The Merit and Reputation of an Administration: Presidential Appointees on the Appointments Process

Transcript

M. Armacost: Our Presidential Appointee Initiative, a project we have undertaken in partnership with The Pew Charitable Trusts, is the kind of project that hits "the sweet spot" of our mission at Brookings. It is important, and it is timely. It includes rigorous empirical research and the quest for practical remedies which can improve the performance of our government.

You all know we have a terrible problem getting high level presidential appointments in place. You are aware from the newspapers what a grueling ordeal the confirmation of presidential appointees has become. You all have read the horror stories in the press about the individuals that take months, sometimes years, to get through that process. You know the extraordinary expense that many individuals take on to fill out the repetitive forms. You know that at times irreparable damage is done to personal reputations, often on the basis of uncorroborated innuendo. And we know the consequences of this in terms of the difficulty or growing difficulty of recruiting talented people into public service. It reinforces the cynicism with which many look upon life in Washington. In many ways it forces administrations to forgo arguably the maximum opportunity for policy innovation, because the first months — indeed now most of the first year of an administration — is taken up selecting people for key jobs and getting them confirmed so that a team is in place.

So I think we are dealing this morning with a problem that is widely known. It is terribly important, it's timely and it's interesting.

We owe a huge debt to Paul Light for taking the initiative in getting this particular project going. He has been the director of our Center for Public Service over the past 15, 16 months; more recently became the director of our research program in government studies. And he brings a refreshing irreverence and good humor to a discipline of public administration that is often rather stodgy. And he has certainly brought an entrepreneurial spirit and a prolific scholarship to Brookings as an institution.

This project is more proactive than many, because we are not only seeking to find ways of improving the confirmation process, presidential appointment process, but we are also trying to provide a service to the next batch of appointees by helping them through this ordeal, and try to find some quick fixes that can speed the process after the November election.

We are also in debt to Jim Johnson, who is the chairman of the Brookings Institution, no stranger to anyone in Washington. Jim has not only provided a lot of intellectual stimulation to this particular endeavor, but he has provided a lot of personal financial support as well, and we are grateful.

We are very fortunate to have an extremely experienced and talented advisory council to guide the work of this project, both to offer substantive advice and to help mobilize the support on both sides of the aisle for the recommendations that we come up with. Happily Nancy Kassebaum-Baker and Frank Raines have agreed to co-chair that committee; Nancy bringing the deep experience from the Senate; Frank having gone through the confirmation process and exercised major executive branch managerial authority, experience through OMB.

And you will see from the materials in your packet that two former presidents, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, as well as three former majority leaders in the Senate, are also on that honorary advisory committee — Howard Baker, Bob Dole, Mike Mansfield — as well as a number of other prominent political and civic leaders. Senator Moynihan, I believe, will perhaps join us this morning, although that's not certain given the press of other business.

It's my pleasant duty also to acknowledge the partnership that we have with The Pew Charitable Trusts and to introduce the president and chief operating officer of The Pew Charitable Trusts, Rebecca Rimel. We are in the fortunate position of having been partners on a number of projects over the years, none more important than this particular one. And Rebecca Rimel came to her duties at Pew Charitable Trusts as a highly acclaimed leader in the field of health care. She was educated at the University of Virginia School of Nursing. She has an MBA from James Madison University, has published articles in scholarly and medical journals, a wide variety. We are most grateful to her for her cooperation on this project and financial support, and I would invite her to make some comments.

R. Rimel: Thank you for that overly generous introduction. While they call it "irreverent" in this town, you should hear what we call it in Philadelphia. [Laughter.]

This room seems ripe for a short quiz this morning. It will be brief, and it's multiple choice. So I assume that won't be too taxing. I am going to quote from a presidential inaugural address, and I want you to tell me who said this: "The task is above my talents. I approach it with anxious and awful foreboding, except for the presence of the many whom I see here who are resources of wisdom, of virtue and of zeal, and whom I can rely under all difficulties." Richard Nixon in '69, Bill Clinton in '93 or Thomas Jefferson in 1801? [Laughter.] Tough. Anybody going? There's not a million. Of course it was Thomas Jefferson. And this was one of his main points in the very brief speech that he gave, that the president never governs alone. Our fate and our future as a nation depend on getting the very best and brightest people into public service.

For the Founding Fathers civic responsibility was a bedrock principle of a healthy democracy. Jefferson was adamant about that time and time again. A nation that rests on the will of the people must also depend on individuals to support its institutions, he said. Then he focused specifically on government service. A person qualified for public office should feel some obligation to make that contribution. If not, public service will be left to those of lesser qualifications, and the government may more easily become corrupted.

He certainly didn't think that the work in the civic arena was easy. He spoke about the arduousness of government. And he didn't ignore the fact that a call to public service would have huge personal sacrifice and professional consequences.

In a virtuous government, he said, public offices are what they should be: burdens to those appointed to them, bringing intense labor and great private loss. And he certainly didn't expect office-holders to be beloved and admired. To bear the revilings and persecutions is part of his duty, he said, as a citizen-patriot. But with all those reservations, it is necessary to answer the call. He was adamant about it, time and time again. It would be wrong he said to decline.

With civic responsibility so critical and crucial to our health, the process by which we bring public citizens into public service ought to be supportive; it ought to be nurturing; and it ought to be accommodating. I think everybody in this room today joins me in understanding that it feels more like a hazing process, if you will. It is excruciating and it's wasteful and damaging to everyone involved. In fact, I think this is largely brought on by the partisan nature of politics today. Well, shame on us. And if we continue we are going to get exactly the democracy we deserve: an insider's game that is neither serving the public nor trusted by them either.

I think we must and can change our collective ways. Civil service is this country's highest calling. Those who are willing to accept it ought to be embraced by each of us, and they do so at enormous personal sacrifice.

We think that this initiative will help further restore that civic spirit. It's a wonderful example of reaching across ideological and partisan divides for the sake ultimately of a better government. If we were able to streamline the nomination process, entry into public service will definitely become more efficient and more effective, but no less rigorous. Toward recruiting and retaining our very best, there should be absolutely no barrier. The future of our country depends on it. And we can't let bureaucracy and bitterness, partisanship and pettiness get in our way. We need outstanding leadership and stewardship in this great country.

I would like to recognize Paul Light, because he has provided extraordinary leadership for this initiative, and we are very grateful. And also to add my thanks to Virginia Thomas for her outstanding leadership as well in the Heritage Foundation. And also to thank Senator Nancy Kassebaum-Baker and Frank Raines, two outstanding examples of public leadership.

For all that differentiates our best public leaders, both philosophically and politically, they share one thing in common: they are committed to promoting American ideals, and first and foremost a healthy democracy. Emphasizing the ties that bind us rather than what divides us is absolutely central to everything we do at The Pew Charitable Trusts, and this initiative I believe speaks volumes to that. We know that it is going to be successful, and we know you are going to make us proud. And, Paul, I know you are up to accepting this mission along with your colleagues, and for that we are grateful. Paul Light from the Brookings Institution. Thank you very much.

[Applause.]

P. Light: Irreverent me? [Laughter.] I'm looking at Norm Ornstein here. Well, this is a wonderful gathering, and in part because of the support from Pew I think. A lot of people in Washington are activated around working on this tilting at windmills activity that Pew launched, which is to renew American democratic life. So thanks to Rebecca Rimel, my dear friend and colleague Don Kimelman, who I worked on with that, Larry White who was the program officer who helped me through this.

Rebecca Rimel called about a year ago and said she had an idea. Now that I had left Pew and had been gone for about nine months, would I like to get into something small? And I accepted, and this project is a result of that work.

