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An excerpt from the new Survivor's Guide for Presidential Nominees.

n the coming weeks and months, hundreds of people across the country will get a phone call from the transition office of the President-elect. "We're looking to fill a senior position in the new administration," they'll be told. "We understand that you're one of the best, most knowledgeable people in your field. Are you interested?"
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Suppose you're lucky enough to be one of these people. How do you react? You're honored and flattered, of course. You may have been hoping for this call and doing everything possible to make sure it would come. Or it's possible that this summons has arrived out of the blue. Either way, there's a new President in town, and he wants you to join his management team. If you've always wanted an opportunity to perform public service, this is a golden opportunity.

But you're also apprehensive. You've heard the stories about how long and difficult the Senate confirmation process has become, how it takes months for the FBI to investigate your background, then additional months for the Senate to confirm you-or even longer if a senator decides to hold you hostage in a policy fight or simply doesn't like your background. You may know someone whose confirmation became an unseemly ordeal.

From its very founding, American government has depended on presidential appointees to help lead the nation. The Founding Fathers clearly believed that the quality of a President's appointments could make or break their young democracy. "There is nothing I am so anxious about as good nominations," Thomas Jefferson wrote at the dawn of his presidency in 1801, "conscious that the merit as well as reputation of an administration depends as much on that as on its measures."

The appointments process is one of the first major undertakings facing any new administration-and one of the most challenging. Rogelio Garcia, a specialist in American government at the Congressional Research Service who has tracked nominations for years, has calculated that there are more than 1,000 leadership positions in the executive branch that require presidential nomination and Senate confirmation, including approximately:

  • 330 full-time positions in the 14 executive departments, including Cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries, under secretaries, assistant secretaries and general counsels;
  • 120 full-time posts in independent agencies, such as the Small Business Administration and NASA;
  • 150 ambassadors, two-thirds of whom customarily come from the career Foreign Service;
  • 187 U.S. attorneys and marshals;
  • 130 full-time regulatory positions, including the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission; and
  • presidential appointees to part-time positions, such as the Legal Services Corporation and the Postal Service Board of Governors. No one disputes that a President should be allowed to nominate like-minded individuals with the requisite experience, credentials and character to carry out the administration's policies. But a whole crop of people are about to find out just how many obstacles can crop up along the road to landing one of government's top jobs.

Burdenss and Blessings

People considering public service face the nagging question of whether they really want to put up with the hassles that come with government work. Politicians and appointed public officials alike suffer from image problems these days. Washington has become synonymous with gridlock, grandstanding and grand inquisitions.

Why would anyone subject himself or herself to this? Because of what former officials say over and over again: The time spent in public service was the most challenging and rewarding period of their professional lives.

Arthur "A.B." Culvahouse Jr., who was Ronald Reagan's last White House counsel and has since guided prominent nominees through the appointments process, says, "I've never done anything as a lawyer in private practice as much fun as the 22 months I had in the White House." That period spanned the bitter defeat of Robert H. Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court, Senate passage of the treaty with the Soviet Union banning intermediate-range nuclear missiles and Reagan's riding out the Iran-contra controversy.

Q. Todd Dickinson went through the confirmation process twice in the Clinton administration, first as deputy assistant secretary of Commerce and deputy commissioner of the Patents and Trademark Office and then as assistant secretary of Commerce and PTO commissioner. His first confirmation was delayed for a spell in mid-1998 while certain senators pressured Commerce Secretary William Daley to appoint their constituents to regional fishery boards. He encountered an even longer delay when the patents commissioner left in 1999; Dickinson spent most of the year as the acting assistant secretary before the Senate finally confirmed him in November 1999.

In retrospect, he says, "It's one of those processes that seems very frustrating when you're in it, but after it's done, it's like finding a parking place. It's extremely annoying as time goes by, but once you find that place, well, the pain dissipates."

As difficult as the confirmation process sometimes is, most nominees make it through unscathed. Bob J. Nash, direc tor of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel for the final six years of the Clinton administration and former undersecretary of Agriculture, says he always assured apprehensive candidates that it was extremely rare for a confirmation battle to turn nasty. Nash would also remind them: "Very few people in the country ever get to serve at the highest levels of government. Public service is one of the highest callings in the land. . . . You can help improve the ways people live and work in this country, and you ought to serve."

