It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
It’s really eerie to watch the Bush administration meander along ruining the implementation of all these efforts to shore up the financial sector while the world of journalism is left to wonder who’s going to run which departments in an Obama administration. And even though the Obama-Biden Transition has thus far been one of the fastest and smoothest in American history, there are still many, many, many additional levels of transitioning to be done. Tim Geithner is going to be Secretary of the Treasury. But who’s Deputy Secretary? Who’ll be his Chief of Staff? His Deputy Chief of Staff? His Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Policy? His Deputy Assistant Secretary for Government Financial Policy? Just look at how many senior staff positions there are to fill.
It’s worth recalling at moments like these that things don’t have to be this way. In a parliamentary system of government, the leader of the opposition would have been expected to compose a shadow cabinet before the election and then the new team could just be snapped into place. And at the same time, most countries don’t have nearly the volume of political appointees that the United States does — just a handful per department, not dozens like we have.
46 Responses to “It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way”
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November 24th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Matthew thinks that political appointees actually are a benefit to us –that delays in appointing them will hurt the republic.
Socrates could have made up an entire Dialogue examining the dubious nature of that assertion.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Maybe excavation of Herculeanum in Italy will uncover a long-lost work recorded by Plato: “Summerus”
November 24th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Oh come on.
It’s as if Matt has never seen the endless negotiations on what post each of the minor parties gets after the election in a Parliamentary system.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
And in parliamentary systems, as elections approach, the permanent civil service is usually spending time drawing up departmental plans to reflect manifesto commitments.
Though to play devil’s advocate, the Yes, Minister attitude of the mandarins usually kicks in, making radical insitutional change more difficult.
And a parliamentary system certainly doesn’t preclude a Winter of Discontent, or stop a government with a small working majority running into a Black Wednesday from governing for another four and a half years.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
In a parliamentary system Obama would never have been Prime Minister.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
And at the same time, most countries don’t have nearly the volume of political appointees that the United States does — just a handful per department, not dozens like we have.
That’s because our Department structure was designed in the 1790’s for dozens or hundreds of people. We can reorganize down (so that there is the Army, the Navy and Defense) and then have the political structure on top no longer defined by statute, but that would require Congress get over its perpetual need to create czars.
Further, of course, there are endless variations on which politicians gets what seat, and a Parliamentary system won’t fix that.
max
['When the EU is a nation and has a functional parliamentary system, then you'll have an argument.']
November 24th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
What I’m pissed about is how the media was complicit in the McCain campaign’s “presumptuous” message any time the slightest bit of information came out about what Obama was doing to prepare for post-election. Instead, they should have been reporting that it would be gross negligence NOT to be planning. And, indeed, again we have a situation where Obama’s people kept their cards quite closely held. No way are they this far along less than three weeks (3!) after the election without having done a hell of a lot of early preparation. And what’s the media message today: Why isn’t it faster?
But I agree, the government team should be part of future campaigns, if not in 2012, then certainly 2016 after Obama successfully gets an amendment passed to move up the inauguration to early-December.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Always substitute “in the Anglo-Saxon parliamentary systems” when Matt writes “Matt says “In a parliamentary system of government”.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
evie, I haven’t heard any media message that the transition should be faster. On the contrary, I’ve heard reports that Obama is naming his cabinet faster than any previous president-elect.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I’m sure that Don and his new friend Socrates have lots to talk about, and some of it may even be germane, but in the meantime I agree wholeheartedly with Matthew. The length of the transition may have made sense in the early nineteenth century but even the shortening of the 1930s was insufficient for its time and having a nearly 3-month transition in the 21st century is the political equivalent of leeching the sick. And yes, even though Jeebus himself wrote the U.S. Constitution, it would be an extraordinary improvement over the current cumbersome system to have a shadow government in the form of professional politicians always ready to replace the current group of clowns whenever the voters decide they’ve had enough.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
“it didn’t have to be this way.” well, yes according to the us constitution it did.
and in order for it to “not have to be this way” all you have to do is invent a time machine and go back to philadelphia in the summer of 1787….or…i suppose you could try to amend our entire system of government, via the process allowed in the constitution, but good luck with that.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
“It’s as if Matt has never seen the endless negotiations on what post each of the minor parties gets after the election in a Parliamentary system.”