We wouldn't be here at all with all this wonderful material if we didn't have the help of two people in particular. So I want to recognize from the staff of the Presidential Appointee Initiative Sandy Stencel — where is Sandy? — she's in the back of the room — who joined us as executive director last year. She came to us from Congressional Quarterly and has been a terrific source of energy. Every word that you see printed on these pages went through Sandy's gifted hands and mind and we are grateful to have her.

I am also tremendously grateful for the help of Carole Plowfield, who has been involved in this project as associate director from the very beginning. She's the reason why we have these gorgeous pocket folders and this design. She insisted that if we were going to launch this project on April 28th, we were going to do it right. Even though I was sort of like "Let's go to Staples and get some folders and we'll put some things on them," Carole said we are going to do it right. And I think you can see her influence on the quality of this project, and Sandy's. So thank you to both of you today for your fine work.

[Applause.]

Jack Walter is sitting right in front of me. Jack was president of the National Academy of Public Administration back in 1984 when I went to NAPA. And actually this is Jack's project almost 15 years ago. We have been working on it and working on it and working on it. And I'll tell you, Rebecca, if we can't succeed with this kind of an array of talent and commitment, this kind of energy, it ain't going to be done. We have been working on it, and I think we actually have a moment in time where we can really make a difference.

This initiative is a labor of love that reflects a genuine concern among many people in this room that the current process is failing in its most basic responsibility: to recruit talented Americans to lead the world's greatest democracy. It's that simple. The project itself is designed with three goals. The first, as Mike Armacost mentioned, is to become a kind of H&R Block for presidential appointees. Now, we are not going to give presidential appointees tax advice. Neither Brookings nor Pew has that kind of a deep pocket. We are not going to provide form-filling advice. But we are going to provide basic information on what is happening in the process, so that appointees can get what they need in terms of just simple information. We are working with Pat McGinnis, who is sitting here, at the Council for Excellence in Government — a tremendous organization — to develop and publish the Survivor's Guide for Presidential Nominees. And, believe me, they need a survivor's guide. Pat is developing that with John Trattner, whom I think is in the room as well.

We are going to work with our colleagues at the University of North Carolina — Terry Sullivan is here someplace and Martha Kumar from the University of Maryland — to develop new software to help presidential appointees fill out the forms. You know, I said before that the first thing an appointee needs today is a correcting Selectric. There is a real secondary market for typewriters driven by the presidential appointments process. And I think we might need some legislation to adjust for the after effects of actually streamlining the forms. You also need a fair amount of correcting fluid, because the forms are so difficult to understand. And again we have been working on that for a good 15 years. And Martha and Terry are working on software to help appointees actually fill out the forms on-line, so that they don't need the typewriters any longer. We are working with Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein — rarely do I see you together — on their transitions to governing project, which is designed to help the next president get into office faster. We are working with a number of partners around town, interestingly and significantly many of them funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts out of this kind of effort to improve the governance of this country.

The second goal of the project is to develop a pragmatic reform agenda that we hope the next president and Congress will appraise. The goal of that reform agenda is to restore respect, dignity and efficiency to what has become a torturous process, and that is the responsibility of the project and working with our distinguished advisory board. I am not sure that I actually described it — it's your measurable outcome under the Government Performance Results Act to produce reform in the next 12 months. And, Frank, you know that — you know what the Government Performance and Results Act requires.

Our third goal is to call on America's corporate, academic, and civic leaders to encourage their best and brightest to accept the call to service. And I think that's really the high end of this project actually, to call on Americans to acknowledge that this is important work. These are some of the toughest, most important, stressful jobs in the world, and we have got to get some messages out to our civic leaders that it is okay to let your people go. Let them come here for two years — we are not going to damage you too much. You are going to come back with greater skills and greater commitment, and you are going to help our country to succeed. Those are the three goals of the project.

Our purpose today is to take the first step towards those goals by examining the current condition of the presidential appointments process through the words of 435 presidential appointees who served in the second Reagan, the Bush and the Clinton administrations. The survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, led by principal investigator Mary McIntosh, who is here, not pitching for Princeton Survey Research. It's the finest survey house I've worked with here in Washington, and they did a tremendous piece of work for us on this project, both locating and pursuing and interviewing these appointees. The survey was a true collaboration between Brookings and Heritage Foundation, more personally between Ginni Thomas and myself. We don't agree on much Brookings and Heritage. I don't know whether you've noticed that. We don't agree on much. But we do agree that the current process is broken and that the next president needs all the help he can get, whether he's a Democrat or a Republican, whether he faces a Democratic or Republican Senate.

Let me start therefore today's program by introducing my colleague at Heritage, Virginia L. Thomas, to talk about the first sections of the survey report, which you should have in front of you.

By way of introduction, Virginia and I met about a year — well, a little more than a year ago on a conference on the federal inspectors general. We met because we were the only two people who were there actually. [Laughter.] It's an obscure topic. I mean, it is obscure — thereby signaling and instant attraction, because we cared about the same thing. Ginni was also born in Omaha, which is just down the road from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where I grew up, and we used to imagine Omaha as being the place to go to shop. [Laughter.] It's true. She is currently at the Heritage Foundation as a senior fellow. She arrived there directly from Capitol Hill, where she was committee liaison for House Majority Leader Richard Armey. And she was a real force for government performance reform. I mean, I think Ginni has made a signal difference in the last two years in promoting the notion that government ought to say what it's about and then measure its progress toward achieving it.

Prior to arriving at Capitol Hill, she served as deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Labor under Secretary Lynn Martin, who is a member of our advisory board. She's a good friend, a good colleague, and a delightful partner to have on this project. Virginia?

[Applause.]

V. Thomas: Well, thank you very much. It is always a pleasure to be with Paul Light. And you all recognize what a talented force he is and an energetic force he is. It is hard to say no to him. So he told me to break a leg, so I did. That's why I am limping up here a little bit.

I want to thank Paul and Rebecca for really an excellent project. And Paul is right. We don't agree with a lot when it comes to — Heritage and Brookings don't always agree, but it is great to find those opportunities where we can walk the same path and be on the same page, and this is certainly one of those today.

Any government, as it was said earlier, is only as good as the people that are serving in it. And all of us, you and I, know that there is only a window of willingness of any individual to come to Washington and serve a president or be in Congress or serve their country. And today we are going to summarize the survey that Paul has mentioned of past and present appointees that have spoken about what does influence them positively or negatively in terms of that window of willingness to serve their country. And we have to recognize that these are real people with mortgages, with children, with elderly parents, with health issues. They are not a statistic, not a commodity, not a piece of paper. But being appointed to government is certainly changing — the risks to one's reputation, to one's livelihood, to one's family. They are increasing, while a lot of the attractions that have always brought people to Washington to serve an administration are remaining the same.

I will quickly be reviewing four parts of this survey, people's motivation as well as three performance measures for effectiveness, before I turn it back to Paul to complete the summary of the document that you have in front of you. I should also mention — I don't know about Brookings, but it will be on the Heritage.org Web page later today, for those of you who might not be in the room who are watching.

The good news that we agree on is that 54 percent of those surveyed would recommend serving in government to a friend. And that is for our purposes good news. It means that people are still interested in coming. We would like to see that be higher, but 54 percent is a solid figure.

The most notable attraction for those wanting to serve in government are noble ones. They are the ones that people want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They are parts of — they want to make a difference. They hope to meet and work with stimulating people, accomplish important public objectives, serve a president they admire, and be a part of history.

