Malign Neglect: Evidence That Delay Has Become the Primary Method of Defeating Presidential Appointments

Bond, Jon R.; Fleisher, Richard; Krutz, Glen

doi:10.1080/07343460903172788

Cited by 39 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The minority party now routinely uses it to influence policymaking and to block the confirmation of presidential nominees. 33 Consequently, unlike the House, high levels of party polarization in the Senate tend to lower the success rate of both majority and minority presidents. Thus, differences in the way that party polarization conditions the relationship between party control and presidential success in the House and Senate explain the changes in the predictive power of the BFW model.…”

Section: Results Of the Updated Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Placing Presidential-Congressional Relations in Context: A Comparison of Barack Obama and His Predecessors

Cohen

Bond

Fleisher

2013

Polity

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What better accounts for Barack Obama's success with Congress, his political skills, or aspects of the political context, such as party control of Congress and public approval? To address this question, we update the Bond-Fleisher-Wood (BFW) political context model through 2010. The BFW model accounts for Obama's success vis-à-vis the House, and, to some extent, for the Senate as well. This article argues that increasing party polarization affects the relationship between party control and presidential success differently in the House and Senate. In the supermajoritiarian Senate, greater partisanship diminishes the effects of party control-in other words, as party polarization increases, presidential success declines for both majority and minority presidents. A comparison of Obama's success with that of previous presidents facing a similar context reveals no evidence that Obama has won significantly more often than should be expected given the context. Polity (2013) 45, 105-126.In his first two years in office, Barack Obama could boast of enactment of several landmark pieces of legislation, including economic stimulus, financial industry reform, health care reform, major tax legislation, and repeal of the "Don't AskDon't Tell" policy with regard to gays serving in the military. His success in sponsoring legislation also seems quite impressive. During his first years in office, his legislative proposals won 93 and 86 percent of House votes and 98 and 75 percent of Senate votes. The average success rates for other presidents, who like him, benefited from majority control were 77.5 in the House and 73.9 in the Senate. Given the gridlock, partisan bickering, and party polarization that

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Section: Results Of the Updated Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Placing Presidential-Congressional Relations in Context: A Comparison of Barack Obama and His Predecessors

Cohen

Bond

Fleisher

2013

Polity

Self Cite

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“…Because there is little variation in confirmation vote totals, many studies of appointments have focused on appointment delay as an important and useful aspect for examination (Binder and Maltzman 2002;Bond et al 2009;Massie et al 2004;Martinek et al 2002;McCarty and Razaghian 1999;Nixon 2001;Nixon & Bentley 2006). The delay itself is politically meaningful and it serves as a proxy for the difficulty of reaching a compromise between the president and the Senate.…”

Section: Literature and Appointment Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even scholars who specialize in appointment politics, it might be argued, tacitly admit the dysfunction of the U.S. system, because delay in filling posts is one of the most common metrics employed for empirical analysis (Bell 2002;Binder and Maltzman 2002;Bond, Fleisher, and Krutz 2009;Dull et al 2012;Massie, Hansford, and Songer 2004;Martinek, Kemper, and Van Winkle 2002;McCarty and Razaghian 1999;Nixon 2001;O'Connell 2009;Shipan and Shannon 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While partisan and ideological conflict between the president and Senate have been usefully explored in empirical analyses of U.S. appointments (Binder and Maltzman 2002;Bond et al 2009;McCarty and Razaghian 1999), the identities of the nominees themselves (particularly their gender and racial identities) seem an enormously important and under-explored component of appointment politics. Consider discussion of the nomination of Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor (the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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InstitutionalConflict andPerceivedPropertyRights inAppointmentPolitics

Nixon

2014

Congress & the Presidency

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Despite the importance of political appointees in U.S. politics, most of what we know about bureaucratic appointment centers on institutional conflict between the separate legislative and executive branches, and ignores personal qualities of nominees that so often seem pivotal to the selection debate. Using data drawn from every appointment to four U.S. independent regulatory agencies, I present empirical evidence that perceived property rights relating to party, race, and gender of appointees powerfully structure appointment process and outcomes. A new model of race and gender of appointees demonstrates that race and gender of an appointee's predecessor is a significant predictor of who gets selected. A separate model of appointment duration demonstrates that partisan factors significantly contribute to delay, but that race and gender considerations do not significantly extend vacancies.

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“…After years of endemic delay in which nominations have been delayed to death through "malign neglect" (Bond et al 2009), Senate Majority Leader Reid finally took the Senate "nuclear" in November 2013 by using a reform by ruling to reduce the cloture threshold on nearly all nominations to a simple majority vote. This reform was quite controversial, and it risks changing the Senate rules structure unpredictably and irreversibly.…”

Section: Nominations and The Nuclear Optionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Value of Time in the US Senate: A Fellow’s Perspective on Obstruction

Ostrander

2015

APSC

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Malign Neglect: Evidence That Delay Has Become the Primary Method of Defeating Presidential Appointments

Cited by 39 publications

References 19 publications

Placing Presidential-Congressional Relations in Context: A Comparison of Barack Obama and His Predecessors

Placing Presidential-Congressional Relations in Context: A Comparison of Barack Obama and His Predecessors

InstitutionalConflict andPerceivedPropertyRights inAppointmentPolitics

The Value of Time in the US Senate: A Fellow’s Perspective on Obstruction

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