Bush transition likely to be slowest in history

Unless the confirmation process speeds up tremendously in the next month or so, the Bush administration is likely to have the slowest rate of confirmation of political appointees in history, according to the Brookings Institution. As the congressional session winds down, the Bush administration has not filled 167 of its senior-level appointed positions, according to the Brookings Institution's Presidential Appointee Initiative. As of Dec. 14, President Bush had filled 341 of the 508 most senior positions in the administration. However, 52 of the vacant posts are at agencies directly involved in the war on terrorism, including the director of the National Institutes of Health, deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Defense Department's assistant secretary for special operations and low intensity conflict. "It's not because they are not working hard, it's not because they are not trying hard," Paul Light, director of governmental studies at Brookings, said about both the administration and Congress. "It's because of events of the year and flaws in the process." The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and subsequent anthrax scares caused a temporary slowdown in congressional activity for the Senate and diverted attention away from confirming presidential appointees. At the same time, the appointments process is tedious and time-consuming, encompassing financial background reports, FBI checks and congressional hearings. The President appoints people to nearly 3,500 positions, 1,000 of which are subject to Senate confirmation. "We have seen this process slow down and slow down and slow down," said G. Calvin Mackenzie, a visiting fellow at Brookings and author of The Politics of Presidential Appointments (Free Press, 1980). "It's simply too slow for good government." Last week, Sens. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., introduced "The Presidential Appointments Improvement Act of 2001," (S. 1811) which is aimed at easing the burden of financial disclosure on executive branch nominees by reducing the reams of duplicative paperwork involved in appointments. The bill also seeks to streamline the appointments process by reducing the number of politically appointed positions requiring Senate confirmation. The Lieberman-Thompson bill incorporates many of the 11 recommendations Brookings has made for improving the confirmation process. "This is a valuable bill that will help mightily to make leadership positions in the public service more attractive to talented Americans and to ease the burdens that Presidents face in staffing their administrations," Mackenzie said. Brookings plans to introduce several new recommendations for reforming the appointments process in early 2002.