New President could leave some appointees in place

If the new President finds it too tough to get his nominees through an evenly divided Senate, he could apparently leave current Senate-confirmed political appointees in place without going through the confirmation process.

At a recent Farm Journal forum, one of the venues in which he is giving end-of-tenure talks, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman noted with a smile: "If you don't switch jobs, you don't have to be confirmed. But please don't tell either candidate for President that."

A CongressDaily check with the offices of the Senate parliamentarian and executive clerk confirmed Glickman is right. All confirmed presidential appointees--Cabinet officers, lesser officials and ambassadors--whose job descriptions do not include time limits "serve at the pleasure of the President and as long as the president does not ask them to resign they continue," the clerk's office said.

The official also pointed out that new Presidents send out a blanket letter asking for resignations and that the President must accept the resignations for them to be effective. President Clinton has already done that, with the White House announcing it has requested resignation letters from all its political appointees.

But Clinton kept two prominent appointees from President Bush's administration--NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin and FDA Commissioner David Kessler. One scenario under which Clinton appointees might stay at Agriculture is if a President Bush appointed House Agriculture ranking member Charles Stenholm, D- Texas, as secretary.

Asked how much freedom a Bush White House would give Stenholm to keep Clinton appointees, Bob Stallman, a Texan and president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, speculated that Bush would give Stenholm "input" into the top 10 appointees at USDA, but that the White House would make the final decisions.

Historian Richard Shenkman, author of Presidential Ambition, pointed out in an interview that Cabinet officers have sometimes served under more than one President and have been seen as the stabilizing force in government during chaotic times. The most prominent may be Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, who served from 1801-1814 under Presidents Jefferson and Madison.

Glickman, who was confirmed on March 30, 1995, this year became the fourth- longest serving Agriculture secretary. James (Tama Jim) Wilson served as Agriculture secretary for 16 years from 1897-1913 under three presidents--McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and Taft.

The second-longest serving was Orville Freeman, appointed by President Kennedy in 1961 and retained by President Johnson until 1969. Henry Wallace served President Franklin Roosevelt from 1933 until September 1940, when he joined Roosevelt's ticket as the vice presidential nominee--only to be replaced in 1944 as Vice President by then-Sen. Harry Truman, D-Mo.