Filling Advice and Consent Positions at the Outset of Recent Administrations, 1981-2009
Released: 2017-02-24T00:00:00

Introduction

The length of the appointment process during presidential transitions has been of concern to observers for more than 30 years. The appointment process is likely to develop a bottleneck during this time due to the large number of candidates who must be selected, vetted, and, in the case of positions filled through appointment by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate (PAS positions), considered by that body. By the end of the first 100 days of the Reagan presidency, nominees had been confirmed for 19% of vacant PAS positions. At the same juncture at the outset of the Clinton Administration, nominees had been confirmed for 11% of these openings. The figure for the presidency of George W. Bush was 7%, and for the Obama Administration was 14%. Delays in installing new leadership would not be welcome by an Administration at any time, but they may be particularly problematic during the transition period between Presidents. In 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (known as the 9/11 Commission) identified what it perceived were shortcomings in the appointment process during presidential transitions that could compromise national security policymaking in the early months of a new Administration. The commission noted that a new President is likely to need his or her top advisers in place to maintain continuity in this area. Furthermore, the President has limited time following his or her election to initiate an administrative and legislative agenda.

Presidential transitions involve large-scale changes in the political leadership of the executive branch. Table 1 summarizes Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data indicating that more than 2,600 political appointees occupied positions in the 15 departments as of June 30, 2016. These officials included top-level policymaking presidential appointees, political managers, and confidential support staff. Unlike career public service executives and employees, top political officials in the federal departments and agencies nearly always serve at the pleasure of the President or agency head. These officials typically resign when the Administration changes, especially if the incoming President is from a different party.

This report describes and analyzes the processes, during a presidential transition, by which top-level executive branch PAS positions have been filled in the recent past. Outside of top White House staff appointments, these are a new President's earliest and arguably most important appointments. In the next section, the usual process is described in three stages: " Selection and Vetting ," " Senate Consideration ," and " Appointment ." That section also provides examples of ways the Senate has adapted its procedures during recent presidential transitions. The report then discusses processes—recess appointments and designations under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998—that could be used by the President to unilaterally fill positions on a temporary basis. The final portion of the report provides additional information on the length of time required in the past to fill Cabinet positions and certain national-security-related subcabinet positions. This section provides related data for the five transitions since 1980: Carter-Reagan (1980-1981), Reagan-Bush (1988-1989), Bush-Clinton (1992-1993), Clinton-Bush (2000-2001), and Bush-Obama (2008-2009). This report does not cover and will not track the 2016-2017 transition process.

The Appointment Process for PAS Positions

Under the Constitution, the power to appoint the top officers of the United States is shared by the President and the Senate. The appointment process consists of three stages—selection and vetting, Senate consideration, and appointment.

Selection and Vetting

In the first stage, the White House selects and clears a prospective appointee before sending the formal nomination to the Senate. With the assistance of, and preliminary vetting by, the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, the President selects a candidate for the position. Members of Congress and interested parties sometimes have recommended candidates for specific PAS positions. In general, the White House is under no obligation to follow such recommendations. In the case of the Senate, however, it has been argued that Senators are constitutionally entitled, by virtue of the advice and consent clause noted above, to provide advice to the President regarding his or her selection; the extent of this entitlement is a matter of some debate. As a practical matter, when Senators have perceived that insufficient pre-nomination consultation has occurred, they have sometimes exercised their procedural prerogatives to delay, or even effectively block, consideration of a nomination.

Following this selection, the candidate needs to be cleared for nomination. During the clearance process, the candidate prepares and submits several forms, including the "Public Financial Disclosure Report" (Office of Government Ethics (OGE) 278), the "Questionnaire for National Security Positions" (Standard Form (SF) 86), a supplement to SF 86 ("86 Supplement"), and sometimes a White House Personal Data Statement. The clearance process often includes a background investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which prepares a report that is delivered to the White House. It also includes a review of financial disclosure materials by the OGE and an ethics official for the agency to which the candidate is to be nominated. If conflicts of interest are found during the background investigation, the OGE and the agency ethics officer may work with the candidate to mitigate the conflicts.

