To what extent do presidents select appointees based upon campaign experience and connections? The answer to this question has important implications for our understanding of presidential management and political leadership. This paper presents a theory explaining where presidents place different types of appointees and why, focusing on differences in ideology, competence, and non-policy patronage benefits among potential appointees. We develop a formal model and test its implications with new data on 1,307 persons appointed in the first six months of the Obama Administration. The empirical results broadly support the theory, suggesting that President Obama was more likely to place appointees selected for non-policy patronage reasons in agencies off his agenda, in agencies that shared his policy views, and where appointees are least able to affect agency performance. We conclude that patronage continues to play an important role in American politics with important consequences for campaigns, presidential politics, and governance.Keywords: president, appointment, patronage, agency, appointee 1 Presidents and PatronageThe proper means of filling appointed government positions has been controversial since before the drafting of the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton argued that "the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce good administration" and lauded the Constitution's appointment process. 2 According to Hamilton, presidents would "investigate with care the qualities requisite to the stations to be filled" and thereby increase the chances that offices would be filled persons of ability. 3 Hamilton's defense of the Article II appointment powers rested upon the belief that presidential appointment would lead to the selection of persons on the basis of merit rather than personal connections, "private and party likings and dislikes…", or unseemly political exchange. 4 The long history of presidential appointments in the United States challenges Hamilton's optimism, at least for some positions and agencies (See e.g., Fish 1904; Friedrich 1937;Kaufman 1965;Skowronek 1982;Van Riper 1958;White 1948White , 1954Wilson 1887). Starting with George Washington, but accelerating notably under Andrew Jackson and his successors, presidents have named persons to administration jobs at least partly in exchange for electoral or political support.Reformers hoped to curb the excesses of the spoils-based personnel system with the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883; however, actual results fell short of their aspirations. 5 Indeed, despite 2 Rossiter, ed. 1961. Federalist 68, 414. Hamilton particularly lauded the Constitution's mode of selection relative to other possible modes such as legislative selection.3 Rossiter, ed. 1961. Federalist 76, 456. 4 Ibid. 5 22 Stat. 403 (1883). For accounts of the enactment of the act see Johnson and Libecap 1994, ch. 2; Skowronek 1982, ch. 3; Theriault 2003. 2 Presidents and Patronage the enactment of the Pendleton Act and subsequent reforms, tho...

Much of the bureaucratic literature suggests that, when staffing the bureaucracy, executives want agents who are both responsive to their political needs and possess the competence needed to fulfill their directives. However, institutional barriers-such as the requirement for legislative confirmation-exist that may make pursuing a strategy of responsive competence difficult, if not impossible. Here, I examine a model of bureaucratic appointments that allows for informationally imperfect agencies. I show that when legislative assent is required, trade-offs between ideology and either patronage or agency performance-or both-are often required to ensure legislative confirmation. The same dynamics are not present for unilateral appointments. Finally, using a data set that incorporates the ideologies of federal program managers, the performance of federal programs, and whether program managers were patronage appointees, I conduct a series of empirical tests that support the model's predictions.

Pundits, politicians, and political scientists alike often bemoan the long delays in filling both executive and judicial vacancies. However, most political science scholarship has ignored why executives delay nomination, instead focusing on why legislatures delay confirmation. In this article, I develop a formal model that seeks to explain the causes and consequences of both types of delay. By incorporating the effects of time, nominee competence, and nonpolicy incentives, the model provides a number of important findings: (1) the passage of time exacerbates the executive’s first-mover advantage and may result in less-competent nominees; (2) confirmation delay results when the executive’s costs of searching for new nominees are sufficiently high and/or the pool of potential candidates for nomination is sufficiently incompetent; and (3) nomination delay results when the executive’s internal vetting process indicates a candidate for nomination is sufficiently incompetent relative to the pool of potential nominees.

We apply recent advances in machine learning to measure Congressmember personality traits using floor speeches from 1996 to 2014. We also demonstrate the superiority of text-based measurement over survey-based measurement by showing that personality traits are correlated with survey response rates for members of Congress. Finally, we provide one empirical application showcasing the importance of personality on congressional behavior.

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