before them. The truth is that some of these nominations that are confirmed by the Senate not only should not be 

but, frankly, it is a waste of the Committee’s time to spend on 

them when we could and should be doing work on legislation. 

Nothing in the legislation that Senators Schumer, Alexander, 

Collins, and I are working on together will weaken in any way the 

important constitutional role the Senate has to advise and consent. 

3 

And if I may end with a little history as well, Gouverneur Morris, who was one of the architects of the Constitution, said when 

speaking in favor of the Advice and Consent Clause: ‘‘As the President was to nominate, there would be responsibility. And as the 

Senate was to concur, there would be security.’’ 

Those essential national goals and principles for our government 

will be unaffected by the kinds of changes, which are actually relatively modest, that we are talking about. But I hope and believe 

that we can get these changes accomplished this year. 

Senator Collins. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The Chairman is certainly correct that rarely do we take on an 

issue where it is of such intrinsic importance to the way government functions and yet appears to be of little interest to the press 

and the public despite that importance. 

One of the most significant responsibilities of U.S. Senators is set 

forth in Article II, Section 2 of our Constitution. It requires that 

the Senate provide its advice and consent on nominations made by 

the President. 

The 82-word Appointments Clause, as it is commonly known, 

provides the President with the authority to determine who, in his 

judgment, is best qualified to serve in the most senior and critical 

positions across the Executive Branch. It also requires that we, the 

Senators, exercise our independent judgment and experience to determine if nominees have the necessary qualifications and character to serve our Nation in these important positions of public 

trust. 

The confirmation process must be thorough enough for the Senate to fulfill its constitutional duty, but it should not be so onerous 

as to deter qualified people from public service. And I fear that is 

what is happening today. 

Countless studies have been written and many experts have 

opined on how to improve the process—from the Brownlow Commission in 1937 to, as the Chairman has mentioned, the 9/11 Commission in 2004. 

Let me say that there are two areas in particular where I think 

improvements should be made. The first is to reduce the sheer 

number of positions subject to Senate confirmation. 

For example, why is it that the public affairs officials in some 

major departments and agencies are subject to Senate confirmation 

when they are not carrying out any policy role? 

In this regard, the National Commission on the Public Service, 

commonly known as the Volcker Commission, gathered some very 

illuminating statistics. When President Kennedy came to office, he 

had 286 positions to fill with the titles of Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Under Secretary, Assistant Secretary, and Administrator. 

By the end of the Clinton Administration, there were 914 positions 

with those titles. 

Today, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), 

there are more than 1,200 positions appointed by the President 

that require the advice and consent of the Senate. So there has 

4 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 25. 

been an enormous explosion in the number of positions that are 

now subject to Senate confirmation. 

This large number of positions requiring confirmation leads to 

long delays in selecting, vetting, and nominating these appointees. 

Consequently, administrations can go for months without key officials in many agencies. And when political appointees are finally 

in place, their median tenure is only about 21⁄2 years. 

A second area ripe for reform, in my view, is to develop a consistent, common form for nominees to complete in order to streamline the process, save time, and increase accuracy. This also would 

reduce the cost and burden on nominees. 

If these two areas could be reformed, substantial time will be 

saved, and key leadership posts at our Federal agencies will not be 

vacant for nearly as long. 

National security reasons also compel attention to this problem. 

As the Chairman has pointed out, the 9/11 Commission identified 

this gap, and the National Journal has noted that ‘‘[p]eriods of political transition are, by their very nature, chaotic’’ and that ‘‘terrorists strike when they believe governments will be caught off 

guard.’’ Both the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 

attacks on September 11, 2001, occurred within 8 months of a 

change in presidential administrations, and the March 2004 attacks at Madrid occurred 3 days before Spain’s national elections. 

Now, during this mid-term period—2 years away from a presidential election—we have the opportunity once and for all to 

streamline the process. This can help ensure that the next presidential transition, whether it occurs 2 years from now or 6 years 

from now, will be as smooth as possible, thwarting the terrorists’ 

belief that they will be able to ‘‘catch us off guard.’’ 

While we must deliver on our duty to provide advice and consent, 

reforms are clearly needed to improve the effective operation of 

government. We all want the most qualified individuals possible to 

serve our Nation. We should, therefore, ensure that the process is 

not so unnecessarily burdensome that key leadership posts do not 

go unfilled for long stretches of time. And most of all, we need to 

reform the process so that good people whose talents and energy 

we need do not become so discouraged that they give up on their 

goal of serving the public. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Collins, for that statement. 

Thanks to the witnesses. We have a great group of witnesses this 

morning who bring real experience and insight to the topic. So let 

us go right to Clay Johnson, who is a former Deputy Director for 

Management at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

Thanks for being here. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. CLAY JOHNSON III,1 FORMER DEPUTY 

DIRECTOR FOR MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT 

AND BUDGET 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 

Collins. 

5 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Coming back from Texas, right? 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is right. I congratulate and commend you all 

for taking this up so seriously. This is something that Mr. Stier 

and I and others have been working on and have wanted to be involved in helping to fix for a long period of time. And I sense, as 

I suspect you all do, that this might be just such an opportunity. 

There seems to be interest on both sides of the aisle, at all levels 

of leadership—the Senate, several different committees, and Senators Reid and McConnell—and so let us know today and later how 

we can help you all get as much done as possible. 

