The President's Call: Executive Leadership From FDR to George Bush (85 page)

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Authors: Judith E. Michaels

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Slowness in Nomination of PASs Will Persist
The troublesome trend of nomination delay has grown unabated for the past several decades. While the White House is not the sole cause of this problem, there are things it can do to ameliorate it. For example, a new president should make early nomination a priority for his or her administration, enhance the stature of the PPO by giving it high-level visibility and access to his time and attention, place reasonable limitations on the FBI investigation, and reduce the paperwork required of nominees. The White House should also work more closely with the Senate committees to streamline the paperwork and process.
Turnover Will Continue to Be Highly Dependent on the Chief Executive
The president (along with the Senate) must make clear to nominees his expectations regarding tenure in office if he hopes to alleviate the many administrative and political problems caused by frequent turnover.
PAS Service As a Lose-Lose Proposition?
The nation's hostility toward Washington will continue to increase in direct proportion to the growth of the nation's problems and its expectation that Washington solve them. Balanced-budget activism,, Republican anti-big-government rhetoric, Perot-style populism, and Libertarian hostility to the very existence of most of the government will make public service even more unattractive to many potential nominees. Unless the financial disclosure and post-PAS employment restrictions are loosened, PAS service will be less and less appealing to highly skilled individuals. Only those just starting in their careers or nearing retirement will be able easily to afford (in financial and career terms) to accept a PAS position.
The Politics-Administration Dichotomy: A New Paradigm?
One logical extension of the centralized presidency could be a revised, revitalized version of the politics-administration dichotomy. In this version, the PASs could find themselves assigned the neutral competence (administration) position formerly allotted careerists. As decision-making power (politics) continues to accrue to the president's aides in the Executive Office, particularly to the chief of staff and the OMB, the political appointees in the agencies could find themselves more often assigned the role of policy implementer, rather than policy maker. This would make PAS service even less attractive to policy activists.
Stress as a Fact of Life
Contradictory pulls inward (to the agency) and outward (to the White House) will continue to plague PASs. It is important for them to under-
 
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stand the realities of politics and the many players in the high-stakes, status-conscious, pressure-cooker, fishbowl atmosphere of Washington. As had their predecessors, they have to deal with the tension of trying to do a good job in an era of expanding demands, contracting budgets, and generalized belligerence. Because PASs are by nature action- and results-oriented, they need to realize that any real change will be incremental at best and to learn to take pleasure in small victories. In the midst of their fifty-five-to-seventy-hour work weeks, they also need not to lose sight of their responsibility to take care of their family, personal relations, and their own physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health while they are serving their president and country.
Questions for Future Research
What implications from this study pertain to the ongoing institution of presidential appointments in the federal government? What would make for a stronger PAS workforce and a more smoothly functioning government? As discussed throughout the preceding chapters, questions arose whose answers might prove useful barometers of PASs' attitudes and aptitudes.
One recurring point of conflict between the administration and the PASs and among the PASs themselves at different executive levels was the decision-making power for hiring PASs in the agencies. Would mutual accommodation smooth political relations? The possibility of a more shared decision process with a double veto or, put more positively, mutual accommodation on both sides (PPO/PAS; PAS/PAS) should be explored. In a succeeding survey of Clinton appointees, exploration should be undertaken of how PASs' feelings about the PPO relate to their job satisfaction.
Given PASs' general unease with the federal budget, it would also be valuable to explore in some depth the extent to which previous budget experience and responsibility relate to competence in a particular PAS position. Does previous experience in budget or personnel supervision matter? In that context, it would also be useful to know the budget PASs handle in their current position, as well as the size of their previous budget, as the Bush PAS Survey asked. Further, it would be useful to know the extent to which the PPO looks for this kind of expertise in potential nominees.
Similarly, it would be valuable to know how important previous personnel experience is to the success of PASs and also the extent to which the PPO evaluates this kind of experience in its potential nominees.
Is there any real difference between IRC and non-IRC PASs? While
 
