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The President is expected to make new appointments - Senate on Vacation for Weekend

Nominations and Appointments of the President of the United States - This page gives you appointments and nominations made in recent days

Current as of: Friday, May 18, 2012 9:12 AM

Let us know at Director@Presidential-Appointments.org if you need help finding or tracking appointments.

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The Resumes of appointments are available at:

Resumes of Obama Appointments in 2011

New Senate Rules:

The United States Senate has been attempting to improve its operating rules related to filibusters and anonymous “holds” in the last several weeks.  These parliamentary devices have been available to senators for decades but have been used more aggressively in recent years.  Both parties have been the villains in the abuses of Senate rules on these matters.  The net effect was to slow down or incapacitate the Senate.

Under the Constitution of the United States, the legislative bodies, the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, have the right to establish their own parliamentary rules.  The Senate has determined that it can only make changes rules on the simple majority vote as the first piece of business in any new session.  This means in practice that these changes cannot be made except at the start of each two we’re session of Congress.

The public press is announcing that the senators have certain private understandings about how both appointments and new legislation will be managed by both parties.  These understandings seem to include the fact that while anonymous holds will be allowed for two days, the holding senator must then announce the reasons for his decision to block the nomination.  Whether this rule will be followed is improbable or at least eight matter of skepticism.  There has been no success with the same rule in the past.

There is apparently also an agreement to pass legislation which would remove the confirmation requirement from approximately four hundred presidential nominations.  This is probably a legitimate idea of from the point of good government because these will be appointments of which are not major in nature.

The United States senate from its inception in the late seventeen hundreds has always been a special interest body.  Its representation is based entirely on two senators from each state, regardless of the size of the population in each state.  The House of Representatives of course is based entirely on population although it is always a struggle keep our representative districts approximately the same size in numbers of people in them.  History suggests that this apportionment of votes in each house is a workable arrangement on its face.  The problem however has always been that the Senate members have very specific interests, most of them economic in nature the filibuster rules were designed to perpetuate de-facto slavery in the south for decades, or at least to block and the progressive legislation by the Congress on matters related to black issues.

This set of practices gives individual senators enormous power in shaping or blocking confirmation of nominees and pending legislation.  It represents a direct confrontation with the concept of majority rule with arguments for its continuing role being self serving and generally not founded in fact.

It is unlikely that this will change will have much impact in getting presidential nominations confirmed quicker.

Bad Conduct at GSA

The General Services Administration - the landlord for the government has shown really bad conduct in over-spending recently. Headed by patronage officers - it is the classic situation of the fox in the chicken house - raping the federal Treasury way outside of the law. 4-16-12

Political Federal Judges:

4-9-12 There is nothing new about Federal judges getting into political squabbles and criticism from politicians and citizens alike. It got started when Justice Marshall just after the founding of this country took the position that the Supreme Court could challenge the Constitutionality of congressional and executive decisions. So far so good.

The political vs. objectivity discussion has gone on continuously since that time. Recently it has seemed more political because of the decision in 2000 on the presidential election, and the current discussion about the Affordable Care Act. Usually the public reaction comes to the front when social or personal issues are involved, even though most Supreme Court cases are about commercial and financial matters.

In spite of all the noise about the current fight over public Medical Care, it will go back into being a congressional and executive decision soon-immediately after the Court enters a decision. The other two branches of government will rise to the occasion eventually and take action which brings a positive response within the general voting population.

The real issue in American government which relates to the Federal courts is the fact that both parties use the Senate confirmation process to do in their political opponents. Even that process is legitimate until it begins to infringe on the day to day administrative conduct of the Federal Court system itself.

If you are the plaintiffs or defendant in the Federal Court system at any stage, the ability to have your case heard and managed by a Federal judge may have serious financial implications for you. Also, many citizens find themselves in Federal jails waiting for a trial or appeal and are delayed by open Federal judge positions.

The bottom line of this discussion is that the United States Senate needs to pay attention to its responsibilities of confirmation. Take time to shout at each other, make irresponsible judgments, pretend that the sky is falling but before too long to confirm or deny judges or potential judges the right to serve and get on with another nomination. The citizenry has a reasonable right to a prompt hearing in the Federal Court system and the Senate confirmation process is actually damaging that right for many people at this time. 4-8-12

Recess Fight: 04-5-12

Another Federal Judge refused to rule on whether the President's recess appointments when the Senate was away on vacation were constitutional - saying that it was a side issue not essential to deciding the case in question. So far the President is winning on these cases, but somebody is sure to take them to the Supreme Court soon. 3-31-12

Federal judge today refused to hear a case brought on the recess appointment issue on the legal theory that is "political" and not a proper legal question. There will undoubtedly be another case and will end up in the Supreme Court at some point.

2-19-2012 - With the Senate on vacation but holding pro-forma sessions - Majority Leader Ried has recommended that the President make 90 recess appointments. This is a result of the Senates inability to get nominations appointed and confirmed.

02-10-2012 The decision of the President to challenge the absurd politics of the Senate on blocking appointments is historic - and will be a historic legal fight. The real issue is whether or not a small number of Senators can block the majority on approving appointments. The outcome is not at all clear in how the courts will react.

New Struggles Coming in Senate Confirmation

Both parties have made the Senate's confirmation duties silly - and not useful to the people's business. There is nothing that looks like it is going to get better this next year - either. 12-28-2011

Patronage in the modern age:

December 22 2011 - The United States has refined how Presidential patronage - people given jobs by an administration - to a relatively small group - admittedly still tens of thousands in an honest count - but not many compared to the general size of government.

While there are interesting political reasons for patronage that go deep into the nature of how humans function - in the 21st century these appointments offer a way to install administration ideas into the government agencies, and secondly, a powerful balance and buffer to how bureaucracies work.

The primary weakness in the patronage structure is finding talented people willing to take off from regular employment to take these jobs. It is critical that we get to the point that these jobs are enticing to competent people, and do it such a way that the damage to the person in terms of finances and public attack are at least reasonable.

The United States Senate Hearings Agenda and Floor Action - This page gives you the current active schedule of the United States Senate in relation to confirmation matters.

Senate out of Town

     John Isaacson, page owner, graduated from Washington University Law School - He was involved in Missouri state politics as campaign manager for Governor and as state Republican Campaign Chairman in 1963-1964. Isaacson was an Air Force Intelligence Officer in Europe during the Berlin Crisis under John Kennedy - President Nixon appointed him to serve on the President's Commission for the Observance of the 25th Anniversary of the United Nations, serving on the China Subcommittee which recommended the admission of China to the United Nations. His political experience includes meetings with Presidents Harry Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, and Ford. He enjoyed a long personal friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt and Edna Gellhorn, the founder of The League of Women Voters. Isaacson has traveled extensively throughout Europe and the Near and Far East.  He now lives in western Montana near the Rocky Mountain Continental Divide in Butte Montana, the "Richest Hill on Earth."