Nomination Process

1. Interview with the Office of the Counsel to the President.

   Hold nothing back and be thoroughly truthful when interviewing and completing forms. Being exposed later will likely jeopardize your chances of being nominated.

   The Office of the Counsel to the President serves as a main gatekeeper to the Presidential nomination process. The lawyers in this office will build a dossier on your life. They will sift all of your information through filters to make sure that nothing you have done could prove an embarrassment to you or the administration and that there are no legal or ethical barriers to your taking on the proposed duties.
   
   To read more about the Office of the Counsel to the President, please visit this link:
   Chapter 2 - People and Places Along the Way

2. If the Office of the Counsel to the President approves your nomination, they will notify the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. Occasionally, this part of the process as been (suspended) by the administration, which has instead awaited security clearances, prior to any public annoucement.

   The Office of Presidential Personnel will prepare an appointment memo for the President’s approval. If the Office of the Counsel to the President does not approve of your nomination, you will not be appointed.

3. If the President approves your appointment, the White House Press Office will announce that the White House intends to nominate you.

   The White House Executive Clerks Office will deliver your nomination to the Senate.

Senate Confirmation Process

For a full review of the Senate confirmation process, please refer to the Survivor’s Guide at: Chapter 3 - Navigating the Senate

1. The White House will send your nomination to the Senate. The appropriate committee will ask you to fill out more paperwork as they review your nomination.

   Be prepared for a long and sometimes arbitrary wait for Senate confirmation.

   A full list of Senate committees that handle nominations can be found in the Survivor’s Guide here:
   Chapter 8 - Forms and Financial Disclosures

2. Fill out new forms presented by the Senate committee.

   Whatever you do, make sure your responses are your own; do not cut and paste what the department tells you into the Senate questionnaire.

   Please click here to see an example form sent from the Senate Committee on Armed Services.

   Link to form.

   To learn more about the Senate please go to:
   http://www.senate.gov/

The legislative affairs office of your future department may provide you with a briefing book. The book will likely detail the agency’s key issues, assist you with preparing responses to policy questions, and offer advice on how to deal with individual Senators.

3. Prepare for your hearing and meet with Senators and staffers in advance.

   Nominees should keep a low profile and avoid giving interviews or making speeches. Senators want to hear from you in private and at your hearing before they start reading your views in the newspapers.

   Although the House does not vote on your appointment, House committee staff work closely with Senate committee staff and may know ways to nudge your nomination along.

   Again, you can turn to the legislative affairs office of your future department to assist you with this process.
   
   Many nominees are surprised to learn how much their success in winning a confirmation depends upon their own initiative. Unless you are ticketed for a high-profile position, you will have to function as your own chief advocate.
   
   Meet with every Senator on the committee that is considering your nomination. Also, reach out to your home state Senators and ask that they introduce you at your hearing. Finally, it is wise to cultivate a relationship with the staff of the committee to which you are appealing.
   
   The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has also released their sample questions for new political appointees facing Senate confirmation. For each new incoming Administration, GAO helpfully prepares questions Senators might want to ask of appointees coming before them for confirmation.
   

4. Testify at your hearing.

   Don’t be evasive or uncooperative; the less you talk and the more you listen, the better.

   The Survivor’s Guide’s list of tips and sample committee questions can be found here:
   Korologos’s commandments and Senate committee questions in Chapter 3

5. The committee will vote on whether to approve your nomination. If they approve it, your nomination will go to the full Senate for its vote.

6. Await final Senate confirmation.

   Your nomination may be:

   • Confirmed
   • Withdrawn
   • Not confirmed
   • Not acted on in time, so the White House may make a Presidential recess appointment*

   *A recess appointment occurs when the Senate is out of session. This type of appointment can last until the end of the two-year session of Congress.

Other paths: