Obama Confidant to OMB

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Obama's long-time friend and surrogate, Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein, will take over the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget. Sunstein will come into office with at least some past experience in government--he served in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department--a highly developed theory of regulation, and an intimate understanding of his boss.

It was Sunstein who gave the most coherent outline of Obama's theory of reconciliation between competing beliefs in a May 2007 New Yorker profile:

Sometimes, of course, there is no possibility of convergenceâ€"a question must be answered yes or no. In such a case, Obama may stand up for what he believes in, or he may not. “If there’s a deep moral conviction that gay marriage is wrong, if a majority of Americans believe on principle that marriage is an institution for men and women, I’m not at all sure he shares that view, but he’s not an in-your-face type,” Cass Sunstein, a colleague of Obama’s at the University of Chicago, says. “To go in the face of people with religious convictionsâ€"that’s something he’d be very reluctant to do.” This is not, Sunstein believes, due only to pragmatism; it also stems from a sense that there is something worthy of respect in a strong and widespread moral feeling, even if it’s wrong. “Rawls talks about civic toleration as a modus vivendi, a way that we can live together, and some liberals think that way,” Sunstein says. “But I think with Obama it’s more like Learned Hand when he said, ‘The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.’ Obama takes that really seriously. I think the reason that conservatives are O.K. with him is both that he might agree with them on some issues and that even if he comes down on a different side, he knows he might be wrong. I can’t think of an American politician who has thought in that way, ever.”

More relevant to his new gig, Sunstein has some fairly innovative thoughts about regulatory policy. He's interested in particular in ways you can encourage people to make good decisions without requiring them to do so.

Matt Yglesias writes that the appointment shows Obama's dedication to elevating some rather obscure agencies (though I'd quibble with his contention that no one's ever heard of OIRA before!). I'd add that appointing someone he is personally close to and who is deeply familiar with his theory of governance to the position that oversees e-government initiatives also shows Obama's commitment to using new media in governing. Currently, OIRA's mostly worked on security issues, like the issuing of HSPD-12 credentials, but I'd imagine that Sunstein will work on openness issues as well.