Selection and Vetting During Presidential Transitions

An incoming President can, of course, begin the process of selecting the members of his or her Administration at any time. During recent decades, most major candidates have begun preparing for a potential presidency before Election Day by assigning a small number of advisors to begin developing transition plans. Since 2008, candidates and their transition advisors have been aided in the selection of personnel by a provision of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (known as the Intelligence Reform Act). This provision directs the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to transmit an electronic record "on Presidentially appointed positions," with specified contents, to each major party presidential candidate "not later than 15 days" after his or her nomination. The provision permits OPM to make such a record available to any other presidential candidate after these initial transmittals.

The Intelligence Reform Act also included several provisions that responded to 9/11 Commission recommendations regarding the vetting process. One provision of law permits each major party presidential candidate to submit, before the general election, security clearance requests for "prospective transition team members who will have a need for access to classified information" in the course of their work. The law directs that resulting investigations and eligibility determinations be completed, as much as possible, by the day after the general election. To the degree that transition team members go on to be nominees to positions in the new Administration, this proactive clearance process might also accelerate the transition period appointment process.

The Intelligence Reform Act also amended the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 (PTA). The amendments included a provision stating that the President-elect should submit, as soon as possible after the presidential election, the "names of candidates for high level national security positions through the level of undersecretary" of agencies and departments. A second provision requires the responsible agency or agencies to carry out background investigations of these candidates for high-level national security positions "as expeditiously as possible ... before the date of the inauguration."

More broadly, the PTA authorizes the General Services Administration to provide resources, services, and other support associated with the presidential transition process. In earlier decades, this support was provided only after a presidential election. Since the publication of the report of the 9/11 Commission, however, this statute has been amended to authorize support for eligible candidates prior to the election. As just noted, it was amended in 2004 by the Intelligence Reform Act. Further amendments came in 2010 and 2016. The aim of extending the act to encompass the pre-election period was to "strengthen the transition planning of the multiple parties whose active involvement is necessary for a successful transition: the incumbent president, major candidates, the president and vice-president-elect, senior career officials across the government, and the transition support team at GSA." These latter amendments were first implemented during the 2016-2017 presidential transition.

As amended, the PTA directs the President and incumbent Administration to establish a specified transition-related organizational infrastructure as well as to provide certain pre-and post- election support to eligible candidates and then to the President-elect. The statute also authorizes eligible candidates to fund pre-election transition activities through their campaigns. Arguably, beyond the provisions of the PTA that specifically apply to the selection and vetting of an incoming President's leadership team, the infrastructure and support provided for in the statute create conditions that have the potential to enhance, more generally, the ability for an incoming Administration to carry out these activities.

Senate Consideration

Once the President has selected and vetted an individual and submitted a nomination, the Senate determines whether or not to confirm the nomination. Once received from the President, each nomination is referred to the committee with jurisdiction over the agency in which the nominee would serve or the subject matter related to the nomination. Action at the committee level is at the discretion of the committee chair. No Senate or committee rule requires that a committee, or the full Senate, act on any nomination. Most nominations, however, proceed through the process in a routine, timely fashion. During the 111 th Congress (2009-2010), the first Congress of the Obama Administration, the Senate took a median of 52 days to confirm a nomination to a full-time departmental position.

The Senate confirmation process begins at the committee level. The rules and procedures of the committees frequently include timetables specifying minimum periods between steps in the process. Committee activity on nominations generally includes investigation, hearing, and reporting stages. During the investigation phase, many committees require nominees to fill out questionnaires that the committee has prepared and to provide financial and biographical information. If the committee acts on a nomination, the process typically begins with a hearing, where the nominee and other interested parties may testify and Senators may question the nominee. After the hearing—if there is one—the committee usually votes on reporting the nomination to the Senate. The committee may choose to report the nomination favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation.

The full Senate may then take up the nomination and vote on it. Confirmation of a nomination by the Senate requires a simple majority, but no Senate Rule limits how long nominations may be considered on the floor. Many nominations are taken up and considered under the terms of a unanimous consent agreement that limits debate. In the absence of unanimous consent, a cloture process might be necessary to bring an end to Senate consideration of a nomination and get to a final vote. Invoking cloture on a nomination to a position other than to the Supreme Court requires a simple majority, under an interpretation of Senate rules established on November 21, 2013. The cloture process, however, is potentially time consuming. After a nomination is called up, which a majority can do without delay, cloture can be filed on it. The cloture motion, however, does not mature until two days of session later. If cloture is then invoked, there may be up to a maximum of 30 hours of consideration of the nomination.

