Presidential recruiters report that it takes more calls to find candidates willing to subject themselves to the process and more work to keep candidates from bolting once the process begins. A recent survey of top executives in the private sector, conducted for the Presidential Appointee Initiative, found that more than a fifth of those who had been offered a presidential appointment had turned it down. The staff and advisory board of the Presidential Appointee Initiative have developed a reform agenda to address the problems we've identified in the appointments process. We believe the recommendations we presented to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee this week can yield dramatic improvements in the process and in the quality of people willing to enter public service. Reduce the number and layers of political appointees by one-third, and grant the president authority to thin senior management layers in all executive departments and agencies.
Nothing perhaps can quickly undo decades of deterioration of the appointments process.
Overcoming that painful legacy and its harmful effects on the quality of citizen leadership in government will require a bipartisan effort to make public service more attractive. The Los Angeles Times.