APPOINTMENT DATA BASE CREATION AND MAINTENANCE
Updated Friday, February 08, 2008 07:15 PM
The Transparency Appointments Data Base is a comprehensive list of appointments of all sorts by a Presidential Administration. The total number of appointments in the federal governments is apparently an unknown number, or at best, extremely difficult to find. This is partly a function of the complexity of the United States Federal system. It is also a function of the people in government who wish to keep information about appointments out of the general realm of public information - for as many reasons as there are players. Each of those situations deepens the opaque nature of the government. Prying the information out into the public is both complex and tedious. Whatever we know from June 1, 2007 forward is on the Confirmations Countdown Page.
White House Personnel Appointment Press Releases
The White House releases names of appointments which require Senate confirmation on an almost daily basis on business days. There is a certain amount of biographical information in some of those announcement. Different administrations post the material in different ways. Review that information at The White House if you like. Historic information is shown at the lower left of the daily page. Non-confirmation appointments and ceremonial appointments are sometimes posted as well.
Our researchers proceed in the following way to extract the information and post it:
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Copy data from source White House page and paste into a word processor blank page.
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Delete extraneous formatting and print.
- Enter LAST name of nominee, then FIRST name, nominee's political party (R, D, I, etc.), State (MI, AL, MT, etc.), name of the nomination edited for clarity, but as provided by White House,
- Status of the nominations, i.e., nominated, hearing, confirmed, etc., followed by a date (1-30-00 format), each step showing approximate date of action, with the word "pending" immediately behind the status word. The "pending" information indicates the current status of the appointment.
- Biographical information provided by White House, if any. We may add additional information which we have. If the appointment is a term appointment, the term dates are indicated. If the appointee had prior appointments or positions, they are separated from the current material by a semicolon (;).
- The entry is formatted for type style and entered into the master list in alpha form.
Military Commissions and other Appointments
- Flag Appointments are generally included in this master data base. Other commissions are not included in the data base.
- Military Appointments by the President to particular positions are generally included in the list of appointments, regardless of rank, and managed exactly like other Presidential Appointments requiring Senate confirmation.
Ceremonial Appointments
The White House makes appointments for various ceremonies worldwide such as important funerals, inaugurations, and other important events. That information is included in the data directory, and on the Ceremonial Appointments page in this site.
Mistakes and Other Information
Presidential-Appointments.org receives information on incomplete information, corrections, and errors by e-mail at Director@Presidential-Appointments.org and at 816 504 3699. Such information is important to the completeness and accuracy of this entire site and is seriously appreciated. Thank you.