My encouragement to you is that, as you think about different 

reforms, you pay particular attention to the reforms that can impact, as you have suggested in your opening remarks, the capability, the capacity, and the ability of a new Administration to put 

the Cabinet and sub-Cabinet in place by the August recess, and 

perhaps the 93, 100, 125, or so of the most time sensitive of those 

positions in place by April. 

It does not mean that the Senate must confirm everybody that 

the new President sends up, but that the Senate should accept or 

reject, vote up or down that person so that the new Administration 

can move on. It does not mean that the new Administration should 

nominate the appropriate number of people regardless of quality. 

The emphasis is on quality. The emphasis is on the Senate being 

the Senate and fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities, but to 

do it with a great deal of attention to whether we have the capacity 

to get this done, if everybody is so inclined, by April 1, or by August 1? And I think the two key words are ‘‘ability’’ and ‘‘capacity.’’ 

One of the things I have found out in the last year or so as I 

have worked on the Rockefeller Foundation and Aspen Institute 

Commission on this subject, is that previous White Houses have 

never had the capacity to actually nominate enough people to the 

Senate in the period of time suggested to where it was even possible for the 100 most time sensitive, most important positions of 

a new Administration, regardless of which positions they were, to 

be in place by April 1, or the top 400 or so by August. 

I point out in my written statement that the staffing of the Office 

of Presidential Personnel in the White House is really largely a 

function of tradition. Presidential Personnel is given a certain 

amount of money to hire a certain number of people, a total of 

about 30, and that means they can hire about seven or eight commissioned officers, and they, really smart, working really hard, can 

nominate enough people to get through the Senate, with lots of debate, 230 or 240 people by the first part of August—not because 

that is the goal. That is because that is the budget they were given. 

So the idea of having a surge capacity in that period of time is a 

really strong concept. 

I just talked about how it might be manifested in the White 

House where some monies within the White House budget be reallocated—or it has even been suggested that some private monies 

be raised if there is not enough money in the White House budget, 

to make it possible for the White House to hire additional people 

for a 6-month period of time, to get it done. 

The FBI, the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), and Diplomatic 

Security agree that they can surge. They do not need additional reVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:12 Jan 18, 2012 Jkt 066673 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\66673.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
6 

sources to create extra capacity in that first 6 months, but they 

need to know that this is really important. They need to know that 

the White House wants them to reallocate and move their people 

around. The FBI would not pull people away from doing traditional 

FBI work, nor would the Diplomatic Security pull their people 

away from securing our diplomats around the world. But they 

would do less re-investigation work and do almost exclusively investigation work—the same thing with the Office of Government 

Ethics—and they can do that for about 6 months. They cannot 

maintain that capacity without additional resources for 9 months, 

12 months, 2 years, but they can for 6 months. It is really only the 

White House that I believe does not have the resources to create 

that surge capacity for a 6-month period of time. 

Another important factor that is critical, I think, to creating the 

ability and capacity to get those 100 most important positions filled 

by April 1, and 400 by the August recess, is to get the background 

information on all the nominees to the potential vetters quickly. 

Right now a nomination comes to the Senate, and Clay Johnson 

from Texas is nominated to do something. That is what the Senate 

starts with. Meanwhile, there is a file this thick in the White 

House with every possible piece of relevant information on that 

person, Mr. Johnson, and yet none of that is made available to the 

Senate. That is dumb. I mean, it is just tradition. It is separation 

of powers, whatever, but it serves no purpose at all. And yet something like a standard form or a smart form or some combination 

of those things I believe and am highly confident can be developed 

to get most of the background information the Senate needs to 

begin their vetting, with the nomination. 

Same thing with the FBI and the Office of Government Ethics. 

All three of those, including Diplomatic Security, all four of those 

vetting organizations say one of the things that when everybody is 

trying to do something 2, 3, or 4 weeks faster during that first 6 

months of an Administration, it takes 10 days to 21⁄2 weeks to get 

the basic background information before vetting can even begin. 

That is critical time that the Senate, the White House, and the 

country needs to get our people in place faster and minimize the 

risks associated with those key positions being vacant. And I think 

both of those issues, surge capacity and getting information to the 

vetters very quickly, those are mechanical kinds of things. They do 

not call for the Senate to stop being the Senate. They do not call 

for anybody to lower quality standards. They call for managing the 

process, structuring the process differently than happens today, 

and I think those are process kinds of things. Those are things we 

can address, I am highly confident, and I am confident that the two 

of you and Senators Schumer, Alexander, Reid, and McConnell are 

just the people we need to lead this effort, and I commend you for 

taking it up. 

Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. That was great, very practical 

and helpful. 

Max Stier, welcome. He is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Partnership for Public Service. 

7 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Stier appears in the Appendix on page 35. 

TESTIMONY OF MAX STIER,1 PRESIDENT AND CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, PARTNERSHIP FOR PUBLIC SERVICE 

Mr. STIER. Thank you very much for having me here. It is a 

pleasure, and especially to be with Mr. Johnson. He has been someone who has been a great partner. I have enjoyed working with 

him, and it is terrific that he is keeping his aura on this issue since 

he is really in many ways uniquely positioned to understand many 

of the challenges that are involved here. 