Because of the time necessary for a majority to invoke cloture, and the high number of nominations to be considered, the Majority Leader often seeks to arrange consideration of nominations by unanimous consent. It is therefore sometimes possible for Senators to place "holds" on nominations to delay or prevent their consideration (or for other reasons unrelated to the particular nomination). A "hold" is an informal Senate practice in which a Senator requests that his or her party leader delay floor action on a particular matter, in this case a nomination. It is up to the Senate Majority Leader whether to honor the request of the Senator wishing the hold or to try to bring the nomination to a vote. A "hold" will not necessarily have the effect of killing a nomination, because cloture could be attempted, but it could signal that the Senate may not be able to consider the nomination expeditiously.

Although the Senate confirms most nominations, some are not confirmed. Rarely, however, is a nomination voted down on the Senate floor. Most stall in committee, either by committee inaction or after an unsuccessful vote to report. The committee might not forward the nomination for a variety of reasons, including opposition to the nomination, inadequate amount of time for consideration of the nomination, or factors that may have nothing to do with the merits of the nomination. If a nomination is not acted upon by the Senate by the end of a Congress, it is returned to the President. Pending nominations also may be returned automatically to the President at the end of the first session of a Congress or at the beginning of a recess of 30 days or longer, but the Senate rule providing for this return is often waived.

The 9/11 Commission, which expressed concern about delays in the confirmation process for the nation's national security team, recommended that the Senate change its rules to require that all action on these nominations, such as hearings, committee meetings, and floor votes, be conducted within 30 days of the Senate's receipt of the nomination. The Senate adopted a sense of the Senate resolution stating that the 30-day target should be the goal. Such sense of the Senate language is not binding on the chamber, but represents a position that at least a majority of the Senators endorsed.

The Senate Confirmation Process and Presidential Transitions

Under regular procedure, Senate action on nominations is triggered by the President's submission of the nomination to the Senate. During recent Presidential transitions, however, it appears that the Senate has developed a flexible, informal process to allow quick action on nominations to Cabinet and other high-level positions.

After recent Presidents were sworn-in on January 20, one of their first official acts was to send to the Senate many, if not all, of their nominations to Cabinet positions and some other high-level positions. The Senate confirmed many of those individuals on January 20 or soon thereafter. If the Senate did not act quickly, the President could be in the position of trying to make new policy without his top people in place to carry out his plans. But the tight timeline would typically allow the Senate little time to review the nominations to some of the most important positions in the federal government. The Senate developed a method for handling this situation; committees act on "anticipated" or "expected" nominations. As shown in Appendix A , which is discussed in detail later in this report, Senate committees held hearings on most nominations to Cabinet positions at the outset of the Reagan, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama Administrations before inauguration day. Some committees also took votes in relation to the anticipated nominations before January 20 during these transitions.

During the transition from President Carter to President Reagan, for example, Senate committees held confirmation hearings and voted to recommend confirmation of Reagan's nominees to be secretaries of Defense, State, and Treasury before the formal submission of the nominees on January 20. That allowed the full Senate to vote almost immediately on those nominations. The Senate followed the same pattern for the three positions during the transition from President George H. W. Bush to President Clinton, and Senate committees reported nominations to two of the positions during the transition from President Clinton to President George W. Bush. During the transition from President George W. Bush to President Obama, Senate committees held pre-inaugural hearings for at least 16 anticipated nominations. At least two of these anticipated nominations were publicly endorsed by Senate committees before they were considered by the full Senate.

For example, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted in relation to the nomination of Alexander M. Haig, Jr., to be President Reagan's Secretary of State on January 15, 1981, during the final session of its confirmation hearing on the nomination. The chair of the committee moved "that in anticipation of the nomination, that it be approved, subject to the formal receipt of it from the new President of the United States."

When the Senate Finance Committee acted upon the nomination of Lloyd Bentsen to be President Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury on January 12, 1993, the chair made the following motion before the hearing began: "I would ask that a vote be undertaken in the following form. The resolution will read, 'The Committee on Finance, having under consideration the perspective (sic) nomination of Lloyd Bentsen to be Secretary of the Treasury, recommends that the nomination be confirmed when received by the Senate.'"

The Senate Armed Services Committee, on January 19, 2001, acted on the "expected" nomination of Donald H. Rumsfeld to be Secretary of Defense. The committee voted to recommend that the full Senate confirm the Rumsfeld nomination. The language in the committee's legislative calendar for the 107 th Congress notes that "On January 19, 2001, the Committee voted by a roll call vote of 19-0 in favor of a motion that the Committee recommend the Senate give its advise and consent to the nomination when it was received by the Senate from the President and without referral to the Committee."

