Center for American Progress
REPORT: Let’s Get It Started
What President-Elect Obama Can Learn from Previous Administrations in Making Political Appointments
By Anne Joseph O’Connell
Key recommendations
WASHINGTON, DC—If President-elect Obama follows the example of recent presidents, he will finalize his initial top picks for the cabinet and heads of other major agencies by Inauguration Day but will take much longer to select individuals for lower layers of the bureaucracy. Staffing these lower but still critical positions is remarkably challenging. It takes many months to get the first wave of appointees into the bureaucracy. Once filled, these positions do not stay occupied for long. And near the end of a term or administration, these political positions empty out yet again.