| The Appointments-Process Mess--What Can Be Done? |
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| Transition to Governing Newsletter |
| Posted: Saturday, January 1, 2000 |
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| ARTICLES |
| Transition to Governing Project Newsletter, Fall 1999 |
| Publication Date: October 1, 1999 |
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| The process of selecting, vetting, and confirming presidential appointments has become increasingly lengthy and complex over the past forty years. While it took the new Kennedy administration 2.4 months on average to fill a position, it took the Clinton administration 8.5 months. In addition to the long process, presidential appointees of both parties complain about the endless forms and background checks, the increasingly adversarial confirmation hearings, and the invasion of privacy on inconsequential personal matters. The Transition to Governing Project is approaching the appointments process on several fronts. First, the project is collecting existing data on the extent of the problem. Second, it is hosting discussions with past and current presidential appointees, personnel directors, and key figures on Capitol Hill. Most recently, the project sponsored a luncheon at which Professor G. Calvin Mackenzie spoke about potential reforms to the appointments process. Third, the project is collecting and summarizing the many excellent legislative reforms, congressional rules and policy changes, and White House procedures that have been proposed by scholars and study groups over the past twenty years. Fourth, it is developing a software package to assist presidential nominees in filling out the myriad of forms required by government institutions. Many study groups in the past have recommended the adoption of a common form to be used by the White House, executive departments, the IRS, the FBI, and congressional committees. But these pleas have gone unheard, and appointees are still expected to fill out duplicative information in different formats. Given the competing jurisdictions, it is unlikely that all of the various institutions will adopt a common form in the near future. Recognizing that difficulty, the project will cut through the morass of forms with a technological solution, a software package, similar in its aims to Turbo Tax or college application software. The software will allow appointees to enter basic personal, professional, and financial information on one form. The program will then enter this information on the many forms and walk the nominee through the remaining questions. The software is being developed by Martha Kumar of Towson State University and Terry Sullivan and Stephanie Haas of the University of North Carolina, under a subgrant agreement the project has made with the University of Maryland Foundation. |
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 In the latest edition of Middle Eastern Outlook, Ali Alfoneh examines the struggle between Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his critics inside Iran.
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