There is also an interesting new development when you compare it to a survey done 20 years ago with similar questions, new motivations arising, and those are practical ones. Some would say maybe that's the me generation showing itself. But when it comes to comparing it to the survey 20 years ago you see enhancing long-term career opportunities and learning new skills are starting to rise in terms of what attracts people to public service. These are the positive motivations that bolster the individual who enters the appointment process, as they face uncertainties and delays, frustrations and delays, invasion of privacy and delays, oftentimes reduced compensation and delays, incredible paperwork burdens and delays. You get the idea.

Money is also becoming a larger factor, as 46 percent of the people surveyed in this work are taking a pay cut to serve in government. Also, 60 percent say it's more expensive to live in the D.C. area than their place of residence.

Well, what about those measures of effectiveness? When you take a performance orientation, you start with realizing what your strategic goal is. And for this that can be found on page seven of the survey. We want to give nominees adequate information to act in their best interests, move fast enough to provide leadership to execute laws, be fair enough to draw talented people into service, while being rigorous enough to ensure that those individuals are fit for the job that they are appointed to. It's a balancing act that depends heavily on information moving quickly and efficiently, and careful and swift judgments being made accordingly.

The first measure would be on information. Does the process provide adequate information to the nominee so that they can discharge their responsibility? A vast majority of those surveyed feel as if at the beginning of the process they had a fair amount or a great deal of information. Interestingly enough, we start to see at this point early on that the Clinton White House and the Clinton appointees are a little bit more critical of the Clinton White House than the Reagan and Bush administrations. The Clinton appointees felt they had — 70 percent felt they had a fair amount or a great deal of information as opposed to the Bush, 78 percent, or the Reagan, 76 percent.

When they were asked about the adequacy of the information they received from the White House, again it was the Clinton team that said that 45 percent said not quite enough or not enough, or no information at all when you total those; as compared to Bush, only 31 percent; and Reagan, 35 percent.

In general, all those surveyed indicate the confusion and embarrassment and frustration seem to be a growing factor.

The second measure is speed: Did the process move fast enough so that the government has the leadership it needs? Here questions 11 and 12, the process took longer than it used to. It used to be, according to this survey, done 20 years ago, it was unusual to take more than one month, if you can believe that. Now over six months is becoming the routine. With each administration we surveyed, it is getting longer. It is not a matter of the administration. It's the administration, it's the Senate, it's the media. Well, actually we didn't do very many questions concerning the media or outside groups, but all of the political process plays an important role in this delay that's increasing.

With each administration surveyed, the time it took between the phone call that one gets from the White House that you are being considered for a position to the day you are confirmed, it is increasing. Forty-one percent of the Reagan administration took more than five months; 49 percent of the Bush administration took more than five months; and 70 percent of the Clinton administration took more than five months. In the survey conducted 20 years ago, only 16 percent of those appointees had confirmations that took more than five months.

And lastly, talent. Are we recruiting talented people to serve? Here our survey asks people about the people they are serving with. And in terms of other appointees clearly 79 percent across the board, every administration, it was fairly true, found the other appointees were a mixed lot, some highly talented while others do not have the necessary skills for their position. And once they are in office, contrary to conventional wisdom, when we asked about the responsiveness of career civil servants, you could see a slight difference, that the Clinton appointees were slightly less impressed with the responsiveness of career civil servants than were Reagan and Bush, bit all of them were fairly high; it's just a marginal difference.

At this point I will turn it over to Paul to complete summarizing the study.

P. Light: Thanks, Ginni.

I think the general point of the early part of the survey is that it is becoming more difficult to be a presidential appointee. It has become one of the most difficult challenges in government, and it requires a good deal of perseverance, good humor, honesty and grace. I've been saying lately in a totally irreverent fashion that Mother Teresa would have trouble getting through the current process in filling out these forms, stating what she was doing with her time. The FBI would have a field day with the fact that she didn't have a stable source of income. They'd wonder whether or not there was a tax problem there perhaps.

If you look at the White House "Intent To Nominate" form for example — I'll read you question 41 from this wonderful book from another organization that we're working with: Have you ever had any association with any person, group or business venture that could be used, even unfairly, to impugn or attack your character and qualifications for a government position? How do you answer that one? Well, if I don't, then how good am I? But if I do, am I going to lose my chance at a presidential appointment?

Let me summarize five points here that the nominees, the appointees, told us about how the process was working in terms of who is responsible.

First of all, the appointees are telling us that both ends of the avenue have made the process more of an ordeal than it needs to be. They are equally frustrated with the Senate and the White House. Now, we did do a subanalysis of all the appointees that were handled by the Labor Committee under the chairmanship of Senator Nancy Kassebaum. [Laughter.] And I can report that 100 percent were just joyful. [Laughter.] It's tough when you have a U.S. senator and you are talking about the angst appointees feel towards the Senate.

There's a lot of bitterness actually in the survey, if you read between the lines. And you know part of good survey research interpretation — Mary McIntosh will not agree — is reading between the lines. You almost become like a channeler for the respondents. And we sense this bitterness, the sense that this didn't have to be as difficult as it turns out to be. There's considerable criticism towards the Senate, there is considerable criticism towards the White House.

And the evidence in the survey bears this out, that there is no stage of the process — none — where the appointees do not say that the process takes longer than it should. That goes for the initial contact with the White House, the president's approval of your nomination, the FBI full-field investigation, the early contact with congressional committees for vetting, the final confirmation process by the Senate. No stage of the process at all that we can zero in on and say, "Well, if you just pick this, the average delay will go down from seven months to five months." And the next president will be very lucky to get a full administration in place by November 1st, a good nine months after the inauguration. There's just no place we can work on that is a leverage point where we can say, "Just change that one thing, and everything will flow." Lower level appointees are the most frustrated. People at executive level four and below, the assistant secretaries and below: these are the folks who need the H&R Block of the presidential appointment process, because they fall through the cracks. They call and call and call seeking information from the White House personnel office or from the Senate, and nobody answers. And it's because there is just such a flood of pressure on those offices in terms of other business: so many people, so many phone calls to return.

Financial disclosure is seen as unnecessarily difficult. But interestingly, the more recent classes of appointees say that it's reasonable. That's how bad it's become in a sense that people are saying this is reasonable to do this to me, even though I find it extraordinarily difficult. They've accepted the culture of scrutiny that we have developed.

The White House is a significant source of frustration for these appointees, no doubt because of the sheer volume of appointees to recruit. Think about it. Every administration starts with nothing there and has to build a small business — well, not a small business, a mid-sized corporation, 6,000 people to recruit in very short order. It's a very difficult job, and we have very little institutional capacity in the White House to do it. Every administration starts with a call to somebody, sometimes the Council for Excellence in Government, sometimes the National Academy of Public Administration, saying "Does anybody have a list of appointments that we have to fill?" And they go to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee I think this year to get the Plum Book of all the positions. They say, "Oh, I see. Now what is an assistant secretary for intergovernmental — what is a chief information officer? What are these positions about?"

The White House personnel process receives particularly low grades from the Clinton appointees, I think in part because of the sheer volume of appointments, the upsets in the White House, problems responding to phone calls. A very serious complaint that the White House Office of Personnel did not care personally whether the individuals were confirmed. And that's a bad sign. I am sure the people in the White House Office of Personnel do care about the confirmation process, but there's a sense that there is just so much going on that you lost in the process. And we hope to work with the White House Office of Personnel to see how we can strengthen the office so it has the institutional resources it needs and the attention it well deserves.

Divided government, surprisingly, is not a source of significant delay. That's a stunner actually for political scientists, because it should be. It should make a difference whether the president of one party has a Senate of his party to help. But that is no longer the case. The Senate has learned some habits that they might want to unlearn about using delays and so forth. The White House is having problems. It really doesn't matter whether you are a Democrat in the White House or a Republican, a Democratic Senate, a Republican Senate. It just doesn't matter any longer. And that's a troublesome sign. That is a troublesome sign.