I am told—and I do not actually watch TV—that there is supposedly a show called ‘‘Wipeout,’’ which is essentially an obstacle 

course where people try to run through it and all these crazy 

things happen to them. Sitting here, I am thinking that maybe we 

should create a new reality TV show that looks at the political appointments process and presents that as the new entertainment. 

But judging from the audience, we may be in trouble, if that is 

what we try to do here. [Laughter.] 

So I think you are clearly right. This is a critical issue that receives really very little attention, and without going through any 

number of stories that demonstrates the critical nature of this, I 

really wanted to focus on 10 recommendations, my top 10 list of 

things that you might consider, some are things that you are already looking at, as well as some of the things that Mr. Johnson 

has already mentioned, but at least hopefully a framework more 

that you can look at as well. 

From where we sit at the Partnership for Public Service, we believe there are two primary or root causes of management dysfunction in the Executive Branch. The first is you have short-term political leaders that do not align against the long-term needs of the 

organizations that they are running. If you are a political appointee, Senator Collins, as you mentioned, you have 21⁄2 years in 

office, if you are lucky. You are going to be focusing on crisis management and policy development, not on the long-term health of 

the organization that you are running. And, clearly, the shorter 

that time period, the shorter the runway, the harder it is for you 

to focus on long-term issues that, in fact, have great consequence. 

Second, we do not have real-time information on performance 

typically in government, and those two factors combined make it 

worse because those political leaders can actually hide from their 

impact on the organizations that they run during their tenure, because the likelihood is that the damage that they have caused is 

going to be a lagging indicator of public failure that takes place 

once they are long gone. 

The issue that is, I think, quite at center here really is that leadership one. Do you have the leadership in place with a long enough 

tenure and the right folks to make sure that government is operating correctly? And this is the most vital moment of all, as you 

have already stated. 

So I think there are 10 critical things that Congress can do right 

now, and clearly this is not a problem that the Senate has created. 

This is a problem, though, that the Senate can help fix. 

So first—and you have already obviously hit this one—is reduce 

the absolute number of Senate-confirmed positions. That would be 

8 

an incredible achievement. And, clearly, if you are talking about 

400 or a third of them, that would be massive. Not all the Senateconfirmed positions are the same, so if you are dealing with the 

boards, that is great. But in truth, the ones that are going to have 

greatest impact on management in government are the ones that 

are actually in the chain of command in the Executive Branch, the 

ones that actually have a field of control over some significant aspect of government activity. So to the extent that you can focus attention on those, that would matter a great deal. 

And, clearly, to the extent that you can help prevent future harm 

from occurring, that would matter too. With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), we now have 20 Senateconfirmed positions in that agency alone. And, again, the tendency 

is always to add, very rarely to subtract. So one would be to reduce 

those numbers, and that is hugely powerful. 

Second, I would argue that you should go even further and think 

not just about converting them from Senate-confirmed positions, 

but think about whether you might even make some of them not 

just political positions but convert them into term appointments or 

career positions. And, specifically, I am thinking about the management positions themselves. 

I just came this morning from a breakfast at which a former 

comptroller was there for government, and she was saying that a 

bunch of folks were meeting about the Chief Financial Officer 

(CFO) Act, and they were talking about why is this a political position, that it really ought to be a career position. And I would argue 

to you that instead of just making these political, not Senate confirmed, make the CFOs, the Chief Information Officers (CIOs), the 

Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs), a lot of these management 

positions, make them career or term appointments that have a performance contract, and that will give you that longer-run wait and 

will allow you to have a set of folks that are around long enough 

to make sure that government is managed appropriately. 

Now, there is a downside. I think there is a legitimate argument 

on the other side, which says if you make them career or term appointments, then they will not be part of the core team. The political team will not actually respect them. But you know what? I 

think that is a trade-off we ought to take, because the flip side of 

that is we do not have any long-term focus on the management 

issues that we need. And we see a repeat cycle where a new group 

of political appointees eventually get an office, they figure out what 

is going on, they develop a plan, and guess what? They are out the 

door already. So that would be two. 

Three is a timetable for confirmation, and this is something that, 

I think, Mr. Johnson is spot on. The truth of the matter is we do 

need that surge capacity, but when that incoming Administration 

is focusing on the myriad of things that it needs to do, it is not 

prioritizing getting the appointments out to you because it does not 

know what the demands are. It has not been told, that if you are 

going to be able to have your government in place on day one, we 

will have a bargain with you. You provide us the names by a date 

certain—January 1, December 15, whatever it is that the Senate 

determines—and then if you do that, we will do exactly what Mr. 

Johnson described. We will make sure that you have an opporVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:12 Jan 18, 2012 Jkt 066673 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\66673.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
9 

tunity to have these folks heard from. And that would be a game 

changer. It would have enormous impact on actually what the incoming Administration focuses on and where they put their actual 

resources. 

So my view is it should be the top 50 by day one. Right now tradition holds that there is an effort to get the Cabinet in on day one. 

To me that is not good enough. You know, again, President Reagan 

had 78 by the first 100 days, President Obama only 65. We are not 

moving despite the fact that the world is moving much faster, challenges are much more pronounced. We need to change the goalposts here. We need to move them forward. And to do that, you 

need to offer a timetable. I would respectfully argue that would 

make a very big difference. 

