The Invisible Presidential Appointments: An Examination of Appointments to the Department of Labor, 2001-11

The George W. Bush administration was plagued with allegations that its appointees politicized the bureaucracy. Critics charged that presidential appointees injected ideology into apolitical decisions at the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Interior, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). (1) Following the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) lackluster response to Hurricane Katrina, subsequent investigations uncovered that most of the president's top PAS appointees (those requiring Senate confirmation) to that agency lacked even the most rudimentary emergency management experience. (2) While this case received a great deal of public scrutiny, the problem of politicized appointees only begins with PAS appointments. In another case involving the Bush administration, an internal DOJ probe uncovered evidence that department appointees injected politics into agency decisions by hiring, firing, and promoting civil servants on the basis of political views, a clear violation of civil service norms and regulations. One of the key figures in the scandal, Monica Goodling, was a noncareer member of the Senior Executive Service (SES) serving in the Office of the Attorney General. (3) Goodling had begun her career at DOJ as a lower-level appointee, called a Schedule C appointee. Her basic qualification for the position at DOJ was that she worked previously as an opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee. Goodling's example at DOJ is not alone. Subsequent agency investigations uncovered evidence that lower-level appointees were involved in bullying career staff, censoring government reports, and leaking internal documents to outside groups in order to pursue the administration's policy and political goals. Unfortunately, these examples are not specific to the G. W. Bush administration. Since Richard Nixon engaged in a concerted effort to secure policy change through administration, what Nathan (1975) calls the "administrative presidency," presidents have been accused of promoting loyalty over competence at the appointment stage. Presidents do so because "political appointments dominate the dynamic of institutional political control" (Wood and Waterman 1994, 73) and because loyal appointees are more likely to do the president's bidding. Hence, as Epstein and O'Halloran (1999, 60) note, "loyalty to the president's goals will be the primary factor in choosing executive branch officials." Or as Moe (1983, 243) states, presidents primarily are motivated to appoint "individuals on the basis of loyalty, ideology, or programmatic support." Consequently, prevalent questions in the administrative presidency literature are on which basis presidents select appointees (loyalty versus competence versus other factors) and what affects these appointees have on policy outputs and performance? While much has been written on this subject, most studies of presidential appointments focus on a few high-profile positions, usually at the top of an agency or department's hierarchy. This focus ignores lower-level appointees. Monica Goodling was a lower-level DOJ appointee not requiring Senate confirmation. Yet she initiated a series of crucial, politically and legally questionable decisions that adversely impacted the president's reputation. Non-PAS appointments are of particular importance because of the 3,000 to 4,000 appointees available for political appointment in the executive branch, approximately 2,200 do not require Senate confirmation. Seven hundred are noncareer members of the SES. The SES is a corps of managers just below Senate-confirmed appointees and above the general civil service. Of the total number of close to 7,000 persons in the SES, 10% may be appointees. Close to 1,500 persons are appointed as Schedule C appointees, positions reserved for persons filling confidential or policy-making positions below Senate-confirmed or SES appointees. …