Other nominations to Cabinet or top-level positions also have been approved by committees in advance of their actual submission. On January 18, 2001, for example, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted in relation the nomination of Spencer Abraham to be Secretary of Energy. During the committee meeting, the chair said that the committee's actions were "in keeping with the past practices of the committee in reporting cabinet nominations made by incoming presidents prior to their official receipt by the Senate…." In that case, the motion agreed to by the committee was to "move that the committee report favorably on the proposed nomination and recommend that when the nomination is received the Senate give its advice and consent."

In January 2009, Senate committees formally endorsed at least two anticipated nominations prior to their submission to the Senate by President Obama. On January 15, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee agreed to a motion to "report the nomination of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York to be secretary of State pending the receipt of formal nomination papers." A letter from the chair and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, introduced into the Congressional Record on January 20, indicated that members of the committee unanimously supported the nomination of Thomas J. Vilsack to be Secretary of Agriculture. According to the letter,

In anticipation of the [Vilsack] nomination, the Committee conducted a hearing on January 14, 2009, in public session, to carefully review the credentials and qualifications of Secretary-designate Vilsack. Governor Vilsack was the only witness at the hearing.

After the hearing and after Committee Members had the opportunity to review responses to written questions submitted for the record, the Committee polled all Members of the Committee to ascertain their positions regarding this nominee. We are pleased to report that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry unanimously supports the nomination of Thomas J. Vilsack for the position of Secretary of Agriculture.

Appointment

In the third and final stage of the appointment process, the confirmed nominee is given a commission signed by the President, with the seal of the United States affixed thereto, and is sworn into office. The President may sign the commission at any time after confirmation, and the appointment process is not complete until he or she does so. Once the appointee is given the commission and sworn in, he or she has full authority to carry out the responsibilities of the office. The length of the time between confirmation and appointment varies in accordance with the preferences of the Administration and appointee.

Temporary Staffing of PAS Positions during Presidential Transitions

The Constitution and federal statutes provide several authorities for temporarily filling vacancies in PAS positions: the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, the President's constitutional recess appointment power, and position-specific temporary appointment provisions. Each of these authorities, discussed below, might be used during a presidential transition as well as later in the President's term.

Designations under the Vacancies Act

Congress has provided limited statutory authority for temporary presidential appointments under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (Vacancies Act). Appointees under the Vacancies Act are authorized to "perform the functions and duties of the office temporarily in an acting capacity subject to the time limitations" provided in the act. A temporary appointment under the Vacancies Act ordinarily may last up to 210 days (approximately seven months). During a presidential transition, however, the 210-day restriction period does not begin to run until either 90 days after the President assumes office (i.e., mid-April), or 90 days after the vacancy occurs, if it is within the 90-day inauguration period. Furthermore, the time restriction is suspended if a first or second nomination for the position has been submitted to the Senate for confirmation and is pending.

When an executive agency position requiring confirmation becomes vacant, it may be filled temporarily under the Vacancies Act in one of three ways. First, the first assistant to such a position may automatically assume the functions and duties of the office. This provision may be of limited utility to a new President, because he or she probably would not yet have installed a first assistant of his own choosing. Nonetheless, if the first assistant who becomes the acting leader is a career executive, he or she might lend continuity to agency operations and reduce organizational confusion and paralysis during the transition.

The Vacancies Act also provides that the President may direct an officer in any agency who is occupying a position requiring Senate confirmation to perform the tasks associated with the vacant position. Although this option would allow a new President to authorize one of his or her confirmed appointees to perform key tasks, it might be of limited utility in the early months of the new Administration when PAS positions in general are thinly staffed. Individuals the President might designate to serve under this provision include appointees of the President's party who are incumbents in fixed-term membership positions on boards and commissions and holdover appointees from the previous Administration who support the President's policy preferences.

Finally, the Vacancies Act provides that the President may temporarily fill the vacant position with any officer or employee of the subject agency who has been occupying a position for which the rate of pay is equal to or greater than the minimum rate of pay at the GS-15 level, and who has been with the agency for at least 90 of the preceding 365 days. Under this provision, the President could draw, for example, from among an agency's career Senior Executive Service (SES) members, and this might allow him or her to select, as a temporary office holder, an individual who supports his or her policy preferences. As the presidency lengthens, more of the new President's lower level political appointees (non-career SES and Schedule C) will meet the longevity requirements of the Vacancies Act, providing the President with an additional pool of individuals from which to draw.

