Appointee vacancies in US executive branch agencies

Abstract

We analyse United States presidential appointee positions subject to Senate confirmation without a confirmed appointee in office. These “vacant” positions are byproducts of American constitutional design, shaped by the interplay of institutional politics. Using a novel dataset, we analyse appointee vacancies across executive branch departments and single-headed agencies from 1989 to 2013. We develop a theoretical model that uncovers the dynamics of vacancy onset and length. We then specify an empirical model and report results highlighting both position and principal–agent relations as critical to the politics of appointee vacancies. Conditional on high status positions reducing the frequency and duration of vacancies, we find important principal–agent considerations from a separation of powers perspective. Appointee positions in agencies ideologically divergent from the relevant Senate committee chair are vacant for less time than in ideologically proximal agencies. Importantly, this relationship strengthens as agency ideology diverges away from the chair and towards the chair’s party extreme.

Control without Confirmation: The Politics of Vacancies in Presidential Appointments

“…Instead, extant research cites vacancies as unfortunate consequences of turnover in a large administrative bureaucracy (e.g., Chang, Lewis, and McCarty 2001), confirmation delays (e.g., Binder and Maltzman 2002;Madonna and Ostrander 2017;Ostrander 2016) that are prolonged by nominee ideologies (e.g., Bonica, Chen, and Johnson 2015;Chiou and Rothenberg 2014), periods with divided government (e.g., McCarty and Razaghian 1999), or presidential delays in nomination due to the vetting process (O'Connell 2009). Just a handful of studies explicitly considers how presidents contribute to the accumulation of vacancies (O'Connell 2009;Hollibaugh 2015;Hollibaugh and Rothenberg 2017;Resh et al 2020), with a notable exception being Hollibaugh (2015), who does explore sustained vacancies as a deliberate strategy within a president's larger nomination strategy space. However, more work still needs to be done, as Hollibaugh's theoretical model considers only the timing of nominations and does not set them within a larger bargaining game over Senate confirmation.…”

“…E.g.,Chiou and Rothenberg (2014),Dull et al (2012), Hollibaugh (2015), Hollibaugh and Rothenberg (2017),Lewis (2008), O'Connell (2009), Ostrander (2016), andResh et al (2020).4 As discussed below, I define "expansion" as priorities to increase an agency's activities and policy output.…”

The Pivotal and Distributive Politics of Senate‐Confirmed Appointee Vacancies

“…Key pivots include the filibuster pivot (through the 112th Congress), the chamber median, and the relevant committee chair as primary gatekeepers for candidate selection (Cox and McCubbins 2005;Chiou and Rothenberg 2003;Resh et al 2021). These datasets are collected from two sources: (1) congressional committees assignment dataset from the work of Stewart and Woon (2017), 15 (2) congressional member ideology scores and member's biographical information (state, party, and name) from the work of Lewis and colleagues (2021).…”

“…Agencies typically base their decisions on a competitive application process 5. There is an ongoing debate as to the importance of party label in explaining legislators' voting decisions, particularly for agency leadership appointments (Resh et al 2021). Kinane (2021) argues that presidents may strategically prefer vacancies over spending the political capital necessary for confirmation.…”

“…As such, PAS provide representation for both, thereby allowing for potential disagreement over appointments and creating vacancies (Bertelli and Lynn 2006). Advice and consent powers allow the Senate to help determine these key administrative inputs, thereby influencing the output of policy toward its preferences (Bertelli and Grose 2011;MacDonald and McGrath 2016;Resh et al 2021).…”