Four, cap the number of political appointees at individual agencies, not simply government-wide. So here is a problem that I think 

is quite—again, not noticed by quite pronounced. There is a cap of 

10 percent for non-career Senior Executive Service (SES) overall for 

political appointments in government, but you see some agencies 

like the Department of Education where the number is 20 percent. 

Frankly, oftentimes it is viewed as a dumping ground, and it has 

enormous implications on the management of those organizations. 

If you talk to folks that are there, you will hear that. And what 

you ought to have, I believe, is a cap on individual agencies in addition to the overall government cap, and that would make a very 

big difference. Look at DHS, it has 61 non-career SES, 102 Schedule C’s, and the Schedule C’s are also highly problematic. 

Five, something that I think you are looking at. If it has to be 

a Senate-confirmed position, can you actually have something that 

is an expedite process? So where it is non-controversial, it does not 

have to go through committee. So it permits the Senate confirmation process to go forward, but does not require the same level of 

investment that you make in some of the other reviews that you 

do. 

Six would be the streamlined forms that Mr. Johnson described, 

and I think that is a terrific idea, and time matters. 

One additional thought I would put on top of that would be to 

say is there a possibility of looking not just at making the process 

electronic, but actually trying to improve the process. So the danger sometimes is to say, well, we can put it all on the Web, but 

I think it is also an opportune time to look at the method itself, 

and you may be able to make improvements there. 

Seven, we need a single source of information about the status 

of political appointments, in particular Senate-confirmed appointments. So most folks are now going to the Washington Post which 

stopped publishing this in September. Well, why isn’t there a government Web site that tells you in real time, where folks are in the 

process, ultimately who is responsible. Has the Administration not 

put forward the names to the Senate? It should be a one-stop shop 

rather than individual committees where the information is right 

now. 

Eight, more resources that Mr. Johnson already identified. I 

think that would make a huge difference, particularly on the White 

House side. 

10 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Dove appears in the Appendix on page 43. 

Nine, we need changes to the security clearance process. One of 

my favorite examples of this is Mike McConnell. Thirty-five years 

of security clearances, polygraph tests, you name it. He gets nominated to be the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Guess 

what? They decide to do a new security clearance for Mike McConnell all over again from scratch. So there are all kinds of ways in 

which that process could be improved as well. 

And tenth, this is going to take us a little bit more off course, 

but the truth of the matter is that there are two things that are 

critical here: Who you pick and how you prepare them. I do not 

know if Vince Lombardi said it, but he should have. But we are focusing on who you pick. The preparation piece of the political appointments is broken. You have a whole ton of folks that are coming in. They do not understand government. They do not understand how to manage government or the people that they are responsible for. They do not operate as a team. And we need to see 

an up-front investment much larger than has occurred previously 

in that orientation, in that preparation process. Again, it may not 

be the topic for today, but I hope you will come back to this because 

I think it is absolutely vital. 

So thank you for the great work that you are doing here. Obviously, this Committee already passed some legislation earlier last 

year. That was, I think, really important in helping provide resources at the front end of the transition process. And, again, you 

are doing just an incredibly important thing here. So thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Stier. That was excellent. 

Obviously, a number of those can be accomplished by administrative action and do not require legislation, a number of your top 10. 

Mr. STIER. I will pester them, too. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. I do not know that you are going to 

replace David Letterman with the Top Ten List, but that was good. 

[Laughter.] 

It is great to see Dr. Bob Dove again, who was our Parliamentarian for years and who has a lot to offer on this subject. So thank 

you for being here. 

TESTIMONY OF ROBERT B. DOVE, PH.D.,1 FORMER 

PARLIAMENTARIAN OF THE U.S. SENATE 

Mr. DOVE. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. My perspective actually is a little different. I came to the Senate floor as part of the 

Parliamentarian’s Office in 1966, and so I have watched leaders 

over the years. The first two leaders that I watched were Senator 

Mike Mansfield of Montana and Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois. And my perspective is that the Senate is basically a personality-driven institution, and the two most important personalities 

on the Senate floor are the Majority Leader and the Minority Leader. And that is one of the reasons that I am so encouraged by the 

fact that the present Majority Leader, Senator Reid, and the 

present Minority Leader, Senator McConnell, have come together 

and appointed two Senators who have already shown their ability 

to work together, Senators Schumer and Alexander, to deal with 

this issue. 

11 

It is an important issue, but it is an issue that has some political 

ramifications that I have watched over the years. Nominations 

have on occasion become a very convenient tool of Senators to push 

a political agenda that often has absolutely nothing to do with the 

nomination. And I know that Senators are loath to give up a power 

position. That is the reason they come to the Senate. And I appreciate that. 

So I do not think that this will all be easy. I have seen over the 

time that I have been on the Senate floor a situation where a Senator from Alaska basically tried to blackmail a Senator from Washington over a nomination with the idea that the Senator from 

Washington, Henry ‘‘Scoop’’ Jackson at the time, should support his 

attempt to get onto a committee that existed then, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. That failed. But also the nomination 

failed because the Senator from Alaska continued his filibuster in 

that situation. 

So, I have seen in a sense the political side of the nomination 

process, and the fact that only the Senate deals with nominations 

gives Members of the Senate a unique ability to exercise that kind 

of political power. 

