Scholars advise next president to appoint bipartisan Cabinet

Scholars from the Brookings Institution Wednesday urged the next president to embrace bipartisanship by choosing appointees from both political parties to serve in the new administration.

A post-election analysis scheduled by the think tank shifted gears in light of the presidential election recount, and scholars-at that point assuming Texas Gov. George W. Bush would become president-said Bush must reach out to Democrats and moderate Republicans during the appointments process to foster bipartisanship in the new government.

"If Bush is president-elect, his wise choice would be to load up on a fairly significant number of Democrats and moderates as part of his cabinet and subcabinet....He should have, if he wants to govern, the highest percentage of Democrats in a Republican administration in the past 40 years," said Paul C. Light, director of governmental studies at Brookings.

Scholars discussed how the narrow election outcome reflects how evenly divided the country is between the two presidential candidates, and as a result, the new president's efforts at bipartisanship must be substantive.

"If Democrats sense that under these circumstances, the first unified Republican government in 48 years will try to go full speed ahead with an agenda that seems not to have been enthusiastically embraced by the electorate, I can imagine them getting ugly. And, therefore, it may make sense if, in fact, Bush is ultimately certified as the president, to think creatively about his cabinet appointments, appointing some Democrats there, and to setting up some informal mechanisms with the Congress that involved genuine bipartisan meetings," said Thomas E. Mann, senior fellow in governmental studies at Brookings.