The President's Call: Executive Leadership From FDR to George Bush (81 page)

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Authors: Judith E. Michaels

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ticular position. In most cases it provides a summary of the FBI investigation but not the raw data to the Senate, so each committee requires its own forms to elicit information it thinks important. One question on the Senate form asks if there is anything in one's background that would be an embarrassment to the nominee. "The forms are public information so whatever you tell them is indeed going to embarrass you," one PAS observed dryly, having found out too late that copies of his completed forms were out on a table at his nomination hearing for anyone, including the press, to take. He speculated that the hassles involved in the process caused 5 to 15 percent of potential nominees to withdraw from the process enroute.
On the other hand, the FLRA's Talkin described her confirmation as slow but "a breeze. Senator Glenn [chair of Governmental Affairs], sets rules and follows them." She observed, however, that the confirmation process itself was the real lesson in how to get through it. "You need to have someone to guide you through it, tell you to contact senators' staff, schedule meetings, etc." Nominees may meet with or pay courtesy calls on as many as fifty senators or their top staff.
The SEA's Jerry Shaw termed the Senate confirmation process a mystery. He could not see "any real reason why one person got confirmed and another got worked over," whether for political or qualifications reasons. "Most of the confirmations are very quiet processes," he stated.
Tedious, drawn-out confirmations do more than slow down the political process and hamper agency operations. They can also wreak havoc in an individual's personal life, as mentioned above. One PAS's confirmation took eleven months due to "political games." The uncertainty meant he could not move his family to Washington. By the time he was at last confirmed, his children were well into a new school year and his wife had finally accepted a promotion in her job. He ended up commuting home every weekend. His was not a unique case.
The White House and its agencies use subtle and not-so-subtle means of persuasion to get recalcitrant candidates to sign on for the long, difficult, and sometimes offensive confirmation process. Often desperate themselves for warm bodies, they implore candidates to take the job, telling them how much they need them and that they cannot find anyone else to take a particular position, while they "hum the national anthem in the background," as one said. For those who did not really want the job and had to be courted (and there are quite a few and many turn-downs), the subsequent intrusive investigations, protracted confirmation process, public exposure, and skirmishes between the legislative and executive branches constituted an insult that continued to sting years later.
Another PAS felt that the chilling effect of the process had a negative
 
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impact on the quality of people willing to enter short-term government service.
It's hard to get top people into public service, with the investigations and deep digging into one's private affairs, expectations that political appointees be perfect, never have any problems and be shot at all the time. Who wants that? The result of the unrealistic situation in which [PASs] are expected to serve is that the government doesn't get the most creative, fit, or qualified people in public service.
Newman agreed: PASs serve only at the pleasure of the president and can be fired instantly with no severance pay. They also face ethics restrictions of one or two years during which they cannot lobby their former agency, with some activities barred for life. Given all this, "the job kind of loses its charm," she observed.
PASs within the federal workforce are invariably pulled in two directions at once, inward and outward, causing the personal and political conflict of divided loyalties. Not unlike the careerists, they are judged on two criteria that may be contradictorycompetence and political responsiveness. Drawn inward into their agency and its needs, they must provide leadership to and oversight of their career staff. The respect accorded them internally is based in large measure on their competence at managing their agency.
At the same time, PASs are pulled outward into the White House and its demands. In that arena they are judged primarily according to their responsiveness, their ability and willingness to adhere to the president's policy objectives, even if that spells a shrinking mission or budget for their own agency.
In addition, part of PASs' job is to represent both their agency and the White House to the Congress. Not only do they have to deal with this prime player (Congress), but they may also have contradictory impulses related to their bifurcated responsibilities (to their agency and to the White House and its very powerful OMB).
While, on balance, the many strains of their job are outweighed by the satisfaction they derive from it, stress, not unrelated to their dual loyalties, is an ever-present and largely unhealthy feature of PAS life.
Relations with the White House and OMB
The Bush White House was felt by some appointees to be populated by lesser lights than in Reagan's day, though some felt Bush had recently begun to "pump up the White House with heavy people." Its Presidential
 