I watched, as I say, for 35 years on the Senate floor as various 

leaders dealt with the whole issue of nominations. Probably the 

most powerful leader that I watched in that period was Senator 

Robert Byrd of West Virginia. And, indeed, Senator Byrd in the 

late 1970s was being frustrated over the whole issue of getting to 

nominations, because it used to be in the Senate that you got to 

nominations first by going to executive session, and then making 

a debatable motion to go to the nomination, as you now have to 

make a debatable motion to go to legislation, and then you had another debate on the nomination itself. And Senator Byrd was successful in setting in the late 1970s a precedent that eliminated one 

of those filibusters. It is now possible for a leader to make a nondebatable, non-divisible motion to proceed to any nomination on 

the executive calendar, thus cutting in half the number of filibusters. 

So I have seen, as I say, over the years how leaders have dealt 

with the whole issue of the nomination process. I do not think they 

have solved it yet, but they have dealt with it, in the case of Senator Byrd, successfully eliminating one filibuster involving nominations. But I do not think you are going to take out the whole issue 

of politics from nominations. A nomination which I well remember 

occurred when President Lyndon Johnson was in office, and he 

sent to the Senate the nomination of a totally unqualified person 

to be a Federal district judge with the letter supporting it from 

Senator Robert Kennedy as a kind of payback, as it were. And it 

worked. That nomination failed in a very embarrassing vote on the 

Senate floor. 

This kind of thing is part of the Senate. Politics is part of the 

Senate. And you will, I think, have to deal with that issue as well 

in terms of solving this problem. 

I applaud the proposals. I think there probably are way too many 

positions right now that require Senate confirmation, and reducing 

that number would be appropriate. But also, having watched from 

a particular vantage point how the politics plays out, that is not 

12 

going to be removed from the system, and there will be, I think, 

interesting fights over nominations based on the politics in the future as there have been in the past. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That was great. We ought to get together 

and just swap stories, Mr. Dove. [Laughter.] 

That was quite realistic. Forgive me, I am going to try to do this 

quickly, but way back, I cosponsored—it was in the 1990s—with a 

Republican colleague a measure—and others did, too—to have a 

Congressional Medal in honor of a particular American who had 

passed away. It had a hard time in the House for various reasons. 

It finally made it to the Senate toward the end of the session. We 

found out that there was a Democratic Senator holding up the 

movement on this medal. So my Republican colleague said, ‘‘Please 

go see him.’’ So I did, and I said, ‘‘Do you have anything against 

this man?’’ ‘‘Oh, no, no.’’ ‘‘What is the problem?’’ ‘‘Well, your Republican cosponsor, is holding up a nomination that I am concerned 

about’’—I think it was for the Securities and Exchange Commission 

(SEC); it was no small matter—‘‘and I am not going to approve his 

medal for this person unless’’—and I went back to the Republican 

Chairman, and he let that nomination go. [Laughter.] 

And the medal was passed. 

Mr. DOVE. That is the way the Senate works. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is the way the Senate works. So it 

is actually an important cautionary note. We should start the question round, and we will have 7-minute rounds. 

There is a lot we can fix here, but there is a lot that is just plain 

human and part of the Senate that will always intervene in the advice and consent process. 

Let me ask you if you have thought about this, and I will begin 

with you, Mr. Dove. Are there other things such as the change that 

Senator Byrd made that the Senate can do, do you think, to improve its own processes and the nominations process overall? In 

other words, understanding that there will always be the kind of 

politics we are talking about, once a nomination gets to us, after 

all it has gone through and hopefully we expedite it, is there anything more you would suggest we think about to expedite it? 

Mr. DOVE. Well, I will tell you that when I went into the Parliamentarian’s Office, the Parliamentarian at the time, Floyd Riddick, 

gave me some advice, and he said, ‘‘The rules of the Senate are perfect. And if they are all changed tomorrow, they are still perfect.’’ 

[Laughter.] 

I have tried to follow that advice. I try not to make suggestions 

about how to change the rules of the Senate. I think that is above 

my pay grade. I am sure there are things that could improve the 

process, but I just am not comfortable getting into those kind of 

suggestions. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I understand. I referred during my opening statement to the 9/11 Commission, and, in fact, in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, we did enact 

provisions that expedited completion of background investigations 

for the president-elect’s nominees for high-level national security 

positions before Inauguration Day. It also in another way made an 

important that threat information go to the president-elect as soon 

as possible after the election. 

13 

I wanted to ask Mr. Stier or Mr. Johnson to comment. The 

Obama transition was the first, obviously, in which these provisions were in effect. In your report last year, Mr. Stier, on presidential transitions, did you find that the new provisions helped the 

President get his national security team in place more quickly and 

perhaps to ensure that they were better prepared to govern from 

opening day? 

Mr. STIER. I think absolutely yes, they did use those provisions, 

although there is an interesting discrepancy between the McCain 

campaign and the Obama campaign in that, then-Senator Obama 

had literally over a hundred folks go through the security clearance 

process; whereas, my understanding from the McCain campaign is 

they had five. So it was a very useful tool but, again, one dependent upon a campaign understanding the importance of it. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So that it worked in that way, but, of 

course, the numbers—it worked in terms of the key national security positions, nominees in the Obama transition. But, of course, as 

you have said, the total number of nominees moved at the beginning of the Obama Administration was actually lower. 