Only in countries with either proportional representation, or
strong regional parties. In the UK, with first-past-the-post voting and two dominant parties, the minority parties never get any appointments. Interestingly, that has been true even when
the party forming the government lacked an absolute majority.
Probably because a general election in a parliamentary system
is really a huge and somewhat random shake-up, such a crapshoot
that any party leader may lose their post if it turns out badly.
Parliamentary systems have their own issues, but difficulty
in forming a government is not at all an inherent feature.
Whereas in fact under the US Constitution, even if the custom
and practice changed to involve formation of a Shadow Cabinet before the election, there’s still the big problem that all the higher jobs are subject to Senate confirmation, making it
really hard to staff the new administration until months after
the election.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
there’s still the big problem that all the higher jobs are subject to Senate confirmation, making it
really hard to staff the new administration until months after
the election.
Regarding this — when will the hearings happen? Can that be going on in December/January, or will it have to wait until after the inauguration?
Typing this, I guess that there’s no more Congress this year, right? So it can’t be done in December; but can it happen between the new Congress convening in early Jan and the inauguration?
November 24th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I’m concerned about the calls for a shorter transition. Does anyone remember 2000? What about the recount going on right now in Minnesota?
We need time to be able to resolve a close election.
(Also, in the event of a Congressional battle over counting EVs we need time to have such a battle in January with the new Congress. If there were successful third parties that got EVs that would be a normal feature.)
November 24th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
well, yes according to the us constitution it did.
The US constitution was not brought down from Mount Vernon on tablets inscribed by the Almighty, nor was it intended to be treated as such.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Is this a real problem or just Matt’s noticing how big a government is? Is the administration seriously going not to have major appointments filled until some unworkable date, and is that rather than GOP resistance what is most likely to bring its work down? For that matter, does an English shadow cabinet really extend to the level of sub-sub-sub cabinet Matt is mentioning here? This post was just not thought through before hitting submit.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
“it didn’t have to be this way.” well, yes according to the us constitution it did.
There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution which would prevent presidential candidates from naming a shadow cabinet before taking office.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
For that matter, does an English shadow cabinet really extend to the level of sub-sub-sub cabinet Matt is mentioning here?
Not sub-sub-sub. As Matt notes, in Britain and most other parliamentary countries sub-sub-cabinet and sub-sub-sub-cabinet positions are generally held by career civil servants. But the Shadow Cabinet does more or less extend to all political appointees. See here for the official Tory opposition – it’s got about six people for each department.
It seems to me this is a decent argument for reducing the number of patronage positions, and increasing the number of civil service positions – should Assistant Secretaries really be political appointees? Wouldn’t there be a lot more continuity and expertise in these positions if they were career civil servants, like in virtually every other country in the world?
November 24th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I would have thought that yesterday’s highway robbery of the Treasury facilitated by Geithner (what? he’s been involved in all the shitiness of the past 5 years? omg!!1!1!!!) would have soured you on the notion of him becoming Treasury Secretary, let alone what Wall Street alums he’ll appoint for his Undersecretaries.
November 24th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Even in Westminster countries, things are not quite as straightforward as Matthew thinks. Only a PM who wanted to develop a reputation for weakness would assign cabinet positions to the precise individuals who had the shadow positions.
Also, there has been an Americanization of the senior civil service in both the UK and Canada, with the first minister’s office having much greater power (and being primarily political hacks) and with Deputies and Principal Secretaries becoming quasi-political appointments.
Still, it’s true that it would be over in a week or two, and most senior bureaucrats would remain for a little while.
November 24th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
The election was 3 weeks ago – where’s my pony?!!?
And my $250k+ job, and my bailout, and my tax cuts, and my new green economy – all delivered by George Clooney to my house!
