Is the administration’s pace of political appointments a problem or an opportunity?

Summary: The Partnership for Public Service, as part of its superb and comprehensive work on presidential transition, has partnered with The Washington Post to track presidential nominations and appointments for 638 key appointments that require Senate confirmation. With 274 positions having confirmed appointees, 138 formally nominated, 8 awaiting nomination and 218 with no nominee, the administration is lagging significantly behind the Obama, G. W. Bush and Clinton administrations in nominating and appointing people to fill many key posts. The number of nominations is closer to that of the G. H. W. Bush administration. The “key positions” include several chief financial officers, many assistant secretaries, the Department of Defense inspector general, the Director of the U.S. Marshals Service, administrators of three agencies in the Department of Transportation, the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and many more. Interestingly, there were also critics who said that by the end of his first term, President Obama was leaving too many jobs unfilled (though a much smaller number).