Notably, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has held that a provision of the Vacancies Act limits the conditions under which an individual may serve in both an acting capacity in, and as the nominee to, the same position. The court's opinion appears to allow an individual to serve on this basis only if the individual has been confirmed as the first assistant to the vacant position or has served as first assistant for more than 90 of the preceding 365 days.

Recess Appointments

A second form of limited-term appointment without Senate confirmation is a presidential recess appointment. The President's authority to make recess appointments is conferred by the Constitution, which states that "[t]he President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session." A recess appointment expires at the sine die adjournment of the Senate's "next session." As a result, a recess appointment may last for less than a year, or nearly two years, depending on when the appointment is made.

Although a new President might elect to use his or her recess appointment authority during a Senate recess soon after he or she takes office, should such a recess arise, four recent Presidents used it sparingly during their first calendar years in office. President George H.W. Bush made five such appointments in November and December of 1989. President Clinton did not use this authority until 1994. President George W. Bush made one recess appointment during the Senate's August recess in 2001. President Obama did not make recess appointments until his second year in office. President Reagan did not use this authority during his first six months in office, but he made 34 recess appointments between August and December of 1981.

Starting in the 110 th Congress, the Senate and House have sometimes used certain scheduling practices as a means of precluding the President from making recess appointments. The practices do this by preventing the occurrence of a Senate recess of sufficient length for the President to be able to use his recess appointment authority. In a June 26, 2014, opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the President's recess appointment power may be used only during a recess of 10 days or longer. Seemingly, the Senate, or the Senate and the House together, would determine if and when it will adjourn for a recess of 10 days or longer and thus allow for the possibility of recess appointments.

Position-Specific Temporary Appointment Provisions

In some cases, Congress has expressly provided for the temporary filling of vacancies in a particular PAS position, and such authorities might be used during a presidential transition. Generally, such provisions employ one or more of several methods: (1) a specified official is automatically designated as acting; (2) a specified official is automatically designated as acting, unless the President provides otherwise; (3) the President designates an official to serve in an acting capacity; or (4) the head of the agency in which the vacancy exists designates an acting official.

Unsuccessful Nominations and Payment Limitations

An individual serving in an acting or temporary capacity in an advice and consent position might not be paid for his or her services if he or she has been nominated to the position twice and the second nomination has been withdrawn or returned. A provision of the FY2009 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act states the following:

Effective January 20, 2009, and for each fiscal year thereafter, no part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act may be used for the payment of services to any individual carrying out the responsibilities of any position requiring Senate advice and consent in an acting or temporary capacity after the second submission of a nomination for that individual to that position has been withdrawn or returned to the President.

Consultants

At times, a nominee is hired as a consultant while awaiting confirmation, but he or she may serve only in an advisory capacity and may not take on the functions and duties of the office to which he or she has been nominated. A nominee to a Senate-confirmed position has no legal authority to assume the responsibilities of this position; the authority comes with one of the limited-term appointments discussed above, or with Senate confirmation and subsequent presidential appointment.

The Length of the Appointment Process

As noted at the outset of this report, the length of the appointment process during presidential transitions has been of concern to observers for more than 30 years. The 9/11 Commission drew fresh attention to this issue in 2004, recommending changes that might accelerate the selection, clearance, and Senate consideration processes, particularly for "national security positions." Congress responded by enacting new statutory provisions related to the selection and vetting process, as well as a provision expressing a "sense of the Senate" regarding a timetable for submission and consideration of high-level national security nominations during transitions. It also amended the Presidential Transition Act in 2010 and 2016. This statute now directs the President and incumbent Administration to establish a specified transition-related organizational infrastructure as well as to provide certain pre-and post-election support to eligible candidates and then to the President-elect as he selects his appointees. (See "Selection and Vetting During Presidential Transitions" and "The Senate Confirmation Process and Presidential Transitions," above.)

To assist Congress in determining whether the 2004 statutory changes discussed above have had an impact on the length of the transition period appointment process, this section compares the length of the appointment process during the 2008-2009 Bush-Obama transition with the length of this process during the four previous transitions: Carter-Reagan (1980-1981), Reagan-Bush (1988-1989), Bush-Clinton (1992-1993), and Clinton-Bush (2000-2001). The section also compares the length of the transition-period appointment process among Cabinet positions and, for subcabinet positions, among agencies.