First Things First

Nevertheless, there are some serious questions to consider if the President-elect's chief headhunter comes calling-or even if they don't know you from Adam and you've been trying gamely (if not shamelessly) to get your resume to jump out of the stack. Regardless of how much you want that coveted job, it pays to perform what lawyers call "due diligence." "In fairness to yourself, your family and everyone else, you really need to ask some very pointed questions and get good information before you make that decision," advises Stephen D. Potts, former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

The stakes are highest for Cabinet officers, but every post that requires Senate confirmation comes with plenty of challenges. "Make sure you've got a tough skin," says Charles Jeffress, who joined the Clinton administration in 1997 to run the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an agency that routinely locks horns with the businesses it regulates. "Come with a very clear agenda about what you want to achieve. And make sure that agenda is important enough to you personally to sacrifice money and family time and other opportunities to get it done." Presidential appointees typically stay two years or less in their posts-although President Clinton's appointees, who were younger and more diverse than usual and the first Democrats in charge of executive branch agencies in a dozen years, stayed 26 months on average. Even that is a short stay if you hope to make a lasting impact on your corner of the government. "Almost nobody has any sense before they come into government of the rhythm and flow of the budget process," says Christopher Cross, an assistant secretary of Education in the Bush administration. "To make significant change, it takes at least three years and a couple of budget cycles."

It also requires a sober judgment about whether you should move to Washington. Lee Sachs was a senior managing director with the New York investment banking firm of Bear, Stearns and Co. when he got the opportunity in 1998 to become a deputy assistant Secretary of the Treasury. At first he left his wife and twin daughters in Connecticut and commuted home on weekends. His family joined him after he was nominated and confirmed as assistant Secretary of the Treasury for financial markets in 1999.

"I wouldn't sell my house until the process was over," Sachs advises. "I've seen and heard of enough people who didn't get through the process that you just don't want to take that kind of risk, unless you've decided you want to live in Washington one way or another."

Am I the Right Person?

It's always disconcerting to take a hard look in the mirror and gauge your strengths and weaknesses. But now is the time to decide whether you have the technical skills-as well as the managerial experience-to tackle the position the White House has in mind. You also need to shift into a research mode, examining the agency as intensely as the administration is examining you.

Some jobs and talents are transferable. An assistant secretary for legislation who knows how to work Capitol Hill can ply that craft adeptly whether working for the Department of Energy, the Department of Housing and Urban Development or another Cabinet agency. The same often holds true for a media-savvy assistant secretary for public affairs or a general counsel with a keen grasp of the law.

But the majority of presidential appointments to full-time posts demand specific skills and expertise. While your managerial, professional and political talents might be useful in a variety of openings, you need to be certain that the specific job on the table is right for you. Especially at the outset of an administration, a single candidate may be considered for a number of openings. When one vacancy is filled, the also-rans often are shopped around to various Cabinet secretaries or departments. But don't let yourself be shuffled around to the point where the job in question makes no sense for you. And don't be swayed by grandiose titles. Find out if there is real work to be done, and room to do it.

Be careful, though. Knowing all about an agency's programs does not necessarily mean you would do a great job at overseeing them. Some appointees are taken aback by the management demands of what they thought would be strictly policy jobs.

Hans Mark, a former chancellor of the 15-campus University of Texas System who returned to government as the Pentagon's director of defense research and engineering in 1998, believes that management skills are essential for government jobs. Many highly technical positions such as his own might be handled equally well by top civil servants, he says. Mark, a physicist who served previously as secretary of the Air Force and deputy administrator of NASA, thinks that presidential appointees should be accomplished in something more "than working the Washington political system." He suggests candidates think about the following questions: "Have you managed a project? Have you run an organization, been a university president, run a company? Can you fire somebody? Can you do the things that a manager has to do?"

Remember that even if the White House considers you qualified for a position, you still will face grilling from senators about your knowledge of an agency's functions, policies and

priorities, including its responsiveness to congressional dictates. In the Clinton administration, a nominee for a senior post within the Office of Management and Budget learned the hard way that she needed to do her homework on the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, a bipartisan initiative that requires all federal agencies to develop strategic plans and submit annual performance reports to Congress. The nominee "was chopped to ribbons" at a confirmation hearing when she professed ignorance of how well the statute was working, a colleague recalls.