There is in this survey a clear Clinton effect. There were problems in the transition. The campaign finance scandal, impeachment clearly affected the presidential appointments process, the willingness to serve, the delays in the Senate.

It is essential to note here today, however, that Bill Clinton leaving office is not going to automatically improve the process. What his departure does do is give us a moment in time next year where I think Congress and the next president, whoever it is, will have a chance to address the problems in the process, will have a chance to sit down and say, Can we do better? Can we find a more hopeful path? Can we get over the bitterness that has grown up over this particular period in political time and move to a revaluing, a reaffirmation of presidential service? Is it possible to need to consider institutional reforms as a result?

A quick note about the consequences of this system. It is clear that the current process favors people with Washington experience, not to mention people who have access to IBM correcting Selectric typewriters, which have those little correcting tapes which make it so much easier. People in the process do better, people who are already there do better, because they have already filled out the forms once. People who have been through the process sometime in their career do better, because they know it's coming, they know how to work the system. People who are already in government as appointees do better, because they move through — they know who to call. I am looking at Stu Gilman from the Office of Government Ethics. People know what's going on if they've been there. That narrows the recruiting pool. I think we have got a real decision to make here as to what kinds of people we want at the very top of government. Experience matters, people with expertise are valued. It's good to know where the levers are, so I don't want to denigrate the service that people perform who have been there already. That's important service. But we are narrowing and narrowing and narrowing the pool, so that the only people who can come and serve are members of a political class of individuals who are insiders with enough knowledge to survive the current process. And I do not think that that is what the Founders intended, and we have got a moment in time over the next year or two to address it.

Let me segue to conversations with our co-chairs of the advisory board by saying that I do believe the Founders intended the president of the United States to nominate people like Frank Raines for service. He was an easy person to confirm. And I think the Founders intended for United States senators like Nancy Kassebaum-Baker to do the reviews of people like Frank Raines. And I think that, in fact, is why we selected the two to the advisory board that we recruited. Mike Armacost worked very hard in that regard. I see Lloyd Cutler at the back here from our senior review committee that is going to take a look at everything we produce here to make sure it's responsible and helpful to appointees.

We recruited an advisory that is bi-institutional, bipartisan, and unified, responsible and committed to the effort. Let me start the conversation with Frank Raines to talk a little bit about the executive branch and his perspective. Then we'll turn to Nancy Kassebaum-Baker to talk about the United States Senate.

The survey, to plug our Web site, is up, I hope. We have got just a gorgeous Web site. It's linked to Heritage. You can get to Heritage from Brookings now. [Laughter.] Now, it does take you to a number of paths of political reeducation. [Laughter.] At any rate, you can get to our site, which was designed by Tibor Purger at the Brookings Institution. It's a gorgeous site, and there's some streaming video of me that I think you would rather not look at, at appointee.Brookings.org.

Let me introduce Frank Raines. Thank you.

[Applause.]

F. Raines: Thank you very much. And thank all of you for coming out this morning on what I consider to be one of the most important topics affecting the effectiveness of government. When I was OMB director, I spent a lot of time on issues of performance, and lamented the polls that showed that the public's confidence in their government had declined dramatically, particularly a measure that bothered me the most which was the likelihood that the public thought that the government would do the right thing most of the time had plummeted over a 30-year period. And it's not a very high standard to expect that your government or any institution would do the right thing most of the time. But the American people don't have that faith. I think part of the reason is that it has become very hard for government to reform, not that government doesn't want to reform. It becomes very hard for it to reform. And a lot of that has to do with the inability to staff the government, build teams in the government to have decision-making in the government that functions well and have accountability within the government. And a lot of that goes back to this whole question of appointments.

It is not often recognized that this is one of these unique American problems. In most other governments, government is made up of a career civil service and a very small group of elected officials who come from the parliament and become the nominal heads of the executive departments. You don't have this reaching out to academia, to business and the non-profit world to populate the government. You don't have the expectation that you are going to change over the management of major enterprises such as Medicare or Social Security with the changing of elections; that that is primarily going to be the function of a permanent civil service with policy guidance coming from election officials, people who have already been vetted by the public and who can step in in some cases the next day, having served in a shadow capacity for many years before taking on their responsibility. We have a very different form, and we don't have a lot of places to look to see how you could do it better. We had the idea that average citizens, people who are not full-time permanent government employees, people who have not run for office, ought to play a fundamental role in the operation of our government. And you can debate whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. But we as a country have made a commitment to the kind of citizen government where citizens come and go in the operation of a very large enterprise that essentially runs almost 20 percent of our gross domestic product.

Now, you would think, given the commitment to citizen government that we would focus a lot of attention on making citizen government work, when indeed we don't. We make assumptions that this process will work when all evidence from all managers who tell you, You better watch this very carefully, because this is very hard to try to run complex organizations with a shifting cast of people who very often have little in common other than their admiration of the president whom they serve.

And things have gotten more complicated over time as it is our faith in our own civil service has declined. The desire to have more and more people who are not in the civil service at senior level in government has increased. So that rather than presidents appointing a Cabinet, and very few assistant secretaries, you now have presidents make 6,000 appointments. You know, it's a little quaint to remember back when the White House staff got its first staff members. If you see old pictures of the White House, you will see a lot of uniforms there. That's because the president didn't have much of a White House then. He borrowed staff from the military. You see the remnants of that now today even at the White House, where the cars are driven by the Army, the helicopter by the Marine Corps, the airplane by the Air Force. That used to be the entire White House staff until President Roosevelt got a few people who were supposed to have this passion for anonymity working for him. Five assistants were the first entree there.

But you've now seen a proliferation of political appointees throughout the government that has increased the burden on the appointment process. And even government itself has shrunk, the number of employees is now down to the levels in the early '60s, this has not reduced the number of appointees within the government. Presidents have to appoint directly 600 people who require Senate confirmation. Just to think about what that means, given the average turnover, it means every day the Senate is actually in session they need to be confirming a couple of people the president has sent up for key managerial positions — 14 Cabinet secretaries, 23 deputy secretaries, 41 other secretaries, 212 assistant secretaries and 140 administrators of major departments. That doesn't count the 700 non-career SES executives or the 1,300 to 1,500 Schedule C appointees, all of whom have to go through that same narrow funnel in the White House to be approved.

Now, sometimes we learn too much from one of them. President Nixon lamented that he in his first term had delegated to his Cabinet the appointment of the officials within the Cabinet, believing that gave up too much control from the White House. We have over-learned that lesson, and now no one essentially can be appointed to a Schedule C without it running through the White House mechanism, and often triggering this incredible process that we have.

And the problems — there are significant problems that are exacerbating this situation. I mentioned the diminution in our confidence in civil servants, so that we now have political appointees running sub-parts of departments. We also have this phenomenon of downsizing the White House, which is always a very easy political promise to make. I will cut down the size of the imperial White House. What that means is that institutional functions, such as the personnel office, such as even the clerk, have disappeared in the White House. The Clinton White House has now been relegated to having volunteers do a lot of the standard work that you would expect an institutional staff to be there. Indeed, when the Reagan White House took over they came into a White House that was virtually empty and devoid of any materials whatsoever. When the Clinton White House took over, all of the hard drives from all the computers had been removed, and you know total inability to function on the first day of the term.

There is no equivalent on the personnel process of an OMB, which is a continuing operation. The White House personnel head goes in and starts from scratch, not knowing what jobs have to be filled, what's the timing, who knows how to do this, are these the right forms, where are the questions -- starts from scratch. And every administration does that over and over again. And since people in that job no doubt burn out, they very often find a job for themselves and move out of that office as quickly as you can, which means you really never have an institutional capacity.

