Presidential campaigns and Senate urged to expedite appointments process

To read tips from longtime federal executives on surviving the transition, click here. Designating senior career employees to serve temporarily in critical agency jobs during a presidential transition is not sufficient to maintain government continuity, the head of a good government group said on Thursday.

"We have an amazing career workforce that is under stress," said Max Stier, president and chief executive officer of the Partnership for Public Service. "But it is not a substitute [for appointees] and won't be viewed as a substitute by the new president, or by the leadership he will bring in ultimately."

The Partnership, along with several other good government groups, is calling on both presidential campaigns and the Senate to fast-track the ordinarily lengthy political appointments process in light of the country's economic crisis. Specifically, the groups are asking the candidates and the relevant Senate committees to agree to a timetable for considering and voting on nominees to the 50 most critical agency positions within 30 days of the 2009 inauguration, and others within 45 days of their nomination. That plan would require the president-elect to submit the names of designees to the appropriate Senate committees by early December.

There are roughly 4,000 political appointees in the government, and more than 1,100 of those require Senate confirmation. On average, it takes up to one year to assemble a new administration.

"The real holdup has not been the Senate, but in providing names to the Senate," said Stier, during a conference call with reporters. Filling the top slots at the Treasury Department is particularly crucial, he said, given the $700 billion government bailout package for the financial industry that Congress currently is hashing out.

"We don't want the secretary of Treasury home alone in 2009," he said.

But looking back at 2001, it appears that the Senate did drag its feet -- at least on some Treasury Department nominees. In 2001, then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was the only top department official confirmed by Jan. 20, also the date the Senate received the nomination. The deputy secretary was not approved until August 2001. The Senate received that nomination in March. The undersecretary for domestic finance also was not confirmed until August; the administration submitted that nomination in April.

Stier said he has not discussed the timetable idea directly with the campaigns, but he has been in contact with the Senate committees. In addition to the Senate Finance Committee, those with jurisdiction over homeland security, defense, intelligence, foreign relations and law enforcement should consider expediting nominations, he said.

In fact, the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act directs the president-elect to submit the names of nominees for sensitive national security positions by the date of the inauguration. The law also allows each presidential candidate to submit before the election the names of those transition team members requiring security clearances.

Most political observers agree that presidential transitions and a lengthy appointments process can leave the country vulnerable to attack, or government mismanagement. Sixty percent of President Bush's appointees were in place at the time of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.