November 24th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Given that we are unlikely to adopt a parliamentary system any time soon, we can at least move to amend our process and shorten the time between election and inauguration. I would say that one month is a perfectly adequate portion of time for a competent management team in this day and age to select the key cabinet positions, receive the necessary briefings and handle the most important administrative details. Other less important transitional matters can be handled after the new president takes office.
The long transition period is a relic of a bygone age, when the pace of information, decisions and the feedback effects of those decisions moved much more slowly than it does now. During prosperous and peaceful times, it might not matter much. But the United States cannot afford to be presidentless for two and a half months during a potential global economic meltdown. The whole situation is absurd, and Obama is in effect being forced to assume informal presidential duties while not doing violence to our hoary traditions and rituals.
November 24th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
“So it can’t be done in December; but can it happen between the new Congress convening in early Jan and the inauguration?”
Interesting question. I don’t know exactly, but my guess would be that nothing formal can happen until after the inauguration – Obama can’t actually officially nominate anyone until he’s really President ? But in fact a lot of the preparation can be done beforehand, so that he submits a bunch of nominations on
Jan 20th, and the relevant committees already have
and all the documents and research done and can start confirmation hearings right away. I read somewhere that the Obama transition team has
been conferring with the Senate leadership to ensure a smooth
and rapid confirmation process.
With a big Dem majority, which also leads to larger Dem majorities on the important committees, and Obama apparently tending to choose very experienced and highly-qualified people (and also vet them thoroughly), this should be quick and
painless.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Why do you have to have a parliament to announce the new cabinet before the election. I don’t see why these announcements shouldn’t start once someone gets their party’s nomination.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
most countries don’t have nearly the volume of political appointees that the United States does — just a handful per department, not dozens like we have.
Could this have something to do with the fact that most countries are much smaller than the US?
November 25th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Even in Westminster countries, things are not quite as straightforward as Matthew thinks. Only a PM who wanted to develop a reputation for weakness would assign cabinet positions to the precise individuals who had the shadow positions.
Hmm…in 1997, Brown was the Shadow Chancellor, Cook was the Shadow Foreign Secretary, and Straw was the Shadow Home Secretary, and they all got those jobs when Labor came in. Lesser posts do seem to have been shifted around a fair bit, though.
November 25th, 2008 at 1:20 am
Could this have something to do with the fact that most countries are much smaller than the US?
Not particularly. Britain, e.g., is about 20% the size of the US, but the national government also has a lot more responsibility there than in the United States, since local government is far less powerful in the UK (or, at least, in England). Furthermore, there’s a certain minimum size to the upper levels of bureaucracy that doesn’t scale down too well, from what I understand. For instance, both Britain and the United States would need somebody who can be in charge of foreign policy towards Africa. That Britain is a smaller country wouldn’t affect this.
The basic issue is that in Britain, only the top four or five people in each department are political, the rest are professional civil servants, wheras in the US there are dozens of people in each department who are political appointees. And in Britain, there’s also the permanent undersecretaries, who are career civil servants who are basically more important than everyone but the cabinet minister himself.
November 25th, 2008 at 3:55 am
On the other hand, in a Westminster-style parliamentary system, you couldn’t appoint a professional civil servant like Geithner to the top of a department. You’d have to pick a member of the House of Representatives to do it instead.
November 25th, 2008 at 5:19 am
It’s a sign of how seriously the US takes the various bits of its government that there is one huge and important arm of the state that has almost no political appointees, but is entirely run (below the cabinet and sub cabinet levels) by career officials – the armed forces.
Imagine if every change in government meant that, say, a new commander of each army division had to be named and confirmed. Every warship gets a new captain. (Maybe someone who has never served in the forces before!)
November 25th, 2008 at 5:22 am
On the other hand, in a Westminster-style parliamentary system, you couldn’t appoint a professional civil servant like Geithner to the top of a department. You’d have to pick a member of the House of Representatives to do it instead.