Financial Ramifications

As prestigious as a presidential appointment may be, it can have detrimental effects on your income. There are two issues to consider: salary and post-employment restrictions. Government salaries are sometimes lower than salaries in the private sector. The pay for most presidential appointees in 2000 ranged from $122,400 for Executive Level IV positions (assistant secretaries and general counsels) to $157,000 for Executive Level I posts (Cabinet secretaries). You should also be aware that there are legal restrictions that can affect the work you do after leaving government service.

Your government salary may stay flat or grow very slowly during your time in office. Top law firms, for example, are hiring law school graduates today at salaries approaching what a deputy Cabinet secretary makes. There are no stock options or bonuses for political appointees. And most senior-level political appointees cannot moonlight. By an executive order that President Bush issued in 1989, Cabinet-level officials, deputy secretaries and certain other high-level officials cannot "receive any earned income for any outside employment or activity performed during that presidential appointment." The prohibition includes speaking fees. Other rules and restrictions apply to those below this level. Political appointees do qualify for health insurance and other job benefits.

Ethics officials may also decide that you have to divest stocks to avoid a conflict of interest. But do not divest prematurely. You may qualify for a certificate of divestiture from the Office of Government Ethics allowing you to postpone payments of capital gains taxes when you sell the stocks and put the proceeds into an open-end, diversified mutual fund or U.S. Treasury notes or bonds. (That became an option in 1989.)

As for the post-government employment restrictions, here in a nutshell is what federal law requires:

  • Lifetime Ban. An employee is prohibited from representing anyone else before the government on any matter in which he or she participated personally and substantially.
  • Two-Year Ban. An employee is prohibited for two years from representing another person or entity on a matter he or she supervised or was responsible for during the last year of government service.
  • One-Year Ban. Senior officials are subject to an additional restriction barring them from representing anyone before their entire departments or agencies for one year.
  • Additional One-Year Ban. Cabinet secretaries and other very senior officials cannot represent anyone before any federal department or agency for one year.

Under an executive order issued by President Clinton, all senior appointees must sign a pledge not to lobby their departments for five years. The Clinton-era pledge also bars senior appointees from ever working as agents for a foreign government or political party. U.S. trade negotiators cannot work for foreign businesses, either.

Pile of Paperwork

You'll need to tackle a pile of paperwork at the outset of the appointments process. Most nominees for posts requiring Senate confirmation must complete:

  • The Public Financial Disclosure Report (SF 278) on income, assets and liabilities.
  • The Questionnaire for National Security Positions (SF 86) used for the background investigation and security clearance.
  • The White House Personal Data Statement Questionnaire.
  • A separate questionnaire required by the appropriate Senate committee. These forms are, as a 1992 National Academy of Sciences report put it, "separate, complicated, and incompatible." Some nominees face more than one committee, and must fill out separate forms for each.

The most difficult form is the SF 278, which you must update each year you stay in the government. It is a complex form, demanding a level of detail of income, assets and liabilities that few have at their fingertips. Don't be intimidated. David Apol, a White House associate counsel who dealt with nominees' financial disclosure forms and conflict-of-interest issues, says "virtually everyone" must redo the 278 to correct initial mistakes. Charles Rossotti, a business executive recruited by the Clinton administration to run the IRS, was astounded at the complexity of the disclosure requirements. "If you come in after 30 years in business ... it's really very, very difficult to get anybody to give you a clear explanation of what the options really are," he says. "I hired a very experienced lawyer from one of the major firms to help sort it out for me. It cost me quite a bit of money, but I would never have gotten through it otherwise."

If you do make the decision to pursue a presidential appointment, consider preparing a fallback strategy. It is possible that a nomination or confirmation will fall through. Bear in mind the unfortunate example of a veteran editor who severed her ties to The Washington Post and sold her company stock in 1979, when she signed on as acting assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services late in the Carter administration. Before the Senate acted on her nomination, her boss, Joseph Califano Jr., got fired. His replacement, Patricia Roberts Harris, brought in her own press secretary.

Job disruptions, obviously, are less dislocating for the many candidates who have already put down roots in the Washington area, whether they work on the Hill, in the private sector or in the executive branch itself. In academia, where sabbaticals are common and government service is encouraged, it may be relatively easy to arrange to spend what amounts to a few semesters in Washington. But everyone needs to be cautious about burning bridges-selling or buying a house, calling in the movers, quitting a job or unloading stocks-before being certain that this is a done deal.

Doing Your Homework

For those considering one of government's top jobs, there's a wealth of information at your fingertips about government jobs and agency operations:

NEXT STORY: Following the Money