Mr. STIER. Correct, in the first 100 days. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. STIER. Again, I do not mean to flog this too hard, but I do 

think it is one of the most important things that you could really 

do, would be to create a timetable, a set of expectations on the campaigns or at that point the president-elect’s perspective of what 

they need to do in order to have their team in place. And I think, 

frankly, they did a lot of great things, and they prepared a lot. 

There were a lot of reasons why they wound up—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. STIER. They had personnel heads that shifted twice in the 

process. But I think that they were not shooting for a high target. 

They were not shooting for the target of having the 50 top positions 

in by day one and 100 by that first 100 days. They were not organizing their resourcing in order to achieve that, and, therefore, 

while they used this authority, it was not to that end objective. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So I take it that your thought about the 

top 100 by April 1, and the top 400 by August 1, is kind of a device 

of the basic idea that the 9/11 legislation imposed on the top people 

in national security. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, it is—and the 100 is a number out of the air. 

It is more than 50, more than 25, and not 200. And every President 

would have a different 100 positions depending on what is going on 

in the world. But it is a nice number to shoot for by 100 days or 

April 1. 

A comment about the background checks before the inauguration 

or before the election. If I am not mistaken, what was authorized 

was a background check that would give the person a top secret security clearance, which meant that the person—as soon as the candidate was the president-elect, those 100 people or 125 people could 

get the same top secret information and be available to advise the 

president-elect on national security matters. It did not authorize a 

background check worthy of being nominated to the Senate for a 

Senate-confirmed position. Those are two different things. 

14 

So it provided the president-elect with—it surrounded him with 

lots of advisers who had access to the same information. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And you would rather have that FBI background 

check to begin with, but the background check required that a 

White House would want to do and the Senate would want to look 

at before the person was nominated—or taken up for consideration 

for confirmation is not begun with that legislation. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good point. What kind of process would 

you establish and do you think it makes sense to try to do it in 

law for selecting the top 100 or top 400, or whatever the number 

turned out to be? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think a president-elect would identify the positions that he or she were going to try to concentrate on first and 

indicate that to the Senate leadership. The Senate leadership 

might have some suggestions—only suggestions. They cannot direct 

the President what to do. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. JOHNSON. But they might add and subtract some. But have 

a dialogue at the beginning about what those positions are, and in 

effect, commit informally the Administration to work on those with 

the highest priority and commit the Senate informally to be prepared to receive those and to take them up with some expedition. 

But it would not obligate either party to do it. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Again, for whatever reason—politics, people being 

people, the Senate being the Senate—they may not want it to pass 

them. They may not want to go that fast. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Or they might want to go faster. But it calls for 

a dialogue and some discussion and some prioritization which 

drives everything else. It drives how fast the FBI works. It drives 

the staffing of the Office of Presidential Personnel. It will drive the 

resources that the committees allocate to this kind of work in that 

first 90 days, 120 days. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. It is a really good idea. In other words, 

it goes beyond the obvious, which is any President would want at 

the top, Defense, Treasury, State, etc., to forcing a prioritization a 

little further down, and then putting Congress or the Senate on notice that that was the goal, with nothing mandatory about it. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Right. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Most important of all, I think it creates 

priorities. 

My time is up in this round. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me start by thanking our witnesses for their excellent testimony and thanking Mr. Dove for throwing the cold water of reality 

on why logical reforms are so difficult to implement and to get 

through the Senate. 

The Chairman made a very important point that I want to go 

back to, and that is that the Administration, this or a previous one 

or any administration, has the ability to expedite the process, and 

that is often overlooked when we heap blame on the Senate for 

being slow to get nominees through the confirmation process. 

15 

The fact is in many, perhaps most cases, the majority of the time 

spent in the nomination and confirmation process occurs before the 

nomination is even submitted to the Senate. And one reason for the 

lengthy process is that recent Administrations—actually, it goes all 

the way back to the Eisenhower Administration—have required 

full field FBI investigations for all nominees. And, Mr. Stier, when 

you referred to Mike McConnell, that was an excellent point. Here 

is an individual who has had the very highest level of security 

clearance for many years in many different jobs, and yet we start 

all over again as if he has held none of these positions. 

The other issue is that the FBI investigation is not scaled to the 

level of security responsibilities of the position for which the person 

is nominated. Thus, the individual who is nominated to be the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Housing 

and Urban Development (HUD) has to go through exactly the same 

FBI check as the individual nominated to be the Secretary of 

Homeland Security. And that does not make sense to me. 

I want to start with Mr. Johnson on this. Is there a way to scale 

the extent of the FBI investigation so it more nearly matches the 

responsibilities of the position? 

Mr. JOHNSON. There is and I think it happens today. It did with 

the George W. Bush Administration. I remember Fred Fielding, 

who was the clearance counsel during the transition, set it up, and 

then Al Gonzales as White House counsel set it up where there was 

a scaling. The way they scaled it was, every question was answered, but for the most important positions there were, I would 

say, 20 in-person interviews. For a lower level position, there were 

maybe 15 in-person interviews or 5 in-person interviews and 10 

phone interviews. And in others further down, there were only ten 

interviews. There was a scaling in terms of how much data 

verification there was, which is the time-consumer. It is not that 

they only filled out sections 1 through 3 here and they had to fill 

out the whole form over here. It is how much verification there 

was. 