The standards that have been created are almost impossible. If we really took them seriously, virtually no one would be able to qualify for government service. And that then perhaps we need to revisit notions of imperfections in human beings and move that into our process. And we seem to have a great difficulty in distinguishing between ethics, ethical problems, conflict-of-interest problems, and just pure old-fashioned voyeurism. I'm always amused — I was amused when the forms were changed; that it used to go — we used to say, "Is this asset worth $500, $1,000, $2,000, $5,000, $10,000?" And it starts picking up momentum; $25,000, $50,000. And it used to stop at a million. And I always thought that was very interesting. You know, when did the conflict of interest kick in? Was it at the $500 level or the $25,000 level, or did you have to get all the way to that million level, you know, to have a really rip-roaring conflict of interest?

But then we had this Bob Rubin problem. Bob Rubin came to town and had some assets that you didn't hear a lot about at that million level. So now it goes million to $2 million, $2 million to $5 million, $5 million to $10 million. And you wonder, is that about ethics? Is that about qualifications? Or is it just about voyeurism?

I mean, surely a full disclosure of all assets or even a statement that these assets are meaningful — and pick you number; $500, $1,000, $50,000; wherever you think the conflict kicks in, you could imagine a pretty simple form. "Tell us about all assets that are above that number. We don't care what the exact amount is, because we assume it's a conflict." But instead, we've got forms that go in a different direction.

We clearly need to do something about this. We clearly need to give greater resources to the White House personnel office and have institutional resources that aren't simply the resources that are there for one administration but are there to serve other administrations. We clearly need to do something about the FBI field investigation. I don't think Pat Moynihan's gotten here yet, but a lot of this is based on the culture of secrecy. He's just written a new book I hope you see, based on a culture of secrecy that came out of the Cold War. And it's really a big question now, to what extent we still need to have the same kind of full field investigation, particularly for the lower-level entities where the likelihood of coming upon anything that really is not in The Washington Post is very small. Is this still an important feature?

And we have to speed up the process. We have people now in some cases foolishly leaving their jobs upon the President of the United States saying, "I've selected you to a position of honor and responsibility," and finding out that indeed they don't get in their jobs for six months or a year. It creates conflicts for them if they happen to be active in the field in which they're supposed to work, where they no longer can function. This is going to seriously diminish the pool of people who are willing to take on the responsibility.

We've had the trial by torture in the past to see if you can stand up to torture. That means you must have certain virtues. I didn't think it was a modern phenomena, but we do seem to have it in this appointments process. And it would be my strong urging — I hope all of you will participate in this effort. But on a bipartisan basis, we should want to have an effective, functioning executive branch.

Even if we disagree, far better that we have an effective and functioning executive branch than one that not only do we disagree with, but one that is doing a bad job of implementing what it is they held out to the American people. So I hope you'll support this initiative because I think it's very important, and I think it can have a fundamental impact on this question of government performance and public confidence in the government.

Thank you.

[Applause.]

N. Kassebaum-Baker: I'm delighted to be here. And looking around at those who are gathered here today, I see many who have been engaged, in one way or another, in questions of good governance and given a great deal of thought to ways that different processes could be improved. While we may not always be successful, I think just the fact that we can challenge and think, and eventually things do change. So one shouldn't — you can imagine how Leon Panetta laughed when I called to visit with him about this. And he said, "Nevertheless, it's worth a try." And so I think that this is why we really need to be deeply engaged and very appreciative of those who are lending their talents to put the preparations and studies together that are necessary, but also to recognize that it is worth a try.

This is one area where I think we can come together, recognizing that we're not going to attract the best and the brightest to Washington to serve for a period of time if we can't improve the process. I think it has reached a really dangerous level. I'm reminded a bit of Alice in Wonderland when she dropped through the hole and asked the Cheshire rabbit which way she should go, and he said, "Well, it depends on where you wish to get to." Well, I think we have to answer where we wish to get to in this instance, and that is the fact that the government and the processes we've known to assist in bringing the best men and women to serve is about to collapse under its own weight.

Frank touched on the question of ethics and the forms that now have to be approved. In a way, I think we've lost the forest for the trees and we've lost sight of what it really takes to indeed stand up for the integrity of the process. And some of the minutiae that is there now and, as an example, given by Paul clearly does not really enhance the selection process in any way.

I would like to speak, of course, first to the Senate and maybe why the Senate is even involved. And I'm sure there're many presidential appointees who would wish it wasn't involved. But I think that the founding fathers were very right when they wanted a system of checks and balances, wanted the Senate to have a role of advice and consent.

The Senate itself has changed in the 18 years that I served from the 1978 election for three terms. And I've seen it become a much more contentious, much more laborious process. The question of holds has increased. Holds, as any of you know, is a process really as a courtesy, for this was as it was intended, so that if someone had some concerns either about the legislation coming to the floor or a nomination coming to the floor, could notify those who had a concern that it was about to be debated or voted on on the floor.

Now I would have to say that many times holds, as a matter of courtesy, should not have an indefinite shelf life. Many times they've gone on and on and on. It's really up to the majority leader to decide that they've been held up long enough. And if there is a filibuster, then it would take 60 votes. But that has to occur after a certain period of time. I think that one should have the courtesy of notification, but I think beyond that it becomes a real block in the process. So the number of holds has gone up considerably in recent years.

It seems to me it particularly happens with ambassadorial nominations, judicial nominations. And as a result, there're tradeoffs and so forth in negotiations that do occur. But it isn't fair, as has been pointed out by everyone, to ask someone to move family, put businesses and considerations of their private life on hold to come to Washington and only sit around for months and months and months waiting to see what will happen, and sometimes it doesn't happen.

And I think that this is most unfortunate. We have allowed, through this process, to have others get involved in ways that are very contentious. The media was mentioned. And that's not perhaps so much as the other outside groups that do get involved then. And I think the longer it's out there, the more that people find that they want to dwell on in a process. So I think we have a stake in making sure, all through the process, that we can deal with it in a better way.

As I say, I think one of the hardest parts of the Senate role is the question of holds that have increased over a period of time. I think the Senate has an important role, but I think that if we can't hold timely hearings in the committees of jurisdiction — lately it has also been a case that the nominations have taken a long time to even come to the Hill. And then there's different forms that different Senate committees have.

So one of the things that we need to do is streamline and centralize the forms. I don't know why there can't be the same form for every committee. There doesn't need to be a different process that they have to go through once they have to come to the Senate, with different forms that have to be filled out. And these are questions that we're looking at. These are questions that I feel strongly can and should be resolved if we wish to attract the type of people that need to come serve for a period of time.

It isn't an easy role to fill, and I think it's something that troubles everyone in both political parties. It won't be easy to resolve, I think particularly looking at the numbers of persons that have to go through the process. I myself would like to see the number of political appointees reduced. I don't know that we need that many assistant assistant assistant secretaries. And again, it grows exponentially, and before you know it, we've created more paperwork, more processes that have to be gone through, and the appointment process just grows ever larger.

Many of the points have been covered. I would just like to summarize, I think, a few things that I believe are important, that we would all agree on, is make the committee review easier and streamline the forms. That will be the easiest part of the process. But I think this can be done and should be done and it would be a step in the right direction.

I think that it should be possible to create a central Senate nomination process to help speed the process and to establish a form that I believe could be used by all that come before the Senate in the process, and not necessarily a lot of duplication, what they've already gone through when they've had to fill out the forms for the executive side.

