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MARCH 20, 2001

Hoping to draw attention to President George W. Bush's incredible task of filling nearly 500 open posts in his administration, a new web site launched on Monday will provide users with weekly updates about the latest political appointees.

Sponsored by The Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC, non-profit educational organization, "Confirmation Countdown" won't provide users with biographies and details about Bush's appointees. But it will make them aware that the process of filling positions that Paul C. Light of Brookings calls "some of the most important jobs in the world" has become increasingly complex and lengthy.

Confirmation has never been an easy task. Candidates undergo FBI and background security checks even before they are named to a particular post. Then, after receiving the nomination from the President, the Senate will hold hearings and eventually approve or decline a candidate.

In recent years, however, the process has taken longer to complete. During the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations, the majority of appointees waited five months or more to receive a vote, compared to 1964 to 1984, when the majority waited less than six.

The wait is all too well known by tribal leaders, who have been pressing the Bush administration and Secretary of Interior Gale Norton to fill the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs slot as soon as possible. A number of candidates have been in contact with Bush-Cheney transition team since December but Norton said it will be several months before an appointee is confirmed.

"At this point, we're still in, unfortunately, fairly early stages of that," Norton told tribal leaders last month. "I know that once that individual for an Assistant Secretary position is selected, then they need to go through the process of an FBI background check, through the confirmation process with the Senate committees, and so it is a process that, even once we make a decision, will probably take several months."

"So it will, unfortunately, be a while before we have people in place, but working on that is a very, very fast priority for me," she said.

Judging by the slow movement at the Department of Interior, tribal leaders will indeed be waiting a while. Bush has only announced just one additional position under Norton when he named J. Steven Griles as Deputy Secretary of Interior, the second in command, earlier this month. Griles' nomination has not been sent to the Senate, however.

In total, President Bush has announced 56 nominations, has sent 42 to the Senate, and has seen 22 win confirmation. He still has 460 positions left, according to "Confirmation Countdown."

He has already beat Clinton's record in filling top level posts, though. Controversial Attorney General John Ashcroft was confirmed in the second month of the administration, while Clinton saw his last Cabinet nominee confirmed in the fourth.

Relevant Links:
Confirmation Countdown, the Presidential Appointee Initiative (updated every Monday) - http://www.appointee.brookings.org
Appointee Resource Center (with daily updates to Appointee rumor mill) - http://www.appointee.brookings.org/resourcecenter/resourcecenter.htm

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