Presidential Patronage and Executive Branch Appointments, 1925–1959

Abstract

We study presidential patronage as a form of distributive politics. To do so, we introduce comprehensive data on supervisory personnel in the executive branch between 1925 and 1959 and link each bureaucrat to the congressional representative from their home district. We identify testable hypotheses regarding the impact of electoral considerations, partisanship, and legislative support on the distribution of bureaucratic appointments across districts. Results from a variety of fixed-effects estimation strategies are consistent with several forms of presidential patronage. Our results provide initial evidence about the mechanisms through which patronage appointments are administered in the executive branch and illustrate how presidential politics affects the composition of the federal government.Effective use of the personnel system is a key component of presidents' influence over the bureaucracy. For example, presidents can often advance their policy agendas (e.g., Moe 1985) and electoral interests (e.g., Lewis 2008) by appointing political allies to bureaucratic positions. 1 The allocation of bureaucratic positions, however, is a perennial source of controversy, as critics often allege bias, mismanagement, and nepotism when they perceive that presidents have elevated political or personal connections over qualifications and expertise. The findings from recent scholarship suggest that these concerns may not be without merit (e.g.,

The Outsiders: Examining the Effects of Political Appointments on Public-Sector Employee Engagement

“…Presidents have multiple methods at their disposal for exerting control over the administrative bureaucracy, including the issuance of executive orders, policy memoranda, and rules; influencing federal agency design; and appointments (Aberbach & Rockman, 1988;Dodds, 2022;Rogowski & Simko, 2022;Krause & O'Connell;Ouyang et al, 2017). By far, the most common form of politicization is the installation of preferred candidates into leadership positions throughout federal agencies (Lewis, 2008).…”

Political Context, White House Centralization, and the Timing of Presidential Nominations to the Federal Courts

“…Finally, recent scholarship has emphasized the president's role in distributive politics. These accounts illustrate the president's institutional power in directing the flow of federal resources (e.g., Berry, Burden, and Howell 2010; Rogowski 2016; Rogowski and Simko 2022) and emphasize the president's incentives to prioritize their allocation among electorally valuable constituencies (e.g., Kriner and Reeves 2015; Lowande, Jenkins, and Clarke 2018; Reeves 2011). We contribute to this scholarship by arguing that presidents have incentives to prioritize nominations to some federal judicial districts over others.…”

“…Though a large literature studies the Senate's evaluation of judicial nominees and the constraints imposed via advice and consent on a president's choice of nominee (e.g., Binder and Maltzman 2002; Cameron, Kastellec, and Park 2013; Martinek, Kemper, and Winkle 2002; Scherer, Bartels, and Steigerwalt 2008; Shipan and Shannon 2003), we argue for greater attentiveness to the internal politics that shape presidential decision making. In a variety of other domains, scholars have documented how the politics of centralization (see Moe 1985) affords presidents influence over the distribution of federal resources (e.g., Berry, Burden, and Howell 2010; Kriner and Reeves 2015; Lowande, Jenkins, and Clarke 2018; Reeves 2011; Rogowski 2016; Rogowski and Simko 2022). We extend the political logics from this scholarship to the case of federal judicial nominations, where we expect that centralized nomination processes increase the opportunities for presidents to act strategically to fill vacant seats.…”