Appointment tenure takes time to decide and may often be short leading to confusion within the administration itself, to inaction in decision and work, rapid turn-around and modification in decision making, and confusion.
Using data from the Office of Personnel Management, O'Connell (2009) observed that senate apportioned positions were empty on a mean of one-quarter of the time over the five administrations (spanning from Carter to Bush). O'Connell (2009) recommends deliberate research on underlying problems and active work that is intended to ameliorate these problems. Better still, says O'Connell (2009), are policy reforms that would reduce the amount and duration of vacancies in these senate positions. These reforms would include better training for newer officials, and advance planning by the White House for filling positions, as well as winning commitments from appointees to serve a minimal of two to four years. (O'Connell, 2009).
In the meantime, reforms are in the offing. Friel (2011) reported that the senate committee intends to be more selective in its choice, pruning out hundreds of low-level executive branch nominations from its selection procedure. There are also plans in the offing permitting the president to put through his choice of appointing hundreds of part-time federal board and commission members and full time officials in non-controversial positions without waiting for approval from relevant senators.
Not everyone is satisfied with these steps, however, and critics, such as Light, an expert on the federal bureaucracy and a professor of public service at New York University, said that the drastic situation calls for more. According to Light (quoted by Friel, 2011), lawmakers should cut the number of presidential appointments, which has swelled to more than 8,000, 22 new positions having been created in the last two years alone.
Much of the delay occurs, too, due to the vetting process, the FBI background check, and some executive bureaucracy activities that take far more time than the actual confirmation process. Critics call for ways to facilitate and streamline these procedures.
Although an insignificant step, however, this motion of circumventing senatorial permission in appointing nominees to administrative positions could lead to further more wide -- ranging and additional steps that would speed-up the confirmation process and, perhaps, ensure that vacancies are more rapidly and frequently filled and more infrequently open.
Reviewing Mr. Edwards's qualifications was also an eye-opener to me. Not only did his education stop short with a Masters,...
Leading Change and Leading People For more than 20 years, I have been a leader in both the government and in the private business environment. This encompasses both work in the United States Army as a noncommissioned officer, and work in the civilian world within the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Leading change requires a great deal of initiative and more than just having a vision for
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