I think that also we need to — and this will be the harder part — look at what nominees need to go through the confirmation process. Can we begin to restructure so that this aspect of it will change as well? I personally think that's very important. And I think that we need to restore ourselves the fact that it is an honor to serve. That's been touched by everyone as well. But I have had many say to me, since I've left, "I wouldn't want to go through a confirmation process."

I've had to ask myself if I would ever want to go through a confirmation process, and I don't know that I would. Frankly, it has become something that you feel is almost beneath one's time and talents to engage in. And when it becomes that, I think then we all lose out. And that's why I think we're dedicated in those who've agreed to serve on the panel, those who are sponsoring this effort feel this is one of the aspects that we can undertake that truly will enhance good governance.

Thank you very much.

[Applause.]

P. Light: We'll take some questions in a moment. I just want to give you a heads-up on our next step in the project. We are going into the field this summer, starting to design the questionnaire today to ask a sample of America's top corporate, civic, academic leaders whether they would take a presidential appointment. I'm not one of those who plots my curve, then seeks my data, but I have a hunch about what the outcome of that survey will be. I'm afraid it's going to be that most people think the obstacles are just so great that they won't accept the service. That survey will be released in November when we unveil, we hope, Terry, the software that you're working on to help appointees get into office, and working, of course, with Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein on the transition-to-governing effort.

Next March we will have a major conference releasing the reform agenda — I keep looking to my colleagues here on the advisory board — celebrating the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's inauguration with a call to a restoration of civic service at the highest levels of government. And we'll also at that time launch a campaign to corporate and civic leaders to let their people go to Washington for service, or to a gubernatorial position or to a mayoral. You need to articulate the general goal.

Let's see what questions and comments are on your mind. We'll take questions for about 10 to 15 minutes. Yes.

Question: What percentage of nominees would you say today either are not confirmed or drop out of the process because they just get disgusted with it?

P. Light: I couldn't guess that. I mean, Bob Nash might have some figures on it. We appreciate that he's come here today, and hope to work with him in the transitions. We don't know. We thought about designing a survey here to ask people who had been contacted and go to them and see whether they had -- you know, to find out how deep in the draft we were going. But it was so expensive to do that survey, to actually find out, and it doesn't yield much. Bob, do you have a comment on it? This is Bob Nash from White House Personnel.

R. Nash: Thank you very much. May I first say, I want to commend Pew and Brookings and Heritage Foundation for taking on this project. It's very, very important. And I look forward to being involved, and I appreciate the offer to do so.

I was confirmed at one time as undersecretary of Agriculture, and I will tell you that I didn't like the forms. I thought it took too long. I didn't think I was paid enough. But I really have enjoyed it, and I would do it over again 100 times. And I hope a lot of other people will also.

To respond to the specific question, a relatively small percentage of people who are nominated are not confirmed. It looks like it's a lot more, because the few that don't get confirmed make the top fold of The Washington Post, front page top fold. Most of the ones who are confirmed do not.

P. Light: We also have wonderful stories of people who get picked in the late rounds, so to speak, who turn out to be extraordinarily talented leaders of executive branch agencies, for whom this is the crowning achievement of their career, and do a tremendous job. There's no way to argue that, you know, the way the process works is damaging in terms of the talent. There are very good people who come through a very difficult process. It's kind of a sign of perseverance, really. I've got a number of friends who've served in both the Bush and the Clinton administrations, and they're terrific. So we're not seeking to denigrate the current talent pool. We do see evidence of a withdrawal of interest among senior talent, and we also see problems with getting people into office.

You know, I hate to quote Alexander Hamilton in a room of Jefferson fans, but Alexander Hamilton wrote that a government ill-executed, whatever it may be in theory, is not a good government. The notion is that we need people in office to execute, faithfully execute the laws, whatever those laws may be. I promise I won't quote Hamilton again. Rebecca was on the board of Monticello and she went to the University of Virginia; therefore, we often talk about Jefferson.

[Laughter.]

Yes, Ned. Oh, I'm sorry; over here.

Question: I've got a question mostly for Senator Kassebaum. There used to be a presumption, I think, in this town that a presidential nominee would be confirmed unless, you know, he'd robbed a bank or, you know, done something really bad. But more recently, it looks like every nomination becomes sort of a wrestling match between the administration and the subcommittee chairman with the jurisdiction over that department, and wants someone who suits his or her views. Is there any way to put that genie back in the bottle? And if it's not, does that mean that really you're limited to improving the procedures and that a lot of the problems that overwhelm it all are just hopelessly there?

N. Kassebaum-Baker: I think that improving the procedure will help. But I also think — and I'm a strong believer in the role of advice and consent. I've not always supported a presidential appointee of my own party. And that isn't easy, but you don't just rubber-stamp either. But I think there has to be — but I also believe it should be a timely process. And I think that for one's reasons they have to be, one would hope, thoughtful reasons. But it has become more of, I think, a lengthened process by wanting to negotiate maybe something else. "We're going to hold up this nominee till we get something else." Well, that's part of the political process to a certain extent, but it's being abused. And it's that abuse that's hurting the process.

F. Raines: Could I add something there? This also goes back to the question of proliferating jobs. If you have a very senior person who has a wide range of responsibility, then it's very hard to pin down exactly, you know, what policy you're trying to influence there. But if you've got people who work in heading up only the bureau of this, if all I care about is that, I now know to focus all my attention on that person. And it's their qualifications and "Can I knock them out and influence policy?"

So one of the problems with nominating people down at the more micro level is it encourages people to have a policy debate about who's heading it up rather than only confirming people at a very high level who have a wide range of responsibilities and where you make it harder for someone to say, "I'm opposed to them because of what they might do in this tiny area," because most people would look and say, "Well, your responsibilities are much broader than that." You can't knock them out just because of that. So again, I think this proliferation of people being confirmed exacerbates the problem, because it set people up as targets for policy debate as opposed to being picked because of their overall direction of a broad area of a department.

Question: How can you then reduce the number of political appointees? Is there any practical way to do that? And what might you do about it, Senator Kassebaum or anyone?

N. Kassebaum-Baker: I wish I could give you a good answer at the moment. That's why I hope, through this process, we can figure out a way to do so, because we could remove from actually the confirmation process, as is true now, but you still have a large and growing number of political appointees who have to go through, however, a large number of forms and investigation. And I -- can you get that genie back in the bottle? I would hope so, but it's going to take a bipartisan effort, because Republicans can say now, "Yes, that sounds like a good idea." And Democrats, of course, would say, "Well, we have to think about it." Or they could be reversed. It depends what happens, I suppose, in this election. But it has to be dedication, it seems to me, that would be strongly bipartisan, recognizing that we can make a difference in that arena.

P. Light: You know, I think that one of the issues you have to put on the table here is the entire executive leadership core of the federal government, which includes career and political; that we have allowed the bulk to grow at both the political and career level, and you've got to put them both on the table and say, you know, "Do we have a greater clarity of leadership? What do we do with the Senior Executive Service?" The Clinton administration has made some proposals for reform there.

You've got 10,000 to 15,000 senior executives in government, political and otherwise. Is that too many? Are we getting the right people? You know, I look at Hannah there from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Senators Thompson and Lieberman have introduced a bill to kind of take a big look at the structure here. And I'm not sure that you can get the number of political appointees down without a parallel conversation about the career executives. I just don't know. But we've been "sawing" on that.

Senators McCain and Feingold had a bill that moved through the Senate successfully four years ago to reduce the number of political appointees. It made it to the House. And, you know, the administration decided that, you know, "Gee, we kind of like them. We don't want to reduce the number of political appointees." You can't blame them at one level, because you see this kind of intense desire to leave government, and the notion that more leaders is better is the dominant philosophy.