Two groups of appointed positions were selected for comparison based on the criteria discussed above. These groups and collected data are shown in appendices to this report. Appendix A provides nominee-level data on the length of the process for making appointments to Cabinet-level positions during the five transitions identified above. Appendix C provides nominee-level data on the length of the process for making appointments to selected higher-level national security-related and economic and financial subcabinet positions during these transitions. Appendix B provides information on the method CRS used for selecting the positions included in Appendix C .

Appendix A and Appendix C each provide information about the intervals, in elapsed days, between different points in the appointment process. These points include election day, which is the point after which the successful candidate and his or her supporters fully turn their attention from campaigning to selecting a governing team, announcement of a proposed nominee, submission of a nomination, Senate committee hearing on the nomination, Senate committee report or discharge, and final disposition by the Senate.

The comparisons found that, in general, transition-period Cabinet-level nominees were selected, vetted, considered, and confirmed expeditiously; they generally took office shortly after the new President's inauguration. In some cases, however, Cabinet-level offices were not filled until more than six weeks after inauguration. For example, President George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense was not confirmed until March 17, President Clinton's Attorney General was not confirmed until March 11, and President Obama's nominations to be Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of Health and Human Services were not confirmed until March 24 and April 28, respectively. Filling the position of Director of ONDCP, which was accorded Cabinet rank by President Clinton and President George W. Bush, took far longer—more than six months in each case—than other Cabinet-level positions. Comparisons among the five transitions suggest that some Presidents announced their Cabinet-position selections sooner than did others, but that this did not appear to accelerate the pace of the overall appointment process.

The comparisons also found that, in general, initial nominees to the subcabinet positions studied took about twice as long (more than six months from Election Day) as Cabinet-level nominees (less than three months) to be selected, vetted, considered, and confirmed. Comparisons among the median intervals for the five transitions suggest that (1) the time required for selection and vetting of nominees for these positions has grown longer; (2) the period of Senate consideration has also grown longer; (3) Senate consideration of a nomination was generally faster than the selection and vetting process that preceded it; and (4) the median durations of the appointment process for the George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama transitions were notably longer than for the Reagan transition.

A comparison among nominations to subcabinet positions in the federal organizations discussed in this report (six departments and the intelligence community) revealed notable differences in the average duration of the process. In general, intelligence community positions were filled most quickly (median = 92 days). Among the nominations to departmental positions, State Department nominations, on average, were submitted and confirmed most quickly (median = 148 days).

A more detailed discussion of the comparisons conducted for this report follows.

Transition-Period Cabinet Appointment Intervals

This subsection first provides a comparison, among the five transitions, of the pace of Cabinet appointments. It then provides a comparison, among the 21 positions, of the pace of these appointments. These comparisons are drawn from the data presented in Appendix A . Cabinet-level PAS positions considered in this analysis include all heads of departments, as well as the following positions that have often been accorded Cabinet rank: the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the U.S. Trade Representative, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

On the whole, the analysis of Cabinet appointments indicates that the transition-period appointment process has been effective, in recent decades, at installing the Cabinet of a new Administration soon after the new President takes office. The graph on the left side of Figure 1 indicates that, on average, President-elect Obama announced his selections sooner than did three of the four preceding Presidents. His pace was similar to that of President George H.W. Bush. The graph compares the median number of days from election day to the announcement of the President-elect's nominees or, in a limited number of instances, his decision to retain the incumbent appointee. This suggests that, for this group of appointments, a President-elect could move as rapidly in 2008 as during any other transition in the preceding 30 years. President-elect George W. Bush announced his selections later, on average, than did the other four Presidents-elect. This finding is not surprising, perhaps, given the unique circumstances of the 2000 presidential election and the truncated transition period that followed.

The graph on the right side of Figure 1 shows that the median Cabinet appointment was finalized—in most cases confirmed—within days of inauguration day during four of the five transitions. It shows that, for each of these four transitions—Reagan, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama—the median Cabinet appointment was finalized within 77-79 days of election day. This finding, when paired with the graph on the left, indicates that, on average, the Senate confirmed these four Presidents' Cabinet members within days of inauguration regardless of the average pace of a President-elect's announcements.

