Choosing a cabinet is a complicated task for a new president, and it’s easy to screw up. No one (excepting Donald Trump) gets to be president without a lot of support from within their party, and there are folks who need to be rewarded with important jobs. Similarly, it’s normal for a party to be somewhat fractured after a contested primary season, and one way to patch things back up is to offer key positions to former opponents or their supporters from different ideological wings. Neither of these approaches is optimal for getting the best people for the job. Even worse is selecting someone from the opposite party as a gesture at bipartisanship and national unity.
The most important thing to remember about cabinet positions is they head huge bureaucracies, and while a lot of the day-to-day work can be handled by deputies, it’s important that job applicants have some experience and capacity to lead large organizations. The next most important consideration is character. You don’t want someone who will embarrass you or cause scandal, and you definitely don’t want anyone who will put their own agenda and ambitions over your own. Relatedly, there are limits to how much ideological deviancy you should tolerate. If someone isn’t going to follow your vision for governance, that’s bad, but if they’re going to pursue something strongly at odds, that’s potentially disastrous. It’s also an idiotic way to devote your precious resources.
When I think about Biden’s coming cabinet, there are a couple of choices that check so many boxes that they make perfect sense. Senator Doug Jones, for example, would make an excellent Attorney General. He’s worked at the Justice Department before, he’s a star on civil rights, he has high character, and he seems in step with Biden’s overall platform. He also needs a job, having just been defeated in his bid for reelection. Finally, he’s easily confirmable and provides a little red state flavor to what will probably be a very blue state administration.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, however, strikes me as a very bad pick. She’s being considered for not only Attorney General but also Secretary of Agriculture. On the legal front, she was basically ruled out as a possible running mate in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, precisely because she’d served as a prosecutor in Minnesota at a time when the police were avoiding accountability. More importantly, she’s known for mistreating her staff, and that’s not the kind of thing that recommends someone to head up a major agency, whether it’s the Justice Department or the Department of Agriculture.
I don’t really have strong opinions about who Biden should pick to run the Pentagon or the State and Treasury departments, but I want his choices to meet my basic test. All things being equal, I’d love for progressives to get these jobs, but just because I tend to agree with them doesn’t mean they’re a better choice if they’re not team players or have no idea how to run an organization that employs tens of thousands of people.
I don’t really see Bernie Sanders as a natural cabinet head, for example, but I’d rather he serve at Veterans’ Affairs than anywhere else because I know he’s knowledgeable about the veterans’ health system and committed to protecting and improving it. If he wants to put his nose to the grindstone and work, that’s a good place for him. If he’d prefer to push Biden to the left on economic issues, he’s probably best left out of the cabinet, for both his and Biden’s sakes.
Biden will want a diverse cabinet, and he’ll have plenty of qualified candidates to choose from. He can’t totally avoid normal considerations about uniting the party or rewarding people who worked to put him in office, but if he stays focused on finding people who will do a good job, he’ll have a good cabinet, no matter its ideological makeup.
Cosign.
Adding: I’ve got a strong bias against appointing senators: 1) most of them *don’t* have experience running large organizations (or anything bigger than their senate staff); 2) in a narrowly divided Senate, appointing a senator from a red or swing state—or even a blue state with a Republican governor—means the risk of losing a Senate seat is too high; 3) even appointing blue state senators means a loss of seniority and power and skill in the Senate.
There are plenty of qualified people to fill all of these Cabinet positions. Appoint ones who won’t weaken the party’s power elsewhere.
So you figure the Dems are not good at bringing along talent or picking them. Prolly right. But don’t you think the party should do better?
No, I think there’s plenty of talent, and the generational change that’s happening gives me a lot of hope for the future.
I just think that, all things being equal, in seniority-based organizations like the House and Senate it’s not a good idea to give away that power.
For example, if the unlikely happens and Democrats win both Georgia run-offs, then Bernie Sanders will chair the Budget committee and Pat Leahy will chair Appropriations. Why would any Democrat in Vermont want them in the cabinet?
I agree In the main with your comments. But I am not sure Sanders should be given a spot. He strikes me as too ideological. And I’ve heard the charges about Klobuchar but remain unconvinced. You want a real a real expert who understands money at Treasury take a hard look at Stephanie Kelton, yeah that one.
Biden should expect that nominating those Dems whom he thinks will do a good job and carry out their department’s mission will result in around 50% of his picks being derailed by Gravedigger of Democracy McConnell, who will be showing Biden who’s boss pretty quick. We’ll be right back in the “Dem prezes have no right to govern” mode. Biden may even begin by enabling the Gravedigger and pre-emptively making sure that the picks are all “moderates” (i.e. Repub sympathizers who will ensure agency stagnation).
McConnell’s grip on Mitch’s Miscreants will get even stronger in 2021, as he will have less of them and thus will make even greater demands on their “loyalty”. The Justice Amy catastrophe showed that sticking together (no matter how unprincipled and outrageous the goal) is their chief tactic. That the Miscreants did not actually suffer defeat for their universal Trumpolini enabling and defense means they know they are untouchable. Watching the pathetic attempts of the admin to boot-lick McConnell and his turds will be repulsive beyond endurance.
Susan Rice, Samantha Powers, Pete Buttigieg, Richard Cordry, Tom Perez, Julian Castro. I don’t think Stacey Abrams is interested in a Cabinet position, but if she is, she can have her damned pick if GA flips the Senate.
There is one Senator I would like to see added to the Cabinet: Dianne Feinstein as DNI. She can fumigate and re-staff the Intelligence agencies before retiring. It would get her out of the Senate and we don’t have to worry about losing the seat.