I got Ned Lynch from the House Government Reform Committee, formerly of the committee, raring to go. Ned?

N. Lynch: I think the focus on this confirmation problem is long overdue; proliferation of the number of positions, number of programs. If you won't quote Alexander Hamilton, Paul, I'll be happy to. But Federalist 70 especially was focused on the idea of unity in the executive. The confirmation process undercuts that in a myriad of ways. I would recommend no confirmations for executive level four and below; limit the confirmations to executive level three and above, eliminate the confirmations of boards and commissions across the board, and enable the president — hold him responsible for the kind of people that he winds up appointing.

We don't need to undercut the number of politicals. We need to double the number of politicals, but give the president a stronger hand within the executive branch and eliminate the way that interest groups especially have in the confirmation process. The idea that you can control a proliferating executive branch with fewer politicals is sheer fantasy. The executive branch has not shrunk. The number of Defense Department positions has been eliminated. The number of programs — and it's a bipartisan phenomenon — in the domestic side of our executive branch has grown and continues to grow because Congress doesn't do the oversight that's necessary, and there are no votes to eliminate programs.

P. Light: Ned is referring in terms of the executive level four, is assistant secretaries and below, and executive level one is secretaries; two, deputy secretaries; and three, undersecretaries. I think Senator Kassebaum would rise to the occasion of going and talking to Senator Byrd about reducing Senate advice and consent. [Laughter.] That would be — I think, you know, you raise — Senator, do you wish to respond?

N. Kassebaum-Baker: I would only point out that I spent a lot of time trying to reform the Senate committee structure, and my suggestion was to combine the appropriations, which was Senator Byrd at that time, and authorization committees and never got very far other than those people saying, "Well, it sounds like it might be interesting." So it isn't an easy effort when it gets down to other people's turf, but it is one that I think in this instance can be accomplished. And I think — I would say that Mr. Nash, who I worked with on some of the appointment process, was always very helpful and very cooperative. But it had to be frustrating on your part as well as the committee's to really bring it to successful and constructive fruition.

P. Light: Right back here. Yes.

Question: Well, I just — going back to Frank's point, we're in April. You get, every four years, possibly a window of opportunity. And the question — remember, I was on the Quadrennial Commission years ago to raise government pay. There's only a certain moment. You've got to have a president going out. It's like you couldn't buy a new airplane for that president unless he's going out and he's willing to do it for the next president, and everybody knows he's going out. So you have — this window of opportunity is that it's at least bipartisan. I think these other ideas are very good, but the concept of getting that kind of support.

I want to go back to Frank's point about a lot of the things in the questions that are asked to you and the forms, first of all, that are voyeurism. And I think if you could just get a committee, if the president got together with it and said, "Let's just" — there's a question on the form; there used to be a question on the form named "Every foreigner you've ever met." I had to fill that out, I remember, when I was general counsel. Now there's a question I filled out the other day, "Name every foreign official you've ever met, not in your official capacity." Now, if you live in Washington DC, that is impossible if you go out at all for dinner. [Laughter.] You know, what are you supposed to answer? There's another one that says, "Name every foreigner" — and this is for business people — "Name every" — Mike Armacost is going to fill out a form saying, "Name every trip you've ever taken, and when"? He'd have two secretaries spending full-time computing it. So some of these — I mean, could we, as kind of a group, on a bipartisan basis, at least say, "Let's go through these questions?"

Now, the Treasury had a rule — I think they still do — when I went there that when you got in the Treasury — nobody knew it till they got there — that you had to have the last three years of your income tax audited. And the problem with why these rules never get changed is that once you've been through it, you want to have everybody else go through it. [Laughter.] No one will ever change it. So is there a way that at least the group — we've got a pretty influential group — can say, "Let's just go through this and get rid of some of these very silly things that aren't necessary"?

F. Raines: Well, I think the — Mark, I think your idea is a good one, and I think it's part of what this group can do. The people who work on these forms, whether it's in the White House personnel office, the White House counsel's office, the Office of Government Ethics, the FBI, are all people who are deeply involved in the process and they all are trying to figure out, "How can I get all of the information I might ever need so that no one will ever be able to look back and say I missed something?"

And so, in part, you have to rescue them from the process. You have to say, "Now, here are the only things you need to look at. And if you don't ask, it's not your fault," because what the process does now, it encrusts the last scandal into these questions, and it does turn people into liars, because if you really look at that form — what is it, the 171? — and it says, "Every country you've ever visited, and if you met with a foreign official, who were they and what was the substance of the conversation?" It's very hard for people even to tell the truth.

But I think if you have an outside group go back through these things and say, "Here's what we think are the appropriate questions in the appropriate way, here are the laws and regulations that need to be changed in order to make this form the appropriate form," I think you could get there. If you ask in the process, I don't think you will get there, because everybody has an incentive to try to have more and more questions in order for there never to be the occasion when they're accused of missing something.

Question: [Off mike/inaudible.]

P. Light: Well, I'm looking at Lloyd Cutler in part because I don't know whether Mike told Lloyd that this senior review committee will be put together with Lloyd, A.B. Culvahouse, Boyden Gray, Connie Horner and Ab Mikva. We're going to ask them to help us fashion an executive order — did we neglect to tell you about that? — that President Clinton could issue on his way out to improve some of this, and that would be helpful. Lloyd, did you want to comment?

L. Cutler: Thank you. Some three years ago, I sat on one of these Miller Center commissions dealing with everything you're talking about today. We even went to the trouble of drafting a single, all-purpose form eliminating a number of the prying questions that we thought were unnecessary and one that could have been used by every Senate committee, by the White House, by the separate departments, which even have their own forms. The State Department has its own forms, for example. That was three years ago. It was printed up. It was widely circulated. Nothing has been done either on the initiative of the executive branch or the Senate.

P. Light: Let me give you just one hopeful note on this issue. Who would have thought two years ago that we could double the salary of the president of the United States? Think about it, to raise the salary from $200,000 a year to $400,000. It was a non-starter in public opinion, but the Senate rose to it. We have raised the salary. That will eliminate pay compression at the senior levels of government, and it's an example that there are occasions in history where you can get some things done. And I think we're at one of those moments. We have rescued that form. We have all this wonderful work done by so many of the people in this room, and I think we can harness that work to propel forward.

A. Felzenberg: Let's take this other question first.

Question: Yes. I guess my comment, I think, dovetails on the one previously, and that is in the foreign defense area. And I expected to see this in the reinventing government effort, and I hope that you all will look at, and that is, a lot of people, especially in the defense and foreign areas, will go between State and other agencies where the contact with foreigners is a major question. And it's so cumbersome as it is, in listing every foreign trip and listing every single contact. But on top of that is the fact that State Department won't accept DOD's investigations; DOD won't accept State. I mean, this is, I think, quite cumbersome for the nominee and something that I hope you all will look at and address.

P. Light: Ginni, do you want to take that?

V. Thomas: No, I think that's — you know, you see these ridiculous examples of agencies that aren't communicating with one another or, you know, ways to improve relationships between the Senate and the White House or the forms. And there are certainly great opportunities. And I know Al Felzenberg was involved, because I happen to know some of the people that were on his commission, back in 1990, I think, to review the forms, to review the nomination process. And a number of people stood in the way of that process.

A. Felzenberg: I have a small little anecdote and I have a request. I beseech you, whatever you do, to not ask them to appoint another committee to do this. We've done this at least 50 times. Now, Mr. Raines is absolutely right. We went through those forms. And behind every question was a scandal. Now, we named every one of these questions after the scandal of the day to put it on, and these things keep growing and growing. And we discovered that this is put on, obviously, because we never could get anyone in the government to take responsibility for what would go wrong.

