'Perfect storm' slowing political appointments, scholar says

A series of events around Washington have slowed down the Bush administration's efforts to nominate and confirm political appointees, so much so that a leading scholar has dubbed the causes of the current confirmation quagmire "the perfect storm." Brookings Institution scholar Paul Light heads the Presidential Appointee Initiative, a project Brookings started in 1999 to revamp the appointments process and provide practical information and advice to nominees. According to Light, a number of seemingly unrelated circumstances have worked together to slow the appointments process. "A number of storm fronts came together simultaneously, and that confluence has conspired to create enormous difficulties. It was like everything that could go wrong did," Light said in a recent interview with National Journal. First, he noted, there was the delayed Bush administration transition, due to the Florida recount. Then came the high profile implosion of Linda Chavez's nomination for Labor Secretary, causing White House officials to be even more cautious in choosing their candidates.

Then the FBI, which handles the vetting process for potential nominees, got some bad press for some bumblings of its own, including the discovery of missing documents about Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and an embarrassing flap over missing guns and laptop computers.

Given that, Light said, "The last thing the FBI wanted was for an appointee to slip through, so they tightened up even more." Plus, the economic downturn may have convinced some nominees not to take a government job because they would have to dump their stock holdings in a down market.

The climax was the party switch of Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., which turned Senate control over to the Democrats.

This caused an internal delay as the Senate reorganized and also heightened an already volatile, partisan atmosphere, thus slowing some confirmation hearings. Based on a recent visit to the Senate, Light said "the place is a mess physically. No one knows where they're sitting."

Despite this litany of hard-to-control factors, Light still holds both the White House and the Senate accountable for making this transition among the slowest ever.

As of July 27, 179 officials had been confirmed, with nine Clinton holdovers officially retained, according to Light's organization. The remaining 310 posts subject to nomination and confirmation have yet to be filled by a confirmed appointee. "It looks like we're going to enter the August recess with less than half of the administration's posts confirmed," Light said. "That takes us to September--eight months after the inauguration. That's just no way to run a government."