"The Loyalty Premium: How Insecure Senate Partisan Majorities Constrain Presidential Appointment Powers"

• In Event: Executive Branch Politics and Lobbying

Abstract

A critical element of executive power rests with a president’s ability to appoint executive branch officials aligned with their policy interests. A logic is advanced positing that both presidents and Senate confront greater uncertainty as Senate partisan majorities diminish, and therefore, presidents obtain decreasing ideological affinity from confirmed executive appointees. Applying structural econometric methods, this claim is evaluated analyzing 4,835 PAS confirmed individuals between 1987-2021. The evidence generally conforms to the theory’s predictions that more insecure Senate partisan majorities are associated with greater ideological divergence between presidents and executive appointees. These findings also reveal asymmetries, with insecure Senate partisan opposition majorities providing a more effective ideological check on presidents than the ideological benefits being conferred to presidents as their party’s Senate majorities become more secure. Insecure Senate partisan majorities generate contagion effects via interbranch politics by constraining presidents’ ability to facilitate executive branch cohesion through the power of appointment.

Author

• George A Krause, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author