It is up to the White House—the White House determines how 

detailed the investigation is. So if it is not being scaled, it is because the White House is choosing not to scale it. 

Senator COLLINS. I am going to take a look at that issue with 

this White House. I personally read all the FBI reports on all the 

nominees that come before our Committee, and they seem to be the 

same kinds of intensive investigation. 

Now, that may reflect the fact that in some cases this Administration has gotten burned on some of the investigations done by the 

FBI. That happened in the case of a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) nominee that came before this Committee, 

where there were significant issues that were not uncovered by the 

FBI investigation. 

Mr. JOHNSON. One thing I would suggest you do—and your staff 

could do it—is visit with some of the White House counsels for the 

last several Administrations in the first year of the Administration. 

Tim Flanigan, who was the Deputy White House Counsel for 

George W. Bush, could talk about it, and Fred Fielding, and President Clinton’s staff, maybe get them together or talk to them sepaVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:12 Jan 18, 2012 Jkt 066673 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\66673.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
16 

rately. But they would tell you what they did or did not do and 

what they think they can do and cannot do. 

Mr. STIER. If I might add? 

Senator COLLINS. Yes. 

Mr. STIER. I think it would be useful to get data. I hear all kinds 

of anecdotal stories that are quite frightening with respect to this 

and share your sense that it is not working as it ought to in many 

instances. But we do not have data, and it is not that hard to collect it, what is being done for the nominees, how much time it is 

actually taking. And I think that would help, more transparency 

would help a great deal. 

I think one of the improvements that happened in the Bush Administration was the requirement by Executive Order that there be 

reciprocity across agencies for security clearances. But now there is 

a suitability review that individual agencies are doing on top of security clearances, saying, we take the security clearance but we are 

going to see if it works for us. That is actually just shoehorning 

back in another layer of time-consuming and oftentimes detrimental review. 

But I think this is ripe for more information that would help you 

understand better what is going on. 

Senator COLLINS. I think that is an excellent suggestion. 

Mr. Johnson, you are in an unusual situation because you have 

served as head of the Office of Presidential Personnel, but you have 

also been a Senate-confirmed nominee as Deputy Director of OMB. 

In fact, you came before our Committee, and you are welcome to 

criticize our process, because it is more extensive than others. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Do I look that stupid? [Laughter.] 

Senator COLLINS. But having seen both sides of the process, 

which is very unusual for someone to have seen it from both sides, 

are there particular paperwork or form burdens that you recall as 

being particularly duplicative or onerous? You have the OGE form; 

our Committee’s form; the White House’s form; and the FBI’s form. 

They are all different, from what I have seen. Do you have any 

thoughts on that, having gone through the process? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, on the form, I had already filled out a 278 

and SF–86 to get my security clearance and be properly qualified 

to work in the White House. So I did not have to fill those out 

anew. I had to update them, which you would have to do anyway. 

So that was not a new thing. 

As part of the confirmation process, there was a long list of subject-related questions that I was asked to respond to, and there 

was a meeting with your staff—maybe it was in this room—to go 

over a bunch of issues. And nobody is going to answer those questions in writing in a way that is going to cause them not to be confirmed. 

Senator COLLINS. Correct. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And no one is going to say anything in the interview that is going to cause them not to be confirmed. But yet the 

relationship between me, the nominee, and the staff is very important to begin to establish as early as possible. I am not sure, 

though, it helps the Committee decide that I am qualified or not 

to be the person confirmed for the position. 

17 

So the only question I would raise—it is not a criticism—is 

whether that exchange of information and that interview with the 

staff and the sharing of ideas needs to take place before the confirmation. It needs to take place early on, I think after the confirmation, to facilitate the exchange of information and communication between Senate and the position at OMB. But I am not sure 

that you get information from the answers to those questions or 

from the staff interviews that helps you decide this person is marginally qualified, not qualified, or whatever. 

So if time was of the essence and you are trying to move things 

along, scheduling an extra week or 10 days or so to have me fill 

out those questions and have the interview with the staff I am not 

sure improves the quality of your decision that I was qualified or 

not. It accomplished something else, but that could have waited 

until after the confirmation. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Interesting. We are due for a vote soon, 

but maybe we can do a couple more questions each on the small 

matter of keeping the government funded and operating after this 

Friday. 

I wanted to ask you about the kind of one-way, one-time standard, and you made a good point. After all that the White House 

does to vet nominees, in some sense it starts again when it gets 

here. Is there any reason why the Senate should not begin with the 

full White House file on a nominee? 

Mr. JOHNSON. There might be some legal reason it is not shared. 

But if not, there could be some sharing of that information. And 

if there is some reason why the form itself cannot be shared, a socalled smart form could be used where they put it in there and 

then it populates the data in an SF–86 and then separately gives 

the Senate the information it seeks. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. Mr. Dove, do you have any 

thoughts about that from the Senate’s legal point of view? 

Mr. DOVE. Well, what I am reminded of was the very unpleasant 

confirmation process involving Senator John Tower to be Secretary 

of Defense, and as I recall, there were materials placed in a secret 

room—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is correct. 

