More than 200 former high-level government officials took out advertisements in newspapers Wednesday calling on the White House and Congress to make the presidential appointment process more humane, less intrusive and shorter.
“Please make it easier to say `Yes,”‘ said the ad from the group, which also sent a letter to President Bush and lawmakers. “Today’s presidential appointment process can discourage good people from accepting the invitation to serve.”
Increasingly, those who go through the process find it agonizingly long–and embarrassing if details of their private lives are made public. The ad urged that any allegations about an appointee’s character be discussed in private before public hearings are held.
The former officials also said the Senate should confirm or reject nominees within 45 days and demanded that appointees receive guidance with the voluminous paperwork required.
The letter was signed by former Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and George Shultz, former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, and former White House Counsel Abner Mikva, as well as lower-level officials.
The letter and ad were put together under the auspices of the Presidential Appointee Initiative, a project of the Washington-based Brookings Institution. The goal is to reform a process increasingly plagued by long delays in the White House vetting process, tortuous Senate confirmation hearings, piles of paperwork and intrusive FBI background checks.
The public may be familiar with the confirmation dramas surrounding such appointees as Lani Guinier, nominated to a Justice Department position by President Bill Clinton, and Linda Chavez, Bush’s first nominee for labor secretary. Guinier and Chavez withdrew under fire, blasting the confirmation process.
But many lower-profile appointees, who often are asked to leave comfortable lives in the private sector, also face grueling ordeals.
Terror of process
“There’s a terror out there as potential appointees look at what they might have to go through to get into office,” said Paul Light, director of governmental studies at Brookings.
It takes an average of four or five months from the president’s initial nomination to Senate confirmation, he said. That’s in addition to the time the White House spends vetting a potential candidate before announcing the nomination.
Light said the process has gradually slowed down, with delays in the Senate that often have nothing to do with the quality of a candidate. Rather, senators may block appointees to send a message.
As a result, many important government positions go unfilled. About halfway through Bush’s term, about 85 of the 501 positions requiring Senate confirmation remain vacant.
Clinton was plagued by a similarly slow pace. And with passage of the Department of Homeland Security legislation, 28 new presidentially appointed jobs have been established.
Double jeopardy
Mark Gearan, who was Peace Corps director in the Clinton administration, is among those who signed the letter. After going through the approval process under Clinton, he had to repeat the process recently after being named to the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service.
“The FBI came to my office on campus to interview me for the board, which meets three times a year,” said Gearan, president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York. “They said, `Well, we’d like to speak to your neighbors here.’ I said, `Well, it’s a fraternity.’ And they said, `Well, will anyone say anything negative about you?’ and I said, `Chances are–I’m the college president.'”
Gearan acknowledged that background checks are necessary, but he said the bureaucracy for some of the lower-level candidates can be reduced.
The effects of an incomplete administration are tangible. The Securities and Exchange Commission lacked four of its five appointed members until late July, as corporate scandals unfolded and lawmakers struggled to implement reforms.
Light noted with some optimism that Congress has begun taking steps toward reforming the process: The 2002 Presidential Appointments Improvement Act, to shorten the confirmation process and cut the paperwork, awaits Senate action.