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there were few differences observed in the survey results between those PASs who served term appointments on independent regulatory commissions (IRCs) and those who served at the pleasure of the president in the executive agencies, they do constitute two distinct groups. Investigation into differences between IRC and non-IRC PASs might prove fruitful, particularly in terms of exporting to the non-IRCs the greater job satisfaction the IRC PASs enjoyed in some arenas. These arenas were: dealing with Congress and groups opposed to agency policy, the time requirements of their job, the time available to think creatively about issues, and the impact of their job on their personal or family life.
An IRC-only study would also prove instructive as IRC PASs often outlast their president. Because IRCs cannot be composed of more than a simple majority of one party, Reagan and Bush appointed "Reagan Democrats;" Clinton most likely appointed "Clinton Republicans" (though that term was not bandied about) to these collegial boards. Because the sitting president designates the chair, who often determines the overall character of the board, after twelve years of Reagan-Bush appointments, how did the next eight years of Democratic appointments affect the internal workings and policies of the IRCs?
Perhaps most germane to a study of PASs is an examination of what happens in the succeeding PAS community when long dominance of the White House by one party is ended. Did the Clinton appointees construct their own village government? With Bill Clinton's administration, was there a reemergence of the village of strangers in which appointees lived in their own isolated agencies, taking on their perspective against the White House's? Or, with the growth of government and political appointees during the Republican reign and the advent of interagency task forces and working groups dealing with cross-cutting issues, has there been a paradigm shift in the way government is conceived and operated? Is it even still possible to
be
isolated in modern government?
Further, did Clinton's people feel the need to reinvent the political-career relations wheel? As had every administration before them, did they come into office with a bias against the careerists or were they more open to careerists' participation in policy making? What effect did the massive reinventing government initiative and subsequent downsizing have on political career relations?
The claim that the short-termer system revitalizes the government is generally accepted by both the political and the career partners in the dance of bureaucracy: relevance "Outside the Beltway" continues to be the ultimate reality check. A future study could explore the extent to which "outsiders" bring the advantage of a different perspective to Wash-
 
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ington. Does "new blood" really make a difference? These outsiders would have to be genuine newcomers, though, not the local short-termers who never move out of the nation's capital but simply recycle in succeeding administrations, perhaps skipping an administration or two (or three). Crucial though they certainly are to the nation's governance, local short-termers tend to adopt the prevailing Washington mentality and so lose whatever advantage exists in true outsiders' perspectives.
While the outsiders have some advantages, they also carry the disadvantage of naivete. Whether they come in as new presidents, representatives, senators, or appointees, political newcomers to Washington, especially those coming from the business sector, do not really know how the federal government works, how slow and convoluted is its movement. Their cocksure approach and self-confidence are quickly eroded and can turn into disillusionment and cynicism when faced repeatedly with political reality. One can only wonder what would have happened to Ross Perot's breezy manner once he had really gotten "under the hood," as he was fond of saying, had he succeeded in his on-again, off-again presidential campaign.
However, it is always pertinent to ask what use Washington makes of any alternative perceptions of those imported from beyond the Beltway. To what extent are they listened to and to what extent are they simply overrun and co-opted by the prevailing perceptions, attitudes, and "business as usual" approach of the status quo?
The questions and issues raised throughout this book will and should be raised by practitioners of government as well as by its students. Government is an art as much as a science. In practicing this art, government's leaders should strive for the most creative solutions to the country's problems, the most qualified political personnel, the most graceful performance of the bureaucratic dance by its political and career partners, and the most complete shared understanding of the value of the public service to their nation. If the goal of government is to produce the best government of, by, and for its people, then perhaps the questions are nearly as important as the answers.
 
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Appendix 1
The Methodology of the Bush PAS Study
This study employed two approaches to the analysis of presidential appointees. The first was a written survey
1
of the full-time political appointees in the executive branch who were appointed by President George Bush to positions subject to Senate confirmation (PASs). Most were located in the agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., Maryland, or northern Virginia.
Ambassadors, federal judges, U.S. attorneys, U.S. marshals, and part-time commission members were excluded from the universe because they constitute very different and distinct groups among the presidential appointees. They are spread geographically throughout the nation and the world. The judges are in the judicial branch; the marshals and attorneys are all in one agency, the Department of Justice. Inclusion of the latter two would have given Justice disproportionate representation among the agencies.
The second approach was a series of personal interviews conducted with PASs who volunteered via the Bush PAS Survey. Interviewees were selected to provide a diverse and representative mix of the executive levels among the federal agencies.
The Bush PAS Survey constituted a collaborative effort with the General Accounting Office (GAO). It was based on a combination of factors: the author's dissertation proposal for the GAO doctoral fellowship, GAO interests, and a request by the former House Subcommittee on Civil Service, Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, that the GAO examine political-career relations with an eye toward their improvement.
The purpose in conducting the survey and interviews was twofold: First, to present a picture of the PAS population, circa mid-1992. Aside from a NAPA study of presidential appointees from 1964 to 1984, little recent attention has been devoted to them as a whole. This is especially true of the Bush appointees. The survey afforded a unique opportunity to gauge the background, experience, and perspectives of this group.
The second purpose of the survey and interviews was to assess the general qualifications of the Bush presidential executives. The conventional wisdom regarding presidential appointees (particularly after two Reagan administrations) was that they were often unqualified political hacks
2
with few legitimate credentials, who got repaid for their service in getting their candidate elected by being placed in government where they could do varying degrees of damage to the federal bureaucracy. Ambassadorships in particular seem often to be awarded on the basis of campaign contributions, particularly in the Bush administration,

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