The President Shall Nominate: How Congress Trumps Executive Power

by Sollenberger, Mitchel A.

• ISBN13: 9780700615766
• ISBN10: 0700615768
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-02-21
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas

Summary

The Constitution clearly states that the president "shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint" individuals to positions in the executive and judicial branches; yet the process may sometimes seem murky. While much has been written about the confirmation phase of those appointments, far less attention has been paid to the pre-nomination process--until now. In this groundbreaking book, Mitchel Sollenberger takes readers behind the scenes to explain what happens before presidents publicly announce their nominees. A comprehensive history of this process, his book shows how political practice has shaped the use of a power that the Constitution declared must be shared by the executive and legislative branches. Drawing on unpublished letters and papers of presidents, senators, and other public figures, Sollenberger unravels the way this struggle has been viewed and resolved from George Washington's day to the present. He reveals the extent to which the political process has shaped the outcomes of particular appointments and how these outcomes have reflected the fundamental principle of shared power. Along the way, he sheds new light on issues related to express and implied power, the validity of the unitary executive model, the tension between politics and professionalism, and the limits of originalism and textualism in interpreting the appointment process. Sollenberger documents how the president and Senate have worked with or against each other in managing the pre-nomination process, examining both the tradition of the president's consulting with senators and the Senate's numerous ways of killing a nomination. He also shows how the two branches haveoften sought compromise rather than test public patience, yet another testament to the genius of our system of checks and balances. And while past observers of the process have looked most closely at judicial appointments, Sollenberger casts a much wider net, while critiquing the "spoils era," civil service reform, and implications of the Pendleton Act before concluding with George W. Bush and his appointment of Michael Brown to FEMA. The first major study of the pre-nomination phase, Sollenberger's work asks important questions about our constitutional balance of powers and shows us how the appointments clause should ideally operate in a republican form of government.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
The Pre-nomination Process	p. 3
Additional Concerns of This Study	p. 3
Existing Research	p. 5
Organization of This Book	p. 6
Constitutional Principles	p. 8
Continental Congress	p. 8
State Constitutions	p. 12
Constitutional Convention	p. 13
State Ratification Conventions	p. 16
The Federalist Papers	p. 19
Correspondence between John Adams and Roger Sherman	p. 20
Establishing the Pre-nomination Process (1789-1829)	p. 22
Senatorial Courtesy	p. 23
The Rejection of Benjamin Fishbourn	p. 24
James Iredell and the Consent of Senator Benjamin Hawkins	p. 30
William Maclay and Home-State Support	p. 30
George Washington (1789-1797)	p. 31
John Adams (1797-1801)	p. 33
Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809)	p. 35
James Madison (1809-1817)	p. 37
James Monroe (1817-1825)	p. 39
John Quincy Adams (1825-1829)	p. 43
The Spoils Era I (1829-1845)	p. 47
Andrew Jackson (1829-1837)	p. 47
Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)	p. 55
William Henry Harrison (1841)	p. 59
John Tyler (1841-1845)	p. 62
The Spoils Era II (1845-1869)	p. 67
James K. Polk (1845-1849)	p. 68
Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)	p. 71
Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)	p. 72
Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)	p. 73
James Buchanan (1857-1861)	p. 76
Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)	p. 78
Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)	p. 80
Birth of Civil Service Reform (1869-1881)	p. 86
Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)	p. 86
Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881)	p. 94
James A. Garfield (1881)	p. 101
The Pendleton Act: Patchwork Reform (1881-1897)	p. 105
Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885)	p. 105
Grover Cleveland (1885-1889)	p. 111
Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)	p. 118
Grover Cleveland (1893-1897)	p. 122
McKinley to Ford: The Tradition Continues (1897-1977)	p. 126
William McKinley (1897-1901), Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909), and William Howard Taft (1909-1913)	p. 126
Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)	p. 131
Warren G. Harding (1921-1923), Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929), and Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)	p. 132
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945)	p. 135
Harry S Truman (1945-1953)	p. 137
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961)	p. 138
John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) and Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)	p. 139
Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974)	p. 142
Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977)	p. 145
Carter to Bush II: A Lasting Legacy (1977-2007)	p. 147
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)	p. 147
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)	p. 150
George H. W. Bush (1989-1993)	p. 153
William J. Clinton (1993-2001)	p. 156
George W. Bush (2001-2007)	p. 160
Analysis and Conclusions	p. 169
Republicanism and Constitutional Legitimacy	p. 170
The Practical Duty to Consult	p. 171
Institutional and Political Influences	p. 171
Participation in the Pre-nomination Process	p. 173
Failure to Consult: Congressional Responses	p. 174
Congressional Specification of Qualifications	p. 176
Nonstatutory Limits to the President's Appointment Power	p. 180
Reformers Seeking Nonpolitical Remedies	p. 181
Rise of the Unitary Executive School	p. 182
Interpretive Value of Originalism and Textualism	p. 185
Final Remarks	p. 189
Notes	p. 191
Bibliography	p. 269
Index	p. 293
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