Beginnings

John Berry begins his first week as director of the Office of Personnel Management today, and while I'm sure he's relieved the confirmation process is over, I am as well. Nominations are a pain to cover. The person you're writing about typically isn't available to the media, so you spend a lot of time running around and talking to people who worked with the nominee five or ten or fifteen years ago and stringing together stories that do a lot of speculation about what positions the nominee might take and what they might be like in office. So I'm glad reviews are going to get underway, and policies are going to start getting made.

And it's not just me I'm glad for. Requests for personnel reform are piling up, and the stimulus in particular has created a real impetus for change. At the beginning of the last new administration, OPM director Kay Cole James didn't get confirmed until July 11, more than three months later than Berry got confirmed. Three months may not seem like a lot, but if Berry gets up to speed three months earlier, and starts making policy three months more quickly than his predecessor at the beginning of an administration, that's a good thing.