A Preponderance of Political Appointees Part 1 of 3
A look at the political appointments in Project 2025
I wanted to illustrate the breadth and depth to which Project 2025 will install political loyalists.
A link to the glossary of acronyms is provide at the bottom of this post.
Chapter 1 White House Office
The Office of Presidential Personnel is responsible for:
Identifying potential political personnel both actively through recruitment and passively by fielding resumes and adjudicating requests from political actors.
PPO’s primary responsibility is to staff the executive branch with individuals who are equipped to implement the President’s agenda. Although its focus should be identifying and recruiting leaders to fill the approximately 1,000 appointments that require Senate confirmation, PPO must also fill approximately 3,000 political jobs that require dedicated conservatives to support the Administration’s political leadership.
Vetting potential political personnel by conducting political background checks and reviewing any clearance and fitness assessments by departments and agencies.
Identifying programmatic political workforce needs early and developing plans (for example, Schedule F).
The President is in charge of the federal workforce and exercises control principally by working through the Director of the Office of Personnel Management.
Training and connecting political personnel.
In most Administrations, PPO will staff more than 100 positions during a transition and thousands of noncareer positions during the President’s first term.
Direct authority and a strong relationship with the President are necessary attributes for any PPO Director.
At the highest level, PPO is tasked with long-term, strategic workforce development.
The “billets” of political appointments are of immense importance in credentialing and training future leaders.
In addition, whatever one’s view of the constitutionality of various civil service rules (for example, the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1986) might be, it is necessary to ensure that departments and agencies have robust cadres of political staff just below senior levels in the event of unexpected vacancies.
Chapter 2 Executive office of the President
Externally, the Director must ensure that OMB has sufficient visibility into the deep caverns of agency decision-making. One indispensable statutory tool to that end is to ensure that policy officials—the Program Associate Directors (PADs) managing the vast Resource Management Offices (RMOs)
In general, the Director should empower a strong Deputy Director with authority over the Deputy for Management, the PADs, and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to work diligently to break down barriers within OMB and not allow turf disputes or a lack of visibility to undermine the agency’s principal budget, management, and regulatory functions.
OMB should work toward a “One OMB” position on behalf of the President and represent that view during the various policymaking processes.
The RMOs, each of which is led by a political appointee known as the PAD and a career DAD, are separated into six functional units:
National Security
Natural Resources, Energy, and Science
Health
Education, Income Maintenance and Labor
Transportation, Justice, and Homeland Security
Treasury, Commerce and Housing
Because the RMOs are institutionally ingrained in nearly all policymaking and implementation across the executive branch, they play a critical role in helping the Director to implement the President’s public policy agenda.
To enhance the OMB Director’s ability to help the President drive policy at the agencies, the existing six RMOs should be divided into smaller subject-matter areas, allowing for more PADs, and each of these PADs should have a Deputy PAD.
This expanded pool of RMOs with additional political leadership would enable more comprehensive direction and oversight of policy development and implementation.
On staffing the National Security council.
“In organizing (by means of Presidential Directive) an NSC staff that is more responsive and aligned with the President’s goals and empowered to implement them, the NSA should immediately evaluate and eliminate directorates that are not aligned with the President’s agenda and replace them with new directorates as appropriate that can drive implementation of the President’s signature national security priorities.
The NSC staff will need to consolidate the functions of both the NSC and the Homeland Security Council (HSC), incorporate the recently established Office of the National Cyber Director, and evaluate the required regional and functional directorates.
Given the aforementioned prerequisites, the NSC should be properly resourced with sufficient policy professionals, and the NSA should prioritize staffing the vast majority of NSC directorates with aligned political appointees and trusted career officials. “
For instance, the NSA should return all nonessential detailees to their home agencies on their first day in office so that the new Administration can proceed efficiently without the personnel land mines left by the previous stewards and as soon as possible should replace all essential detailees with staff aligned to the new President’s priorities.
About the White House council.
The White House Counsel also works closely with the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel to seek opinions on, for example, matters of policy development and the constitutionality of presidential power and privileges and with OLA and the DOJ Office of Legal Policy on presidential judicial nominees.
This review will usually require consulting with the new political leadership at the Justice Department, including during the transition period.
Chapter 3 Central Personnel Agencies
Fully Staffing the Ranks of Political Appointees.
Without this political leadership, the career civil service becomes empowered to lead the executive branch without democratic legitimacy.
While many obstacles stand in his way, a President is constitutionally and statutorily required to fill the top political positions in the executive branch both to assist him and to provide overall legitimacy.
Chapter 5 Department of Homeland Security
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY (SEC)
Expansion of Dedicated Political Personnel.
The Secretary of Homeland Security is a presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed political appointee, but for budgetary reasons, he or she has historically been unable to fund a dedicated team of political appointees.
A key first step for the Secretary to improve front-office functions is to have his or her own dedicated team of political appointees selected and vetted by the Office of Presidential Personnel, which is not reliant on detailees from other parts of the department, to help ensure the completion of the next President’s agenda.
An Aggressive Approach to Senate-Confirmed Leadership Positions.
While Senate confirmation is a constitutionally necessary requirement for appointing agency leadership, the next Administration may need to take a novel approach to the confirmations process to ensure an adequate and rapid transition.
For example, the next Administration arguably should place its nominees for key positions into similar positions as “actings” (for example, putting in a person to serve as the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Commissioner of CBP while that person is going through the confirmation process to direct ICE or become the Secretary).
This approach would both guarantee implementation of the Day One agenda and equip the department for potential emergency situations while still honoring the confirmation requirement.
The department should also look to remove lower-level but nevertheless important positions that currently require Senate confirmation from the confirmation requirement, although this effort would require legislation (and might also be mooted in the event of legislation that closes portions of the department that currently have Senate-confirmed leadership).
