THE MISSION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS PAGE
Updated May 3 2008
The next two years will result in
many in new executive appointments throughout the Federal government.
2,500 of these will be those which require confirmation. In addition,
there is a continuing list of Federal judges and other lifetime appointments
that will be made during this period.
About 20,000 other non-career appointments will be made throughout the government, of which none require confirmation. A non-career appointment is one where the person is essentially a political appointee. These appointments turnover at the end of each administration or when there is a change in political party. The impact of the this set of appointments on the government functioning can be extremely important because they reflect the policy of the sitting administration. However, most people do not see the enormous importance of this set of appointments. These are not the ones that draw the major national press or closer scrutiny by politicians. Most of the serious difficultly in the administration during the last eight years has come from these appointees which are below the radar, and are not given the public supervision or understanding which the importance of their position may require.
A new political strategy during the current administration has been to leave positions open and thereby disable a functioning of certain important parts of the Federal system. In many required agencies the rules require that a certain number of the commissioners were appointed for the agency to make rules, determine fines, or otherwise function.
2-27-08 Both McCain and Obama are now drawing up campaign staffs for the General Election - and hundreds of politicians and other power brokers are busy giving away the thousands of patronage positions which will go the winning candidate for President in November 2008. Coming up with thousands of potential executive appointees across the country and across the world is no easy task - there will be scores - if not hundreds of candidates for every position. Every idea of manipulation, finagling, political back stabbing, political pay-off, nepotism and favoritism will be employed. Every political boss and campaign fund raiser will be running political lines about how to influence the White House and the "powers that be" along the way there. Wives will be imagining great balls at the Court of St James and other venues of power worldwide. Some will be struggling to find decent people to serve the people. We all ought to try encourage this last group.
As our experience with this page increases, the difficulties in identifying appointments related to any President become seriously apparent - even the government itself has trouble tracking positions. This comes from the enormous complexity of the appointments process - it does not suggest any skullduggery - but it does suggest that getting the strongest possible candidates into government service is a problem for the President - the candidates - and everybody in-between. The mission of this page is changing to develop ways to identify and catalogue potential positions.
Transparency In Appointment Personnel
Transparency - the ability to see what is really happening - to see through the confusion and intentional obfuscations that occur in any political setting - has become more and more important in the mission of Presidential-Appointments.org as our experience, and difficulty in tracking certain appointment settings increases. The policy of the Vice President of the United States to refuse to provide information about his employees to the public through the press or to other parts of the government is not a tolerable situation. That sort of arrogance is a long term guarantee of tyranny if ever tolerated. There are many other parts of the government where the impact is the same, although the schemes are different. The ultimate policy position is to work to get appointment information available to the general public without limitation. July 9 2007
The President of the United States appoints hundreds of citizens to a variety of posts - some as well known as his Cabinet Officers and Federal Judges. There are literally hundreds of other appointments made every year to other posts of extreme importance but with less notice. There are many positions which go unfilled for long periods of time, and some are rarely filled. There is never a time when serving under a personal appointment of the President is not important, and not an opportunity of extreme significance. Having served on the President's Commission for the Observance of the 25th Anniversary of the United Nations, called The United Nations Commission, I understand that the task of being appointed is a seriously difficult one, and that each of us, as citizens, needs to encourage qualified men and women to attempt to find a place of service on behalf of the Office of the President.
My own view is that serving the Head of State throughout all human history, serving the Royal Court in other forms of government, has a formula, a human formula for the way it works. Part of the task at hand is to civilize that which is a part of human nature so that such service fits the nature of a government which must be maintained for the people, rather than for the people who head it. Overcoming the extreme urges of human nature to control and be powerful, and be near power, is an enormous task. A limited political patronage system, however, brings a certain balance to overall government, including an immediateness and responsiveness which is not always a part of extended, entrenched bureaucracies. This contradiction in exercise of government authority is one of the lesser observed balances of power in many governments, including the government of the United States.
The Executive Branch of the United States, as represented by the President and the Executive Administration, is, quite obviously, a huge structure encompassing almost all of the personnel of the government. In this broader sense of the Presidency, many people serve appointments in many ways, some paid, some volunteer, some highly visible, some never noticed, but each with significant impact on some part of the nature of things in our society. This page and the effort behind it applies to people who are not civil servants or part of the permanent government, and not to elected officials. The work is to improve the quality of appointments and to help individuals and groups interested in impacting government through the Executive Branch of the United States.
As with many human experiences, working as an appointee, even on a limited basis, on behalf of the President and the United States, is a unique experience. As with being a parent, it can not be explained, only experienced in its totality. That experience is helpful, however, to those seeking to serve in such positions - in understanding the appointive process, which by its nature is chaotic and unreasonable - in gaining perspective about how this sort of service works - and finally, in just accumulating and focusing information about appointive service to the Nation.
For further information, contact:
Director@Presidential-Appointments.org
Thank you. John Isaacson 617 504 3699
Copyright 2002 - 2008 John Isaacson