New administrations should place much greater priority in filling key positions significantly faster than before. Recent presidents have faced serious, unexpected challenges their first year in office—the World Trade Center bombing for Clinton, 9/11 for Bush, and the global economic crisis for Obama. It is essential that presidents are equipped with the key officials needed to address these challenges as soon as possible, a finding shared by the 9/11 Commission. To fill these positions faster, incoming administrations must prepare for transition much earlier, utilizing more available resources to do so. The Commission’s rational for making this a priority is detailed below in Exhibit 5:

Rationale for Filling Key Positions Faster – Exhibit 5

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Recent Presidents have faced enormous, unexpected challenges their first year in office:

• Clinton - World Trade Tower Bombing
• Bush - 9/11
• Obama - Financial system meltdown

Intelligence indicates our “enemies” know we are vulnerable the first year of a new administration

• New, untested leadership
• Many unfilled positions of note

The appointments record of the past three Presidents indicates the following types of positions were still vacant by the 100th day (May 1) of the first year

• About 50% of what most would consider to be the 75 most time-sensitive national security positions, the senior officials dealing with agency leadership, homeland defense, preparedness, intelligence, terrorism, response and/or border control.
• About 85% of the 70 senior public communications, legislative affairs, legal, management and budget officials Secretary and agency heads need to tackle new priorities and/or interact effectively with their employees, Congress, the American people, and state, local, and foreign governments.

As The 9/11 Commission Report recommended: “Since a catastrophic attack could occur with little or not notice, we should minimize as much as possible the disruption of national security policymaking during the change of administrations by accelerating the process for national security appointments.”

Obviously each President decides which positions he or she wants filled by May 1, to best attend to his or her priorities, the current crises, and the unexpected.

Exhibit 6 identifies the positions filled and not by May 1 (and the August recess) of the first year of each of the past 3 administrations, and indicates:

• None of the three Presidents filled enough of what any President would consider to be priority positions by May 1.
• There are clearly 100+ national security and agency management positions that any President would consider to be important to fill by May 1.

Future Presidents have to do better.

 

The Argument for Starting Personnel Selection and Transition Preparation Earlier, and Devoting More Selection and Vetting Staff to the Task Through the First 6 Months of Each New Administration

Early personnel selection and vetting work is very important. Looking at the past three administrations, the President (Obama) who did the most substantive personnel selection and vetting work before the general election and at the beginning of the transition was able to fill the most positions by May 1. Contrarily the President (Bush) who did the least substantive personnel and vetting selection work before the general election was finalized (because of the truncated transition) was able to fill the least number of positions by May 1.

President	Early Work	#PAS Positions Filled by May 1
		Total	Time-Sensitive
Clinton		49	40
Bush	Least	34	30
Obama	Most	74	66

The number of appointments made by March 15 the first year of a new administration tends to equal the number of confirmations/positions filled by May 1. Subsequently the number of appointments made between March 15 and June 15 the first year tends to equal the number of confirmation/positions filled between May 1 and the August recess.

Year 1
	Nominate	Confirm		Nominate	Confirm
President	<3/15	<5/1		3/15-6/15	5/1-8/Recess
Clinton	43	49		150	158
Bush	37	34		206	229
Obama	70	74		191	182
Avg.	50	52		182	190

Therefore future Presidents must nominate persons for the 100+ most time-sensitive positions by March 15 to have any chance of them being confirmed and in-place by May 1. Similarly they must nominate persons for 300+ positions between March 15 and June 15 to have any chance of them being confirmed and in-place by the August recess.

Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama each had about the same size PPO staff, an Assistant to the President (the PPO Director), a Deputy Assistant (Deputy Director), and 6 Special Assistants to the President, with appropriate staff and research support. Future Presidents will need to have 10 to 12 Special Assistant-level persons and related staff, or 50% to 100% more, in order to nominate persons to 50% to 100% more positions by March 15 and June 15. After June of the first year, future Presidents can reduce the number of PPO Special Assistants to the historical level of 6 to 7.

Part of utilizing more PPO staff before and during the transition and for the first 6 months of a new administration, is keeping the same staff persons in place during this period of time. Replacing a trained, productive staff person with a “rookie” is the same as losing a productive staff person for 2 or 3 months, until the new person can become proficient.