The median Cabinet appointment was finalized less quickly—about a week later—during the transition from President Reagan to President George H.W. Bush. Notably, this transition was the sole instance among the five in which an incoming President was of the same party as the outgoing President. In addition, it is the only instance among the five in which the incoming President had been part of the previous Administration. These dynamics might have influenced the pace of this transition. Other factors, including opposition among some Senators to specific nominations—including the first nominee to be Secretary of Defense, who was rejected—might also have contributed to this higher median. In addition, three department heads serving at the end of the Reagan Administration—the Attorney General, the Secretary of Education, and the Secretary of the Treasury—continued to serve through the beginning of the incoming Bush Administration, a fact not reflected in the median shown in Figure 1 .

The statistics presented in Table 2 can be used to draw comparisons of the pace of appointment of the various Cabinet positions without regard to Administration. These statistics bear out the key finding seen in Figure 1 : looking at the entire pool of Cabinet appointments across the five transitions, the median Cabinet nomination was confirmed within 79 days of the election—that is, within a few days of inauguration. The statistics in Table 2 also show, however, that all Cabinet-level nominees do not move through the process at the same pace. On average, department head nominees go through the process more quickly (median election to final disposition = 79 days) than do Cabinet-rank nominees (median = 84 days). In general, department head nominees and Cabinet-rank nominees were announced equally quickly. However, on average, department head nominees were brought before the committee of jurisdiction more quickly and confirmed at an earlier date than Cabinet-rank nominees.

Perhaps more striking was a difference between the two groups in the variation in the median interval between election day and final disposition. Among department nominees, the median duration of the appointment process ranged from 77 days, for the Secretaries of State, Education, and Homeland Security, to 103 days, for the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Among Cabinet-rank nominees, the median interval for filling the position of OMB Director was the shortest, at 79 days. Most notably, nominations to the position of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy took far longer to go through every stage of the process than any other Cabinet nomination. The median interval for filling this position when it was designated as Cabinet rank was 309 days, or approximately ten months.

All four transition period nominations to the position of ONDCP Director were anomalous when compared with all other Cabinet-level nominations. As the data in Appendix A show, each of these nominations—including the two instances in which the President had designated the position to be of Cabinet-rank—took much longer than other Cabinet nominations. The elapsed time between election day and final disposition for President Clinton's nomination of Lee Brown was 225 days, and that for President George W. Bush's nomination of John P. Walters was 393 days. Because of these extreme values for this position, the mean length of the process for all Cabinet-rank nominees is 23 days longer than the median length.

Transition-Period Subcabinet Appointment Intervals

This subsection first provides a comparison, among the five transitions, of the pace of the selected subcabinet appointments. It then provides a comparison, among the seven organizational units (six departments and the intelligence community), of the pace of these appointments. These comparisons are drawn from the data presented in Appendix C . This appendix includes data on 126 nominations to 38 positions across the five transitions identified above. Positions considered in this analysis include selected higher-level subcabinet posts in the federal government organizations that are most involved with policymaking related to national security and to the federal response to the economic and financial downturn at the time of the Bush-Obama transition. A complete list of these selected positions and a detailed explanation of the method by which they were chosen are provided in Appendix B .

Figure 2 includes three bar graphs that provide a comparison, among the five transitions, of three key intervals for these subcabinet appointments: election to nomination submission, submission to final disposition, and election to final disposition. The graphs suggest, with regard to nominees to these subcabinet positions, the following: (1) the selection and vetting of these nominees grew longer over the course of the five transitions; (2) the selection and vetting process does not seem to have been shortened by the changes enacted in response to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission; (3) the Senate consideration process grew longer over the course of the five transitions; (4) on average, the Senate consideration process makes up a shorter portion of the appointment process for these positions than does the selection and vetting process; and (5) the median length of the process from election to final disposition during the four later transitions was notably longer than it was during the Reagan transition.

The graph on the left side of Figure 2 indicates that, on average, the selection and vetting period grew longer, from 91 days under President Reagan to 167 days under President Obama, over these 5 transitions. The length of the period under President George W. Bush could be attributed, in part, to potential delays in the selection process that might have resulted from the truncated transition period following the 2000 election.

The graph in the center of Figure 2 shows that the median number of days between the submission of a nomination and its final disposition (usually confirmation) more than doubled, from 21 days under President Reagan to 48 days under President Obama.