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Personnel Office came in for some criticism. Said one PAS, "The PPO has gotten progressively worse from Carter onwardBush's is the worst."
Although there were some informal White House briefings, they were not felt to be of much help. This PAS expressed a desire for a more formalized training system, especially training in politics and "how the town works" for those new to Washington.
Even though conservative Reagan Democrats were the Democrats most likely to be in the IRCs, for them, relations with the Republican White House were "still like being a fish out of water to be in the off-party community," though one PAS observed that "being a Democrat in a Republican administration is a lot easier if you are in agreement with the administration's policy." As a conservative Democrat who liked Reagan's economics, however, he felt "it's harder to know what Bush stands for; he's a backslider."
Gail McDonald, Democratic vice-chair of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), observed the pressure the 1992 election imposed on new appointments: "The PPO is turning even more hard right as the election nears; there's more [anti-]abortion pressure." An ongoing dynamic between her agency and the White House was that the Republicans since Reagan had been trying to close down the ICC, the nation's oldest IRC, and were particularly determined to abolish its office of public assistance.
One Republican PAS felt that the Bush people were more political than the Reagan people, to the point of removing "Reagan-appointed chairs from IRCs because Bush didn't want any Reagan people heading any of the agencies. The Reagan people were better mannered, more communicative; the Bush people are rude and crude," she said.
The Bush White House was at least consistent in its ethical stance, according to the OGE's Steven Potts, who, with somewhat faint praise, called it "more a help than a hindrance." He judged OMB as also being helpful.
PASs' opinions of OMB were often directly related to whether or not OMB had taken aim at their budget. Relations seemed to be workable as long as the PAS's agency or program was not on OMB's hit list and the agency did not ask for any budget increase. As one PAS explained, he has "fine relations with the White House and OMB. I'm reasonable; I don't seek to expand my programs. The OMB is amenable to reasonable arguments."
As Frank Keating, HUD's general counsel, noted, White House intervention in agency affairs "depends on the degree of the president's interest in the agency's issues. What shows up on the president's radar screen"
 
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is what attracts OMB's budget axe, the most direct way an administration forces agency or policy compliance. He called HUD's relationship with OMB "difficult but professional. OMB sees itself as the self-proclaimed conscience and soul of the administration, though not necessarily the last word. If there are disputes between HUD and OMB, the White House counsel or others in the White House break the tie."
Talkin judged relations with the White House to be good. "It never interferes and OMB is easier on FLRA than it had been on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [where she had been chief of staff]. We get the money we need."
When IRCs do not get the money they feel they need there is one place of refuge from OMB's budget-cutting knife: Congress is the court of last resort when the administration's budget short-changes an agency. For example, the White House forced the ICC chair to accept a substantial staff cut over the unanimous objections of the commissioners and sought to micromanage the commission by directing a department-by-department budget breakdown. Over White House objections, McDonald and the other Democratic commissioners were able to persuade the Congress to restore the budget to its current level.
Said one PAS, whose IRC has good relations with both the White House and Congress (and which also employed only a little more than half of its allotted number of employees), "We have good relations with OMB-and Congress is there to help raise limits if OMB balks."
A consistent theme among the PASs was the frustrations that arose with OMB when its budget watchdog role slipped into a policy role. These comments came from conscientious PASs trying to do too large a job on too little money. One PAS felt that "OMB has been too constraining of funding for my agency. It has suppressed our ambitions; it controls everything. There are twenty-four steps in the appropriations process and OMB controls every gate in terms of what the administration brings to the Congress in that interaction."
One assistant secretary said, "In relation to OMB, mostly what I do is deal with conflict. I need nearly twice as much money to do the job I've been given, but I can't get it. OMB is very rigid and difficult to deal with, but that's their role and function and they do a good job at it."
Because OMB speaks for the administration and makes budget decisions, "it is very powerful and has gotten stronger over time. It is literally the gatekeeper on any major policy or legislation." OMB's power extends beyond the budget, as well. Said one PAS, "The department and OMB prescreen my testimony before Congress and change it if they don't like it.
 
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Dancing to the tune of the political arena is all part of the bureaucracy."
OMB's method of control came in for severe criticism from another PAS, who observed the power of long-term careerists there.
At all levels, political and career, OMB consistently serves to thwart, limit, and derail new, exploratory initiatives and fundamental policy creation and idea formulation. OMB should be held accountable down to the GS-12 level careerists who badger and "instruct" senior PAS officials through testimony and other policy. OMB's culture is not to help or assist, but to intimidate and even ridicule. Political appointees have to yell and escalate the conflict to get it kicked up to the White House. Once you have their attention they will support the political people, but otherwise the careerists at OMB run things.
The Independent Regulatory Commissioners
The one group among the survey respondents that was overrepresented was the 42 percent of the PASs (seventy-five individuals) who indicated they held a statutory term appointment in an independent regulatory commission, or IRC (the 141 PAS allocated positions in this category comprise 22 percent of the 639 PAS allocated positions). Apparently, nearly twice as many term-appointed PASs as their overall percentage in the Bush PAS Survey universe responded to the survey. Although at any given time there is a certain number of vacant positions, it is likely that the term nature of the appointment makes for a lower vacancy rate for IRC appointees than for the other PASs, which may explain in part its overrepresentation.
This group is composed largely of those serving on the thirty-one regulatory agencies, collegial bodies, and commissions in the executive branch (herein referred to collectively as IRCs). The Democratic and Independent appointees and survey respondents are most likely to be in these positions as most of these bodies are required by statute to have no more than a majority from one party. Members of such bodies usually number three to five and serve fixed terms, generally from four to six years, though some may serve longer (as in the Fed, whose seven commissioners serve fourteen-year terms).
Another group within this designation does not sit on such commissions but does serve in term appointments. It is composed of such persons as the surgeon general, the director of the National Institutes of Health, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, the postmaster general, and the director of the FBI. They were included in the Bush PAS Survey because they are located in the executive branch.

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