Actually not true – to take the UK analogy, Geithner is kind of the head of the Financial Services Authority, the British financial regulator, and the new PM wants to make him Chancellor of the Exchequer. All he has to do is make him a life peer first – Lord Geithner – and then he can be appointed to the Cabinet, which can be drawn from either House. (Recent examples: Lord Sainsbury was science minister and Lord Drayton was defence procurement – both were life peers.)
But in a parliamentary system without a House of Lords, yes, you’re right.
November 25th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Ajay – the Chancellor of the Exchequer has to be a member of the House of Commons. This has basically been true since the 18th century.
It is technically true that you could appoint a peer for most other cabinet positions, but at this point this basically isn’t true any more – other than the Leader of the House of Lords, more or less all cabinet members basically have to be in the commons these days. In the current cabinet, other than Lady Royall, the Leader of the House of Commons, there’s only Lord Mandelson (the former Peter Mandelson), Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise, and Regulatory Reform, and he’s the first Lord to head a major department in some time (besides the Lord Chancellor, who was always a lord until a couple of years ago).
This can certainly be done for sub-cabinet appointments, though.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:26 am
If I can give 2 pence worth. The UK used to have a show called Yes Minister in which on his 1st day a minister went into his office and started asking what he would now do and was basically told to just sit at his desk. He was eventually told by the permanent undersecretary (I’m paraphrasing heavily) that civil servants do the actual work and government merely informs policy. It’s what I always tell people who say vacuous stuff like “The Liberal Party couldn’t rule Britain they wouldn’t know what to do”.
Political appointees placed in governmental roles are effectively people in jobs for which they have no specific training or experience
November 25th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Nope. In a parliamentary system like the Spanish one, the Prime Minister can appoint anyone to the position of minister. Simply, they have no vote when they go to Parliament. In Zapatero’s government prior to the last election, half of the ministers weren’t even members of the governing party (nor of any other).
November 25th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Well, we wouldn’t be having this redunce-dancy problem if even a moderately courageous handful of the invertebrate US Congress (maybe 12 of 535) had honored their oaths of office to “support and defend the constitution against all enemies, both foreign and Cheney” at any time since, say, March 19, 2003.
It’s kind of a hoot now to hear those who called “impeach-niks” traitors, idiots, conspiracy theorists (FYI, “conspiracy” is “two or more persons” who hatch and plot and take one (1) step in furtherance of it) saying now that Bush should quit.
The drill should be: Cheney and Bush resign; Nancy “Off the Table” Pelosi takes over for the holidays (which will have to be working holidays, because it takes a surprisingly long time to give away $1 Trillion or so of the taxpayers’ fiat money), and Obama takes the official Meaningless Oath (Art II, §1, US Const.) at low noon on Jan 20, 2009.
And the same-old, “new”-old Wall Street-Military-Industrial-Legislative-Executive-Branch complex take up their accustomed places as the last bars of “Hail to the Chief” echo into silence. At least the First Depression of the XXI-th (or XXIst, if you translate it) Century will “reduce the excess population,” as Ebenezer put it before he was visited by the sepulchral terrorists.
God help us, every one.
November 25th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Actually, the UK is .025% of the size of the U.S, not 20%. Just sayin.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Population, Jo, not land area.
November 25th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
At any rate, the U.K. by land area is 2.5% the size of the U.S., not 0.025%. That’s a 100-fold difference.
November 26th, 2008 at 12:04 am
There are quite a few differences, not least the fact that the UK counts votes by hand, a process that is invariably complete within a few days (even with recounts) and is decided in 95% of constituencies on election night.
The Shadow cabinet does not automatically take over the ministries that they shadowed. Although Labour requires the first cabinet to be taken from the elected shadow cabinet.
The much bigger difference is that a UK cabinet minister is elected as well as appointed and that puts him in a very different position to a US minister who serves only at the pleasure of the President.
I suspect we will in fact see a move to shorten the lame duck period by another month or so. But remember that most Presidents do not fill all the appointee slots till June or July. Confirmation hearings take a lot of time.
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