Essay Instructions: Instructions:
Prepare three (3) Memos describing the details of the research (i.e. How, what, where, when, why, who), the FACTUAL quantitative data collected for each appointee, and important points or lessons learned in the process of gathering the data, any analysis done or observed in this process of collection… from this Capstone Research project on Political Appointees-Senate Confirmed for Inspector Generals (IGs) for only two (2) Federal agencies since inception [Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS-since 2005?)] assignment. {Please reference Proposed Activities as a guide to what data/information is required}
The Memos’ parameters to be followed are listed below, where each category holds roughly equal weight:
1. Assignment - Does the memo respond effectively to the question or assignment?
2. Analysis - Does the memo present clear and credible claims? Are the conclusions supported by the material identified or cited in the memo?
3. Grounding - Does the memo make effective use of course materials to establish a firm theoretical and conceptual grounding?
4. Readability - Is the memo efficient and well--?organized? Is the language clear? Is the paper generally free of typos, grammatical errors, and other distractions?
The three (3), Memos can include a spreadsheet, tables and/ or WORD documents format at the Writer’s discretion on how they wish to present their research.
Uploaded will be spreadsheets and notes to assist the Writer as starting points as either examples along with texts/readings that provide some background.
Political Appointee-Senate Confirmed Project Objectives
This project aims to improve the quality, consistency, and comprehensiveness of Open source/Public World Wide Web Access regarding political appointees in American government. Political appointees play a storied role in American government. No other industrialized democracy appoints such a large, wide-ranging class of “political executives,” as does the U.S. federal government. And, particularly over the last four decades, their numbers have increased substantially. Reform of the appointees’ process has been a topic of advocacy for decades. This year reform might actually occur (see the attached article: CQ Today dtd 1/31/2011), but ??" if history is a guide ??" don’t hold your breath! While “fixing” the system may be easier said than done there are plenty of opportunities to improve the quality of public knowledge.
This project will take up a distinct domain of appointee politics.
• President-appointee, Senate-confirmed (PAS) appointees to U.S. federal government agencies.
The details of how to approach this topic are suggested as a starting point, by a handful of project objectives:
• Develop an entry describing the federal Vacancies Reform Act
• Learn about Virginia gubernatorial appointees and define the scope of the project
• Improve the consistency of appointee position entries
• Improve appointee biographical information
• Think better ways to represent tenure, turnover, and vacancies
The information on Senate-confirmed agency appointees is fragmented and not always of reliable quality. The importance of building this content area will provide factual resource/s on one format for users who seek current and historical information on the U.S. government.
Proposed Activities
1. This project involves the development of a Vacancies Reform Act page.
• Coursework will research and compile accurate data on the Act.
2. This project involves the development biographical content on Senate-confirmed agency appointees. Activities include the following:
• Identify one or more federal agency. [HUD and DHS]
• For each agency compile biographical content about Senate-confirmed appointees in the Office of Inspector General (IG) to include:
1. Date of Birth
2. State of Birth
3. Gender
4. Religious affiliation
5. Current State of Residence
6. Position
7. Nomination Date
8. Confirmation/Resolution Date
9. Appointee Entry
10. Appointee Exit
11. Partisan Affiliation
a. Democrat
b. Republican
c. Independent
12. Undergraduate Institution (sub-codes by School)
13. Graduate (Non-Law) Institution (sub-codes by School)
14. Law School Institution (sub-codes by School)
15. Associational Memberships
a. Professional ??" specific to law
b. Other professional
c. Board of Directors
d. Religious
e. Other
16. Partisan-oriented Work
a. Think-tanks
b. Advocacy organizations
c. Campaigns
17. Academic/Research Institutions
a. University
b. Think-tanks
c. Research organizations
18. Federal Government Service (sub-codes by position)
a. Agency (dates/administration and position title)
b. Congress (sub-code by member or committee)
19. State/Local Government Service (sub-codes by position)
20. Judicial Appointment
a. Clerkship
21. Private Firms (sub-codes by Firm)
a. Position held
b. Pre-Service
c. Post-Service
Background, General Research/Methods/Quantitative Analysis Texts and Articles, & Additional Information:
1. List of PAS filled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_positions_filled_by_presidential_appointment_with_Senate_confirmation
2. Minister - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_(government)
3. Recess Appointment - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recess_appointment
4. PLEASE SEE OTHER UPLOADED documents for Writer’s reference. Thanks
FYI> Other Readings - Course:
1. David L. Weimer and Aidan R. Vining, 1999. Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practice, 3rd Edition, New York: Prentice Hall.
2. Jane E. Miller, 2005. The Chicago guide to writing about multivariate analysis. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 0226527832.
3. Eugene Bardach, 2004. A Practical Guide For Policy Analysis: The Eightfold Path To More Effective Problem Solving, 2nd Edition. Washington, DC: CQ Press. ISBN: 1568029233.
4. Giandomenico Majone. 1989. Evidence, Argument, and Persuasion in the Policy Process. New Haven: Yale.
5. James G. March. 1994. Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen.
Free Press.
6. Robert M. Kaplan, 1986. Basic Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences. Allyn and Bacon, Inc. Kenneth J. Meier, Jeffrey L. Brudney, John Bohte, 2005. Applied Statistics for Public and Nonprofit Administration, 6th edition. Wadsworth.
