Presidential Appointments to Full-Time Positions in Executive Departments During the 112th Congress
Released: 2015-01-08T00:00:00

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 to the President alone. Other appointments, generally referred to with the abbreviation PAS, are made by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate via the nomination and confirmation process. This report identifies, for the 112 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.

This report features a pair of tables presenting information for each of these 15 executive departments. The first table in each pair provides information on full-time positions requiring Senate confirmation as of the end of the 112 th Congress and the pay levels of those positions. The second table for each department tracks appointment activity within the 112 th Congress by the Senate (confirmations, rejections, returns to the President, and elapsed time between nomination and confirmation) as well as further related presidential activity (including withdrawals and recess appointments). In some instances, no appointment action occurred within an agency during the 112 th Congress.

Information for this report was compiled using the Senate nominations database of the Legislative Information System (LIS) 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 2012 Plum Book ( United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions ).

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

Appointments During the 112th Congress.

Table 1 summarizes appointment activity, during the 112 th Congress, related to full-time PAS positions in the 15 executive departments. President Barack H. Obama submitted 116 nominations to the Senate for full-time positions to executive departments. Of these 116 nominations, 90 were confirmed; 11 were withdrawn; and 15 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 112 th Congress, the number of days between nomination and confirmation ("days to confirm"). For confirmed nominations, a mean of 151.4 days elapsed between nomination and confirmation. The median number of days elapsed was 131.5.

Organization of this Report

Executive Department Profiles

Each of the 15 executive department profiles provided in this report is divided into two parts: a table listing the organization's full-time PAS positions as of the end of the 112 th Congress and a table listing appointment action for vacant positions during the 112 th Congress. Data for these tables were collected from several authoritative sources. In each department profile, the first of these two tables identifies, as of the end of the 112 th Congress, each full-time PAS position in that department and its pay level. For most presidentially appointed positions requiring Senate confirmation, the pay levels fall under the Executive Schedule. As of January 2013, these pay levels ranged from level I ($199,700) for Cabinet-level offices to level V ($145,700) for lower-ranked positions.

The second table, the appointment action table, provides, in chronological order, information concerning each nomination. It shows the name of the nominee, position involved, date of nomination or appointment, date of confirmation, and number of days between receipt of a nomination and confirmation. It also notes actions other than confirmation (e.g., nominations returned to or withdrawn by the President).

The appointment action tables with more than one nominee to a position also list statistics on the length of time between nomination and confirmation. Each appointment action table provides the average days to confirm in two ways: mean and median. Although the mean is a more familiar measure, 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 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 a result of the fact that 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 112 th Congress uses data provided by the department itself. The second table listing nomination action within each department relies primarily upon the Senate nominations database of the LIS. This information is based upon the nomination sent to the Senate by the White House. Any inconsistency in position titles between the two tables is noted in the notes 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.

During the 112 th Congress, the Presidential Appointments Streamlining and Efficiency Act ( P.L. 112-166 ) was enacted, which eliminated the requirement for the Senate's advice and consent for 163 positions in federal agencies. A number of those positions, listed in Appendix B , have been included in previous versions of this tracking report. This report notes each agency and position affected.

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

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, 112 th Congress

Appendix B. Positions Affected by P.L. 112-166

Appendix C. Abbreviations of Departments