The President's Call: Executive Leadership From FDR to George Bush (47 page)

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Authors: Judith E. Michaels

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too many people lacking talents appropriate for the complexity of their jobs have found their way into high-level federal positions. Too little has been done to identify untapped sources of administrative talent or to recruit effectively from those sources outside the government that are already well known. The appointment process has not provided American presidents with the kind of support they need to construct their administrations in a wise and timely fashion. (Macy et al. 1983, 18)
NAPA's 1980 study of the presidency recommends improving the quality of the nation's government by improving the quality of its governors. It stresses managerial competence for PASs as fundamental. Noting that the complexities of modern government require more than party or personal loyalty to the president, it emphasizes "substantive knowledge and experience in administration and management" as fundamental attributes of PASs. They must desire and be capable of improving the internal operations and capabilities of their agencies (NAPA 1980, 32).
While the agency heads act as agents of the president, they "must be an integral part of any presidential decision affecting their agencies and must be at the center of the flow of information and advice from constituent units of their agency to the Executive Office." They must also share with the president responsibility for naming key political personnel in their agency (the double veto or mutual accommodation). Additionally, they must have a larger vision of government, "entering the process of joint decisionmaking as promoters of cross-cutting presidential perspectives . . . rather than as narrow advocates for their agency's position." This, not only because it is appropriate, but also as a way to stave off EOP intrusion in agency affairs (ibid., 32-33).
Feeling perhaps that the pendulum has swung too far in one direction, the NAPA report comments on the "pronounced shift" away from the Brownlow Committee's recommendation that the EOP be staffed primarily by career persons. Political staffing has deprived the EOP of continuity and consistency and staff who are experienced in staff roles and government management. It has also led to the EOP taking a controlling, rather than a coordinating role, making decisions that should be made in the agencies or by the president. NAPA encourages fortifying the president's capacity for leadership as a means "to strengthen the forces of cohesion and integration in the [entire] political system." The more effectively organized and managed the presidency is, the more Congress will be able "to fulfill its obligation of holding the executive accountable" (ibid., 3).
As Seidman and Gilmour explained it several years after the first
 
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NAPA report, ''Relatively youthful upstarts in the Executive Office of the President have stolen some of the glamour from the cabinet secretaries. Such Level II luminaries as the director of OMB wield more power and receive a greater press coverage than the heads of most executive departments" (1986, 265).
These luminaries, of course, are the political "amateurs" who run the United States government. As discussed above, the difficulty of recruiting those amateurs is caused by, among other factors, low salary, high stress, little actual power, high visibility, the long-term residual effect of the antigovernment rhetoric of the Carter and Reagan campaigns, the media's coverage of personnel recruiting efforts, private sector reluctance to lend employees to government service, and poor management of new appointees. To counter these trends, the NAPA study recommends:
1. Broadening the pool of willing, able, and competent people from which presidential appointees are selected; 2. Managing the recruiting and appointing process by reaching out to those in that pool; 3. Clarifying the rules, especially those concerning conflicts of interest and standards of conduct, that apply to federal officials; and 4. Easing the two-way transition between private and public sector employment, especially for younger and first-time presidential appointees. (Macy et al. 1983, xiii)
Ongoing concerns about the quality of political appointments led to NAPA's 1985 study of the presidential appointment system in which it surveyed more than five hundred present and former presidential appointees. Building on its earlier counsel to expand the pool of eligible applicants, NAPA made recommendations designed to improve the ability of the selection system to provide capable political appointees for government leadership. It focused on policy knowledge and administrative experience as the primary criteria for appointees; transition planning that begins shortly after the nominating conventions; streamlining of Senate examinations, FBI investigations, and OPM processes; simplification and liberalization of financial disclosure requirements; and a ban on discussions of private sector employment while in office.
To encourage longer tenure, NAPA recommends pay increases, severance pay to ease the transition out of government service, bonuses for those who stay more than three years, promotion within the ranks of appointees, reimbursement for job-related expenses, and support for networking and team-building efforts for appointees' spouses and families, as well as for the appointees themselves.
As did other studies, this NAPA report recommended a scaling back
 
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of appointed positions and reconversion of political positions to career posts as a way to tighten up the bureaucracy, as well as to address morale problems within the career executive force (NAPA 1985, 1-2).
NAPA's 1988 report had some forty-five recommendations for the presidential transition, twelve involving presidential appointees, many reaffirmed from the earlier study. New recommendations include:
1. The outgoing administration should prepare position lists, job descriptions, and a record of past personnel practices for the candidates; 2. Additional staffing should be provided temporarily to the offices responsible for the appointment and confirmation process; 3. The president should establish authority for personnel selection, balancing cabinet officers' needs with presidential prerogatives; 4. The president must set clear and high ethical standards for all public officials and respond swiftly and surely to any ethical lapses. (NAPA 1988, ix-x)
Additionally, the report urges the president to make a clear and public affirmation of the value of public service (particularly that of career employees) to the nation.
The Twentieth Century Task Force
While the career service was addressed in part by the NAPA studies, the Twentieth Century Task Force sought to address directly the problems plaguing the Senior Executive Service. The task force makes numerous recommendations to professionalize and reward senior career executives, with an eye toward excellence in government. It suggests that SES career executives be fully integrated into policy formation circles, dispensing with the notion of a politics-administration dichotomy once and for all.
It's time to challenge the traditional justification that a president needs a loyal staff, sensitive to the administration's policy initiatives. . . . Overwhelming evidence supports the fact that career administrators, with few exceptions, follow political leadership faithfullya fact that all modern presidents have ignored early, and embraced late, in their terms. . . . A strong case can be made that the number of political appointees in the federal government should be cut dramatically, with a corresponding extension of the career service to the assistant secretary or even undersecretary level. (Huddleston 1987, 63)

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