So the political people around the president, really in the president's counsel office, would make the decision. But then the FBI, not wanting to be blamed, said, "Why didn't you ask this and why didn't you ask that?" They would sometimes take it upon themselves to ask questions no one asked them to. So at the end of the day, when the counsel would say, "Bring forward the file; this has been going on for 14 months." "Okay, the onus is on you and not us, because we have done our job."

Now, one day — this is the anecdote — we have several of our commissioners here; Connie Newman is here and Steve Fisk (ph) is here in the back — and we wanted to know the origin of one of those medical questions. It seemed that there had been a problem many, many years ago. And we wanted to know, why was this there? Is this not intrusive? And how far back does one have to go? And as you start getting your medical records read in the New York Times, at what point do people say, "It just isn't worth it, or I won't get help for a minor problems"?

Well, Connie Newman asked several times, "How did this get on there?" Well, we wind up having a rather large meeting, having the president's counsel, Boyden Gray, in the room, asking, at his request, at Ms. Newman's request, the head of the FBI would have to come to that meeting, with all the regalia when he goes to a meeting; and we had to schedule it at a separate place, all of that. The entire commission was there, and we're still waiting to be getting back to about one question. So we changed it upon ourselves, and President Bush did change the question.

So what I'm leaving you with, there has to be a will somewhere along the way, somebody to take responsibility, somebody who would rather work on policy. One of the president's best people would be asked to spend a month on this; one of the majority leader's best people to spend a month on this. It's not a lot of fun, but it could be done in less than a month if somebody's willing to say, "Let's do it," whether it's Lloyd Cutler's form or any other group of — not another commission.

In fact, we owed our origins, the last commission that did the pay raise, when President Reagan went out and President Bush came in and Paul Volcker was involved, and many, many good people. And at the end they said, "Well, money is not the only disincentive to public service. We need to do something about the forms. That's how we were born. That's how we died." (Laughs.) Thank you.

P. Light: It occurs to me that the way to really get action on this issue is for everybody who has ever worked on it, not to show up for work one day. Just shut down the federal government. Over here, Bob, and then Steve Hess.

R. Nash: This line of comments and questions is very important. I think that there's a lot that could be done to reduce the questions on the forms. But I'd like to also give you an anecdote, just to make the point that we should be very careful. I was talking with a corporate executive who said, "Listen, I'm looking at these forms, and I've managed a corporation that had twice as many employees as you're proposing I manage and twice the budget, and they never asked me whether I paid Social Security for my housekeeper and they never asked me for my assets and liabilities. I don't understand this."

And my response was, "These are important positions of public trust, and you're spending taxpayers' money and making decision on the lives of individuals and families and communities all over this country. And these are some of the reasons we ask these questions." That is not to say that we should not significantly reduce some of these asinine questions that are on the forms.

P. Light: Thank you. Steve.

S. Hess: If you put aside the appointments that go beyond the life of a president — judicial appointments, term appointments, which I think the Senate has a very special role — to just those appointments that a president chooses for his own people, and you look at the questions there used to be — conflict of interest, personal habits that might disqualify and so forth — and then something happened. I'm trying to remember when, and it may be under the Carter administration when the question was Paul Warnke; an honorable man, all that. But the Senate didn't — or some senators didn't like his position on certain issues. The president wanted him, but they didn't like him.

And it strikes me that it would be very useful if your panel came up with some sort of golden rule for the Senate, for each senator to think about choosing a president's appointees on the basis of how they would like it done if they were the president of the United States, because it strikes me that you're getting — you've gotten into a very slippery slope.

You said you didn't want to be a rubber stamp; I understand that. But nevertheless, we've reached the point where a lot of people are being threatened or possibly even rejected on policy grounds in which the only person who wants them to serve is the president who is appointing them and has the right to have the people in those positions, at least in my judgment. So I hope you'll consider something called the golden rule for senators.

Nancy?

N. Kassebaum-Baker: Well, I'm sure most senators would say that's what they do consider. [Laughter.]

P. Light: We'll take two more questions, I think. I want to go to Jim Pfiffner, who's worked on them. Jim.

J. Pfiffner: Has there been any discussion of planning on the part of the candidates before the elections even, so that it's legitimate for them to do personnel planning without looking too presumptuous?

P. Light: I think the transition-to-governing project, Martha Kumar's White House 2001 project. I think there are a number of efforts around town where we do think, "It'd be a good thing for you to do a little pre-election transition planning." That's the handshake that you'd like to see between the two candidates to say, "On this day, we both agree that we should plan for the transition." But if one does it and the other doesn't, we're into the counting chickens problem before they hatch. It would be wonderful if Gore and Bush were to say together that it's okay to think about the transition before the election. And I leave it to my colleagues here in front and Martha to keep pushing on that.

Another question here?

Question: I would suspect that if the government had attempted to do what your two non-government organizations had done, study this issue, it would take them twice as long, if not longer, which causes me to think that perhaps a lot of the review process for presidential appointees ought to be outsourced. There are probably lots of non-government organizations that could certainly do it a lot faster. Is this in your recommendations, in your report?

P. Light: No, it's not. [Laughter.] It's interesting to note that a lot of government work is outsourced now, but I doubt this one would be done. We have a very active and last question, I think, here.

Question: Yes. I, having threaded my way through three administrations, would like to sort of speak up on behalf of the next-level-down appointees. We've been focusing our attention really this morning on the 600 or so PAS appointees. But I recall having a conversation with my good friend Chase Untermeyer in February of 1989, at which time he shared with me the fact that he was sitting on a talent bank of some 77,000 resumes in the White House office of personnel. And incidentally, I might mention, he said a vanload of those came from the Heritage Foundation.

But I think that that underscores the challenge that we really face in this town, and that is that it's not a question of having people. It's a question of how you choose those people. And my concern is that the next level down, those 700 or so senior executives that Dr. Raines mentioned, and the other 13 to 100 to 2,000 Schedule C people, come to town with even less of an opportunity to understand the nature of what they're here to do than the PAS appointees.

And I can speak from personal experience that when I made my first entry into the bureaucracy, it was like, you know, a baptism in fire and falling into a black lake at the same time. And I think that I would just suggest, as you go forward, that you consider how you might develop some tools to work with those people in the Senior Executive Service and the Schedule C corps to help them understand, because they're the ones who really have to interface on a daily basis with the career executive corps in the federal government.

P. Light: Two quick points and then we'll wrap up. We won't ask Bob to comment on how many of the resumes he received were ones he wanted to see. The challenge in the recruitment operation is to get the person you want. And I suspect, notwithstanding the busload that came from Heritage, which I think Chase did want to see, there's a fair amount of surge in recruitment that goes on. We are looking at the non-career SES and so forth. These are all good points. I'm looking at Connie Newman at the back of the room and hoping she'll stay on the advisory board with our chairs, co-chairs.

This is a terrific conversation which could go on for some time, because there's a lot of enthusiasm in this room for this particular project and this overall effort. I won't tell you how many invitations we've sent out to get this room filled, but it's wonderful to see all the enthusiasm. There is a moment, I think, of hope and possibility here over the next six to nine to 15 months, and we intend to take advantage of it. We intend to work with many of you in this room as partners and colleagues and build upon the wonderful work that's already out there rather than invent the new work.

Please feel free to visit Appointees.Brookings.org and Heritage.org. I think Heritage's Web site does link to Brookings, but it goes through "Are You Serious.com." [Laughter.] And we would go to them through "Think About It.org." Anyway, I appreciate your having come here today. Work with us. Thanks for participating. Our best wishes. [Applause.]

[END OF EVENT.]