{"id":19658,"date":"2020-08-13T16:25:33","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T20:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opsweb.wpengine.com\/?p=19658"},"modified":"2021-07-14T11:46:07","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T15:46:07","slug":"an-inside-look-at-the-presidential-appointment-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/blog\/an-inside-look-at-the-presidential-appointment-process\/","title":{"rendered":"An inside look at the presidential appointment process"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With Election Day right around the corner, the presidential\ncampaign will dominate the news cycle and be a topic of conversation across the\ncountry. When the campaign ends, the winning candidate will immediately face a\nnew challenge: filling top-level political appointments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Securing 4,000 presidential appointments requires close\nscrutiny and intense vetting of potential nominees and, for 1,200 of those positions,\nSenate confirmation. The process can be difficult to navigate for all involved,\nfrom the president to his appointment directors to the people interested in\nfilling those positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On \u201cTransition Lab<\/a>,\u201d a podcast of the Partnership\u2019s Center for Presidential Transition<\/a>, host David Marchick has covered the presidential appointment process from multiple perspectives, exploring the many factors that influence how presidents fill key government positions. In three recent episodes, he interviewed two lawyers who help potential appointees with the vetting process, two former directors of the Office of Presidential Personnel and the executive director of a transition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, you want to be an\nappointee?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The lawyers:<\/em> Leslie Kiernan and Robert Rizzi<\/a> help political appointees navigate the strict vetting process, which involves close scrutiny of their personal and professional lives. Nominees\u2019 entire lives are picked apart, and their records are scoured for ethical issues. Kiernan has one straightforward piece of advice for anyone interested in serving as political appointee: Be honest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it is incredibly important for candidates to be\nforthcoming in the vetting process,\u201d she said. \u201cThe worst place for a candidate\nto be is in a hearing where something comes up, and the candidate is being\nattacked for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rizzi also advised nominees to take a close look at their\ntaxes, since anything unpaid\u2014even accidentally\u2014is a common red flag during\nvetting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to Navigating the Screening Process for High-Level Political Appointees<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staffing 4,000 appointees:\nEven harder than it sounds<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The former directors of the Office of Presidential Personnel:<\/em> The president\u2019s Office of Presidential Personnel is responsible for recruiting, vetting and staffing presidential appointments. Jonathan McBride and Liza Wright<\/a>, the former PPO directors under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively, had to perform an enormous undertaking with minimal staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had just over 50 people working kind of full time in our\npersonnel office, but we also had people distributed throughout the agencies\ncalled White House liaisons,\u201d McBride said on the podcast. \u201cBy comparison, we\nhired about as many people per year as my former employer BlackRock did, and\ntheir HR department is over 400 people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to Help Wanted: The Critical Job of Selecting 4,000 Presidential Appointees<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life as a president\u2019s\nappointments guru<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The campaign executive director:<\/em> As executive director of George W. Bush\u2019s 2000 transition, Clay Johnson<\/a> helped the new president secure more political appointees in his first year than any other modern president. Johnson initiated transition plans a full 16 months before the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bush and Johnson had a long-standing working relationship. Johnson served as Bush\u2019s appointment\u2019s director when he was governor of Texas. As they did in Austin, Bush met weekly with Johnson to discuss potential nominees, even though the chief of staff typically acts as a liaison between the PPO director and the president on personnel matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was very important. It’s the way we had done it in Austin,\u201d\nJohnson said. \u201cWe had a system and [Bush] wanted it done exactly like that. And\nhe realized he felt good about the time he spent on that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to The George W. Bush Transition to Power<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn more about presidential transitions with episodes of Transition Lab and on our blog: <\/p>\n\n\n\n