The President's Call: Executive Leadership From FDR to George Bush (31 page)

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Authors: Judith E. Michaels

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tion, took a page from the Nixon playbook and was determined to keep appointments under tight control. To that end, Reagan, James, and Reagan's "kitchen cabinet," his close friends and political associates,
insisted on a narrow definition of loyalty to the president and had cabinet members agree to accept White House selection of their subordinates. Loyalty to the president was assured by examining the background and attitudes of potential nominees. Heavy weight was given to support for Reagan in previous campaigns and Republican primaries. There was also a relatively narrow set of ideological values concerning the role of the federal government, the military, and social issues that could be applied to prospective candidates. This rigorous ideological screening ensured that appointees would put loyalty to the president and his policies above the tugs of Congress, interest groups, and the bureaucracy. Reagan's clearly defined ideology made this type of screening possible in ways that would not have worked in the administrations of previous presidents, such as Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, or Carter, who had much broader sets of values. (Pfiffner 1987a, 72)
Despite the stringent litmus test applied to appointees, the New Right venomously attacked the White House, claiming it had been "denied a fair share of the spoils and that the policy jobs went to moderates and so-called pragmatists" (Bonafede 1987a, 50).
Like Carter before him and George Bush and Bill Clinton after him, Reagan was criticized for the length of time it took to fill his positions. Reagan's personnel director declared that "each week he received 900 resumes, 1,100 telephone calls, and about 350 pieces of mail from Congress bearing job recommendations and endorsements. 'It's like a stockbrokerage. You're dealing jobs, people, phone calls, pressure all day long"' (ibid., 51).
In the early Bush administration the Reaganite system of control was kept in place but not aggressively pursued. Some secretaries (notably James Baker, Nicholas Brady, and Robert Mosbacher) were given greater latitude in selecting their staff and, in general, mutual accommodation was the more likely practice. Bush's personnel chief, Chase Untermeyer, asserted the guiding principle that "No department or agency chief will have an appointee forced down his or her throat, that is, imposed by the White House. Conversely, every decision is a presidential decision" (Pfiffner 1990, 69).
The internal clearance process in the new administration was simple
 
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compared to Reagan's, whose system had numerous veto points. The cabinet secretary and Untermeyer would agree on a person and forward the nominee to Chief of Staff John Sununu, who would pass it on to the president, where in all likelihood, it would be approved (ibid., 69). Late in the term when reelection panic had set in, however, that pattern changed and there was more scrutiny for political correctness.
As had become the tradition, most political paybacks were in the Schedule C positions. The administration let it be known that approximately half of those positions (some 700-800 jobs) were to be held for campaign workers and key supporters. The president's nephew, Scott Bush, headed the "Special Schedule C Project," sending lists of people to the agencies with a strong recommendation for their placement (though these appointments legally belong to the agency heads). This early placement of partisans caused some administrative problems for the agencies when they had to absorb large numbers of appointees before their subcabinet appointments were made (ibid., 69).
George Bush chose not to take a page from Ronald Reagan's playbook in terms of his pre-election appointments strategy. The results were hardly felicitous. In late 1987 Untermeyer began a transition planning process but Bush insisted that it be low key, due to his shaky footing in the Republican primary campaigns. Even later in his campaign, having survived the primaries, he feared distracting the campaign and would not allow the existence of anything that even looked like a real transition office; according to Untermeyer, Bush forbade him to "set up an office, establish mail handling operations, create computer programs, or even recruit his own staff, much less do any actual personnel planning. Bush also insisted that the small operation be entirely separate from the campaign and from the Office of the Vice President" (ibid., 65).
The result of this delay was that the Presidential Personnel Office, first under Chase Untermeyer and then under Constance Horner, was even slower to fill his top spots than was Reagan's, leaving many empty for long periods. By mid-March eight departments and agencies had only one Bush appointee in place.
By April 1 only 28 policy-level appointments had been confirmed by the Senate, 22 had been nominated and were awaiting confirmation, and 97 had undergone initial background checks. On 10 August, 156 of 394 of the top executive branch positions had been filled . . . but there were no nominations for 160 of the positions. Even if the 60 nominees who were awaiting Senate confirmation at that time were counted as on board, the
 
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absence of over 40 percent of policy level executives half way through the administration's first year could not help but to hamper leadership of the executive branch. (Ibid., 69)
2
It is clear that appointments are taking longer in the late modern era. According to C. Calvin Mackenzie, "Kennedy took an average of 2.38 months; Nixon 3.3 months, Carter, 4.55 months, Reagan, 5.3 months; and Bush, 8.13 months" to make their PAS appointments. A full year after Bush's inauguration, only 49 percent of his appointees were in place.
3
Bush White House personnel staff attributed the delay in nominations to the careful search undertaken for each position and the detailed background check required of each nominee (the legacy of the Nixon and Reagan years). Delay in the Bush administration's appointments is discussed in more detail in a later section.
Limitations on Presidential Appointing Authority
Presidents do not enjoy unrestricted power in making PAS appointments, of course. External factors limit their ability to appoint those whom they believe would best carry out their agenda. "Presidents often are forced to use their appointing authority not so much to advance their own policy goals as to satisfy the claims of potential allies. Groups within their own political coalition commonly believe that they are entitled to high-level representation in an administration they helped put into office" (Rourke 1991b, 127). Additionally, "firmly tying the appointment power to presidential leadership is easier said than done," because the president does not enjoy absolute control over the process. There are other players and factors to be considered.
First, the president does not command the complete loyalty of his own appointees. . . . Most political appointees are acutely aware of both the identity of their political patrons and the reasons they were chosen. . . . their natural reaction is to retain a lingering sense of gratitude and allegiance to the person or group who sponsored their appointment. Or if they were chosen for some obvious reasonto appeal to moderate Republicans, to represent big labor, to mollify feministsthat reason often remains a principal guide to their subsequent decisions and actions. (Mackenzie 1981, 249)
The White House, being at "the confluence of diverse political forces" and unable to act unilaterally in its personnel system, is subject to intense pressures from other players in the political game, such as

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