Presidential Appointments

1
Presidential Appointments

• Last time
• more priming, framing and the public agenda
• presidents and military initiative
• Today the politics of appointments

2
Presidential persuasion

• Going public (external lobbying)
• priming
• framing
• Insider lobbying
• patronage campaigning support
• persuasion

3
Can the president prime issues?

• Jeffery Cohen article on State of the Union
  addresses
• presidential mentions of an issue area are
  related to increased mentions of those issues by
  survey respondents (a priming effect)
• prez popularity seems unrelated
• leadership effects decay faster in domestic than
  in foreign policy arenas
• no evidence of framing effects

4
Congress, Prez and Security

• MCs assumed to want to (1) get reelected (2)
  promote own career (3) create good public policy
• Reelection strategies include (1) advertizing
  (2) position-taking (3) credit-claiming
• how does foreign policy fit?
• Progressive ambition requires expanding ones
  reputation to a wider electorate
• how does foreign policy fit?
• What does good public policy mean in foreign
  policy/security?
• American attitudes toward risk?
• Congressional accountability?

5
Managing the president

• Presidents as agents of the American people in
  foreign/security policies
• Congress as (1) institutional checks (2)
  oversight agents on presidential action in
  foreign/security policies
• The public suffers from
• hidden information
• hidden action
• Madisons dilemma
• Collective action problem

6
more last time

• President is Commander-in-Chief of whatever armed
  forces Congress creates, under whatever
  conditions Congress imposes and can enforce
• Senate confirmation of officers commissions is
  example of screening/selection
• U.S. rejection of the Nuremberg defense is
  example of institutional check
• Constitution limits military appropriations to no
  more than 2 years duration (a sunset provision)

7
Presidential appointments

• Presidential appointments (1200 total)
• Constitutional offices (Senate advice and
  consent, but serves at pleasure)
• statutory offices (Prez has sole authority to
  hire and fire)
• independent agencies (advice and consent fixed
  terms)
• What is reversion point?
• recess appointments commissions/boards vs single
  administrators

8
The main players

• Cabinet heads of principal executive departments
• also, sub-cabinet level agencies not headed by
  commissions (e.g., FDA)
• Executive Office of the President
• White House Organization
• Independent agency commissions
• e.g., SEC, the Fed FEC, NLRB, etc.

9
Cabinet

• Madison credited with inventing the label
• Heads of State, Treasury, Defense, etc.
• framers had discussed advisory council but
  didnt include the idea in the Constitution
  didnt want to set up Prez to look like a king
  with an insulating layer of Ministers
• Cabinet secretaries generally controlled
  lower-level appointments in their departments
• key appts for patronage thus were Post Office and
  Treasury (Customs Service and Internal Revenue),
  although the Prez directly controlled nominations
  to the key Customs appts and Postmasterships
• other big issue was the letting of government
  contracts (postal service supplies for the
  military)
• Post-bellum era, military pensions become a big
  deal (Veterans Bureau)

10
more Cabinet

• Cabinet composition in 19th century
• bargaining at national nominating conventions
• regional representation
• factional balancing
• 20th century evolution
• civil service reform limited patronage
  opportunities in regular departments
• radio and TV helped create the media cult of the
  presidency popularization of presidential
  campaigns and change in nominations made
  candidates less dependent on bargaining
• appointments become increasingly about
  non-geographic descriptive representation
  (ethnic, gender diversity becomes an issue in
  1960s, first with Democrats)

11
What do Cabinet Secys do?

• Statutory heads of departments. They (not the
  prez) are legally responsible for policy outputs
• Prez can fire/threaten to fire, but law limits
  prez influence over implementation
• Prez can require reports from dept heads
• Congress can end-run prez control over
  information through hearings, subpoena powers

12
Executive Office of the Prez

• Created in 1939 by executive order, pursuant to
  the Reorganization Act of 1939
• Bureau of the Budget (now OMB) moved out of
  Treasury Natural Resources Planning Board
  Office of Government Reports Liaison Office for
  Personnel Management
• Todays EOP 9 offices PLUS W.H.O., VPs office,
  residential staffs 1,800 staff and budget of
  250 million
• OMB Office of the US Trade Rep Office of
  Administration Natl Security Council Natl
  Drug Control Policy Office of Policy
  Development Office of Science and Tech Policy
  Council of Economic Advisers Council and Office
  on Enviro Quality

13
White House Organization

• this is the stuff of West Wing
• chief policy advisers
• speech writers
• lobbyists
• press office

14
Independent agencies

• Presidential appointment is constrained removal
  power is denied
• consequences for delegation by congress to agency?