7. Policy Analysis and Evaluation
Laura I. Langbein and Claire L. Felbinger, 2006. Public program evaluation: a statistical guide. Armonk, N.Y., M.E. Sharpe. ISBN: 0765613670.
Carol H. Weiss, 1998. Evaluation: methods for studying programs and policies. Upper Saddle River, N.J., Prentice Hall. ISBN: 0133097250.
8. Quantitative Analysis
Hair, Joseph, William Black, Barry Babin, Rolph Anderson, & Ronald Tatham. 2005.
Multivariate Data Analysis. 6th Edition. Prentice Hall.
Damodar N. Gujarati, 1995. Basic Econometrics. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
9. Budget Policy
Allen Schick and Felix LoStracco. 2000. The federal budget: politics, policy, process. Rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
Aaron B. Wildavsky and Naomi Caiden. 2004. The new politics of the budgetary process. 5th ed. New York: Pearson/Longman.
10. Interpretive Approaches
Randall S. Clemons and Mark K. McBeth, 2001. Public Policy Praxis: Theory and Pragmatism. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN: 0130258822.
Anne Larson Schneider and Helen M. Ingram, 1997. Policy Design for Democracy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. ISBN: 0700608443.
Deborah Stone 2002. Policy Paradox : the art of political decision making. New York, Norton.
11. Information and Decision
Michael Lewis, 2003. Moneyball : the art of winning an unfair game. New York: W. W. Norton.
James C. Scott. 1999. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale.
CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Jan. 31, 2011 ??" 7:50 p.m.
Senators Working to Scale Back Chamber's Confirmation Duties
By Brian Friel, CQ Staff
Senate leaders are moving swiftly on legislation that would exempt hundreds of low-level executive branch nominations from the laborious Senate confirmation process.
In a rare case of the Senate agreeing to give up power, Rules and Administration Committee leaders ??" Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. ??" are drafting language that would allow the president to appoint hundreds of part-time federal board and commission members and full-time officials in non-controversial positions without first winning Senate confirmation.
The move was part of a deal leaders announced Jan. 27 meant to smooth the chamber’s procedures.
Schumer and Alexander plan to send the draft measure to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., and ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, will get it ready for full consideration by the Senate.
With Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., backing the measure, any minor complaints of individual senators are unlikely to derail the bill.
The legislation could affect about 400 of the 1,200 executive branch positions that Senate leaders estimate are currently subject to confirmation. None of the positions will be eliminated, but ending the requirement for Senate confirmation could cut the time between initial White House vetting and swearing-in by about a third.
“It is being done on a bipartisan basis with very strong leadership support, which suggests that although there will be probably be dissent and some debate from committees whose ability to confirm particular categories of nominees may be pruned back, the prospects for legislation are good,” said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who co-authored a December report urging a review of the nomination and confirmation process.
Galston added, “Eliminating the need for the Senate to spend time on third-tier uncontroversial nominees will free up scarce committee and staff time for the ones that are controversial and that rise to the level at which Senate oversight and deliberation is important.”
‘A Baby Step’
Paul C. Light, an expert on the federal bureaucracy and a professor of public service at New York University, said the Senate’s move to eliminate the confirmation step for a low-level nominees is “a baby step forward.”
He said the bigger test for lawmakers would be an effort to actually cut the number of presidential appointments, which has ballooned to nearly 8,000 according to the most recent edition of the Plum Book, Congress’ quadrennial listing of political appointments in the executive branch.
“I strongly recommend they revisit the question of how many appointees the president really needs,” Light said.
Congress has contributed to the increase of executive branch appointees. In the last two years, lawmakers created at least 22 new presidentially appointed positions that require Senate confirmation.
The 2010 health care overhaul (PL 111-148, PL 111-152) created 17 positions on two new federal boards requiring confirmation, while the 2010 financial regulatory overhaul (PL 111-203) created three Senate-confirmed positions, including director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at the Federal Reserve.
“Congress has never met a new title it doesn’t like,” Light said.
The Brookings report that Galston co-authored noted that most of the delay that appointees face occurs before their nominations are sent to the Senate, with White House vetting, FBI background checks and various executive branch forms taking much more time than the Senate confirmation process.
Alexander and Schumer are also planning to lead a working group that will look at ways to streamline the vetting process for nominees in both the executive branch and in the Senate.
Budget Cutting
Lawmakers may have to face the question of actually eliminating appointments throughout the year. Appropriations measures for both fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2012 could be vehicles for such cuts.
As House Republicans prepare a funding measure to keep the government running after a stopgap measure (PL 111-322) runs out March 4, appropriators are scouring the federal budget for places to cut.
President Obama, meanwhile, promised in his State of the Union address Jan. 25 to send to Congress a reorganization plan designed to consolidate similar programs that are currently housed in different agencies, a move that could lead to consolidation of appointed positions.
But Light said cuts to the number of appointees would likely have to come from lawmakers. “There hasn’t been a president since John F. Kennedy ??" and that’s as far back as I go ??" who has not argued for more appointees,” Light said. “Consolidation could produce a net decrease, but that would have to come from Congress.”
Galston said the elimination of the Senate confirmation step for hundreds of positions could lead to additional changes that would speed up the nomination process. “It’s certainly a significant step in the right direction,” he said.
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There are faxes for this order.