Mr. DOVE [continuing]. Where Senators could go, and then there 

was some question that possibly some Senators used that information in open debate on the floor of the Senate. To me that is a problem, and was a problem during that confirmation. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. One quick question—and I remember that 

happened when I first came into the Senate. That was the first 

month. Do you have any thoughts about how to fulfill this notion 

of a surge capacity of staff within the Office of Presidential Personnel at the transition time? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, it starts with a new Administration, directly 

or indirectly committing to get the 87 or 100 most important positions filled, potentially; send the names up to the Senate in time 

so the Senate is given a reasonable amount of time to get them 

confirmed or not within that first 100 days or by April 1, and the 

bigger number by August. 

18 

Once they have committed to do that, then they decide how much 

money to allocate in the budget to Presidential Personnel staffing, 

how many people they put in the counsel’s office to do clearance 

work, what kind of directions they give the FBI, and what kind of 

directions they give the Office of Government Ethics, etc. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Which is—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. But it begins with them committing to the notion 

of doing that much work. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. How about additional personnel? Because 

you gave a good example about they only could get so many 

through in—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. They get a budget. Right now the budget generally 

allows for hiring seven or eight officers, and it is about six Special 

Assistants to the President, and that is where most of the work is 

done. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And that goes the whole time—I mean, in 

other words, that is not just for the first 8 months or whatever. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Right. In that last 6 months of an administration, 

it might be five instead of six. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. But the staffing is the same at the beginning as 

it is in the end, which is—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes, so what should we do? Is one thing 

to do here to create a budget for bringing in outside people to do 

investigations for the office, for that early period of time? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, the so-called Kaufman bill, that you passed 

calls for pre-election transition work. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And it gives them the right to go out and raise 

money to fund transition activities before the election. And it is 

easy money to raise. They could raise a little bit of money, or they 

could raise a lot of money, and they would want to raise a lot of 

money if they were committed to try to make 100 and 400 nomination most expelitously. So it starts with their desire to put their 

team on the field faster. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Got it. 

Mr. JOHNSON. So that is a lot of jawboning. There are things that 

the Senate could probably do in bill language that refers to this or 

a dialogue at the beginning of an administration. I do not know 

how this takes place. This is your world. But it starts with that 

commitment, and then everything else flows from that. If there is 

a need for more money, $2 million, which is the most it would ever 

be, for the first 6 months in a White House budget—that is not a 

deal killer. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. It comes from having that as a priority. 

Senator Collins, do you want to ask a question? 

Senator COLLINS. Just one final point. I know we have a vote 

that has started. 

One complaint that I have heard from some nominees is that it 

has been very expensive for them to go through the process and to 

serve. I remember Gordon England in particular pointing out that 

he had lost, I think it was, hundreds of thousands of dollars because he had to divest himself of assets very quickly in order to be 

confirmed as Secretary of the Navy, I think it was, at the time. 

19 

And as I said from the beginning, my goal is to have the best people possible in government and to not have unnecessary barriers to 

their serving. 

On the other hand, clearly we want to make sure we are guarding against real or perceived conflicts of interest, but I would ask 

you, Mr. Johnson, because of the role that you play, how big a 

problem are the requirements for divestiture and the sheer cost of 

hiring accountants to help you go through your records for the vetting process? Is that something that we should be worried about? 

Mr. JOHNSON. The reason people choose not to serve is because 

it is too expensive, directly and indirectly. An expense can be they 

have stock options that are worth too much or too little, or they 

have an ailing mother-in-law living with them, and they cannot afford to move, or they have just built the house of their dreams, or 

their children are juniors and seniors in high school, so there is an 

expense. There is a cost to the family, to the individual. 

If there is a direct cost associated with divestiture or associated 

with getting accountants to pull together all the information, it is 

because the person is really rich. [Laughter.] 

Senator COLLINS. Good point. 

Mr. JOHNSON. So it is usually a cost that they can incur, and 

they will tell you whether they can afford it or not. 

Now, it would take the Office of Government Ethics to determine 

whether there are other ways of dealing with a potential conflict. 

Can you put it in a blind trust? I do not know that. But I think 

the Office of Government Ethics—by the way, pay a lot of attention 

to what they recommend because their standards for looking for 

conflicts of interest are as high as anybody else’s in the government, they are trying to do really good work, and they have 

thought very creatively about how to do it with less burden and get 

to decisions faster and look for ways to keep some of these expensive divestitures from taking place. But they are the experts, and 

I encourage you to pay a lot of attention to their ideas. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. I would love to hear more, but we 

do have a vote on, so I just want to thank all of our witnesses 

today, and you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Collins. We will really work on this. 

Mr. Stier, do you have something else you want to say before I 

gavel? 

Mr. STIER. I just really wanted to say, back to Mr. Dove’s point 

about human nature, just to reinforce, I think part of human nature around an election is that you are going to see a lot more opportunity at the front end. So if you actually set an aggressive 

timetable—and I would say not just 100 days but really day one, 

which means you actually have to have money pre-election. It has 

to be during the transition process that they are actually doing 

this. Human nature will mean that this stuff will happen a lot faster. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. STIER. So that front-end piece I think is huge. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. Thanks to the three of you 

very much. It has been very helpful. 

20 

We hope to have this legislation ready for introduction next 

week, and then we will move it as rapidly as we possibly can 

through the Committee. But you have been really helpful today. 

We are going to leave the record open for 15 days for additional 

questions and statements. 

With that, again I thank you. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:13 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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Æ 


66673.083