Clearer, More Durable, and Political-Only Line of Succession.
Based on previous experience, the department needs legislation to establish a more durable but politically oriented line of succession for agency decision-making purposes.
The ideal sequence for line of succession is certainly debatable, except that in circumstances where a career employee holds a leadership position in the department, that position should be deemed vacant for line-of-succession purposes and the next eligible political appointee in the sequence should assume acting authority.
Further, individuals wielding acting Secretary authority should have explicit authority to finalize agency actions, including regulations, to ensure that the department’s homeland security mission is fulfilled.
U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES (USCIS)
USCIS should be classified as a national security–sensitive agency, and all of its employees should be classified as holding national security–sensitive positions.
Personnel
FEMA currently has four Senate-confirmed positions.
Only the Administrator should be confirmed by the Senate; other political leadership need not be confirmed by the Senate.
Additionally, FEMA’s “springing Cabinet position” should be eliminated, as this creates significant unnecessary challenges to the functioning of the whole of DHS at points in time when coordinated responses are most needed.
OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC)
OGC should hire significantly more Schedule C/political appointees who in turn supervise career staff and manage their output. DHS’s mission is politically charged, and the legal function cannot be allowed to thwart the Administration’s agenda by providing stilted or erroneous legal positions and decision-making.
Chapter 6 Department of State
POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AND BUREAUCRATIC LEADERSHIP AND SUPPORT
Focusing the State Department on the needs and goals of the next President will require the President’s handpicked political leadership—as well as service and civil service personnel who share the President’s vision and policy agendas—to run the department. This can be done by taking these steps at the outset of the next Administration.
Exert Leverage During the Confirmation Process.
Notwithstanding the challenges and slowness of the modern U.S. Senate confirmation process, the next President can exert leverage on the Senate if he or she is willing to place State Department appointees directly into those roles, pending confirmation.
Doing so would ensure that the department has immediate senior political leadership.
Assert Leadership in the Appointment Process.
The next Administration should assert leadership over, and guidance to, the State Department by placing political appointees in positions that do not require Senate confirmation, including senior advisors, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretaries, and Deputy Assistant Secretaries. Given the department’s size, the next Administration should also increase the number of political appointees to manage it.
To the extent possible, all non-confirmed senior appointees should be selected by the President-elect’s transition team or the new President’s Office of Presidential Personnel (depending on the timing of selection) and be in place the first day of the Administration.
No one in a leadership position on the morning of January 20 should hold that position at the end of the day. These recommendations do not imply that foreign service and civil service officials should be excluded from key roles: It is hard to imagine a scenario in which they are not immediately relevant to the transition of power.
The main suggestion here is that as many political appointees as possible should be in place at the start of a new Administration.
Support and Train Political Appointees.
The Secretary of State should use his or her office and its resources to ensure regular coordination among all political appointees, which should take the form of strategy meetings, trainings, and other events.
The secretary should also take reasonable steps to ensure that the State Department’s political appointees are connected to other departments’ political appointees, which is critical for cross-agency effectiveness and morale. The secretary should capitalize on the more experienced political appointees by using them as the foundation for a mentorship program for less experienced political appointees. The interaction of political appointees must be routine and operational rather than incidental or occasional, and it must be treated as a crucial dimension for the next Administration’s success.
Chapter 7 Intelligence Community
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA)
Executing the Mission.
The CIA’s success depends on firm direction from the President and solid internal CIA Director–appointed leadership. Decisive senior leaders must commit to carrying out the President’s agenda and be willing to take calculated risks. Therefore:
The next President-Elect and incoming Presidential Personnel Office should identify a Director nominee who can foster a mission-driven culture by making necessary personnel and structural changes.
The President-Elect should choose a Deputy Director who, without needing Senate confirmation, can immediately begin to implement the President’s agenda.
Additional appointees should be placed within the agency as needed to assist the Director in supervising its functioning.
ODNI AND CIA ORGANIZATIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS
The Director should handpick qualified, properly cleared personnel for front-office and managerial leadership positions, such as the DNI’s Chief of Staff and heads of Legislative Affairs and Strategic Communications, to oversee those divisions with career IC staff reporting to them.
The incoming DNI and CIA Director should also consider changes in the Senior National Intelligence Service (SNIS)/Senior Intelligence Services (SIS). Senior officers should be required to sign mobility agreements that allow ODNI and CIA leadership to move them within the IC every two years if necessary.
Office of General Counsel.
Along with the Director of M/OAA, the General Counsel is one of the two or three most important positions at USAID and should be a priority for immediate appointments.
Office of Budget Resources and Management.
The Director of Budget Resources and Management should be a political appointee empowered as part of the Administrator’s senior management team.
The next conservative Administration should consider prioritizing the placing of young political appointees in BRM over LPA.
Thanks for reading.
Bob
I found two things you mentioned here particularly frightening because they are so insidious. First, that one goal is to do away with positions requiring senate confirmation, another way to consolidate all power in the executive branch. And second, the intent to replace the entire system:
“No one in a leadership position on the morning of January 20 should hold that position at the end of the day.”
We’ve heard before about the goal of replacing the civil service - a group somewhat immune from changing administrations - with loyalists and this is more proof of it. Not only will enemies of the US be watching this closely but so will corporations with nefarious plans. The lack of regulatory oversight this will cause has consequences we can imagine but I sure there will be real gotchas there and the consequences will be severe.
One thing I haven’t seen discussed much is what plans Project 2025 has for the military. I don’t mean the intent to use them to further the draconian humanitarian crisis that will ensue when the national guard and maybe the military will be used to pursue the roundup and mass deportation of immigrants. I’m referring to the structure of the military, many of who defied Trump last time around.