The graph on the right side of Figure 2 compares, among the five transitions, the length of the appointment process from election day to final disposition. The graph indicates that the median length of the process under President Reagan, at 114 days (about 4 months), was notably shorter than under any of the other four Presidents, at 187-198 days (6-6½ months).

Table 3 provides statistics regarding intervals in the transition-period appointment process for selected subcabinet positions, without regard to Administration. The median length of the total process, from election day to final disposition, for all specified subcabinet nominees was 189 days. This means that half of the nominees to positions in this group were confirmed within approximately six months of election day, or, in other words, within approximately 3½ months of inauguration day. The remaining half were confirmed after that point.

The statistics in Table 3 can be used to draw comparisons of the pace of appointment to positions in the various departments, and the intelligence community, without regard to Administration. Positions in the intelligence community were filled, on average, much more swiftly than were positions in the other agencies. This finding may be an artifact of the small number of nominations in the dataset (five), as well as the fact that the majority of these were nominations to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a high-profile subcabinet post. The median nomination to a position in the intelligence community reached the point of final disposition within 92 days, or about 3 months, of election day. For all but one of the intervals measured (submission to hearing), the median for a nomination to an intelligence community position was as short as, or shorter than, those of any of the departments.

Among the departments, State Department nominees, on average, completed the appointment process most quickly. Half the nominations reached the end of the process within 148 days (about five months) of election day. The median interval between election day and nomination submission, at 121 days, or roughly four months, was shorter for State Department nominees than it is for any of the other departments. However, the median period of Senate consideration for Department of Defense (20 days) nominees was shorter than that of State Department nominees (23 days) as well as that of nominations to positions in other departments. Nominees to Department of Justice positions took the longest to be confirmed, on average. The median interval between election and confirmation for these nominees was 206 days, or nearly seven months.

During the five transitions studied, the incoming Administration has typically taken much longer to submit a nomination to one of the subcabinet positions in this group than the Senate has taken to dispose of it, once it was submitted. As Table 3 shows, for all selected subcabinet nominations, the median interval between election and submission is roughly five times longer than the median interval between submission and final disposition.

Appendix A. Transition Period Nominations to Cabinet Positions, 1981-2009

Appendix B. Subcabinet Position Selection Method

This report includes analysis of nominations to a group of higher-level subcabinet positions in the departments most involved with policymaking related to national security and to economic and financial matters. A two-stage process was used to select this group. First, relevant criteria were used to identify an appropriate pool of positions. Second, those positions to which a nomination had been made during at least one of the five presidential transitions included in this study were selected from this pool.

The inclusion of the national security related positions was based on a 9/11 Commission recommendation that the "president-elect ... submit the nominations of the entire new national security team, through the level of under secretary of cabinet departments, not later than January 20," and that the "Senate ... adopt special rules requiring hearings and votes to confirm or reject national security nominees within 30 days of their submission." The commission did not further specify which departments or under secretaries should be treated in this manner. In an effort to select positions for analysis that might match those intended by the commission, criteria similar to those in the passages above were adopted. Positions were to be part of the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, or the intelligence community and either (1) at Level I of the Executive Schedule and not included in the Cabinet position data provided elsewhere in the report; (2) at Level II of the Executive Schedule; (3) titled as under secretaries; or (4) for those organizations without under secretaries, equivalent in title and at Level III of the Executive Schedule. With regard to the agencies listed above, one exception to these criteria was made. The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was excluded, although as a Level II position, it met the criteria. The position was excluded because it has a 10-year term and therefore has not been routinely filled at the beginning of a new Administration.

During the 2008-2009 presidential transition, it was argued that the pace at which top leadership positions at the Department of the Treasury were filled would also be of concern due to federal government efforts to address the nation's economic and financial downturn. For this reason, Treasury positions similar to those in the other organizations were included. Although they did not meet the criteria above, two other positions, the Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability and the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, were also included because they were specifically associated with the federal government's efforts.

Table B-1 identifies the positions that were selected based on the process specified above. The positions are listed by organization, and the organizations are listed in the order established. The subcabinet positions that were actually subject to analysis in this report were drawn from this pool. Given the nature and purpose of the study, the group selected for analysis excluded those positions to which no nomination was made during the first year of at least one of the five Administrations included in this study. The positions excluded on this basis are shown in italics.

Appendix C. Transition Period Nominations to Selected Subcabinet Positions, 1981-2009