Presidential Appointments to Full-Time Positions in Executive Departments During the 114th Congress
Released: 2017-10-31T00:00:00

Introduction

The President is responsible for appointing individuals to positions throughout the federal government. In some instances, the President makes these appointments using authorities granted by law to the President alone. Other appointments are made with the advice and consent of the Senate via the nomination and confirmation of appoin tees. Presidential appointments with Senate confirmation are often referred to with the abbreviation PAS. This report identifies, for the 114 th Congress, all nominations submitted to the Senate for executive-level full-time positions in the 15 executive departments for which the Senate provides advice and consent. It excludes appointments to regulatory boards and commissions as well as to independent and other agencies, which are covered in other Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports.

Information for this report was compiled using the Senate nominations database of the Legislative Information System (LIS) at http://www.lis.gov/nomis/ , the Congressional Record (daily edition), the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents , telephone discussions with agency officials, agency websites, the United States Code , and the 2016 Plum Book ( United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions ).

Related CRS reports regarding the presidential appointments process, nomination activity for other executive branch positions, recess appointments, and other appointment-related matters may be found at http://www.crs.gov .

Appointments During the 114th Congress

Table 1 summarizes appointment activity, during the 114 th Congress, related to full-time PAS positions in the 15 executive departments. President Barack H. Obama submitted 102 nominations to the Senate for full-time positions in executive departments. Of these 102 nominations, 64 were confirmed; 8 were withdrawn; and 30 were returned to the President under the provisions of Senate rules.

Length of Time to Confirm a Nomination

The length of time a given nomination may be pending in the Senate has varied widely. Some nominations were confirmed within a few days, others were confirmed within several months, and some were never confirmed. This report provides, for each executive department nomination confirmed in the 114 th Congress, the number of days between nomination and confirmation ("days to confirm").

Under Senate Rules, nominations not acted on by the Senate at the end of a session of Congress (or before a recess of 30 days) are returned to the President. The Senate, by unanimous consent, often waives this rule—although not always. In cases where the President resubmits a returned nomination, this report measures the days to confirm from the date of receipt of the resubmitted nomination, not the original.

For executive department nominations confirmed in the 114 th Congress, a mean of 156.1 days elapsed between nomination and confirmation. The median number of days elapsed was 125.5.

Organization of this Report

Executive Department Profiles

Each of the 15 executive department profiles provided in this report is divided into two parts. The first table lists the titles and pay levels of all the department's full-time PAS positions as of the end of the 114 th Congress. For most presidentially appointed positions requiring Senate confirmation, pay levels fall under the Executive Schedule. As of the end of the 114 th Congress, these pay levels range from level I ($205,700) for Cabinet-level offices to level V ($150,200) for lower-ranked positions.

The second table lists appointment action for vacant positions during the 114 th Congress in chronological order. This table provides the name of the nominee, position title, date of nomination or appointment, date of confirmation, and number of days between receipt of a nomination and confirmation, and notes relevant actions other than confirmation (e.g., nominations returned to or withdrawn by the President).

When more than one nominee has had appointment action, the second table also provides statistics on the length of time between nomination and confirmation. The average days to confirm are provided in two ways: mean and median. The mean is a more familiar measure, though it may be influenced by outliers in the data. The median, by contrast, does not tend to be influenced by outliers. In other words, a nomination that took an extraordinarily long time to be confirmed might cause a significant change in the mean, but the median would be unaffected. Examining both numbers offers more information with which to assess the central tendency of the data.

For a small number of positions within a department, the two tables may contain slightly different titles for the same position. This is because the title used in the nomination the White House submits to the Senate, the title of the position as established by statute, and the title of the position used by the department itself are not always identical. The first table listing incumbents at the end of the 114 th Congress uses data provided by the department itself. The second table listing nomination action within each department relies primarily upon the LIS database of Senate nominations. This information is based upon nominations sent to the Senate by the White House. Any inconsistency in position titles between the two tables is noted following each appointment table.

Additional Appointment Information

Appendix A provides two tables. Table A-1 relists all appointment action identified in this report and is organized alphabetically by the appointee's last name. Table entries identify the agency to which each individual was appointed, position title, nomination date, date confirmed or other final action, and duration count for confirmed nominations. The table also includes the mean and median values for the "days to confirm" column.

Table A-2 provides summary data for each of the 15 executive departments identified in this report. The table summarizes the number of positions, nominations submitted, individual nominees, confirmations, nominations returned, and nominations withdrawn for each department. It also provides the mean and median values for the numbers of days taken to confirm nominations within each department.

A list of department abbreviations can be found in Appendix B .

Department of Agriculture

Department of Commerce

Department of Defense

Department of Education

Department of Energy

Department of Health and Human Services

Department of Homeland Security

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Department of the Interior

Department of Justice

Department of Labor

Department of State

Department of Transportation

Department of the Treasury

Department of Veterans Affairs

Appendix A. Presidential Nominations, 114 th Congress

Appendix B. Abbreviations of Departments