Cabinet of the United States

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The Cabinet of the United States (usually referred to as the U.S. President's Cabinet or simplified as the Cabinet) is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, which are generally the heads of the federal executive departments. The existence of the Cabinet dates back to the first American President, George Washington, who appointed a Cabinet of four people (Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson; Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton; Secretary of War Henry Knox; and Attorney General Edmund Randolph) to advise and assist him in his duties. Cabinet officers are nominated by the President and then presented to the United States Senate for confirmation or rejection by a simple majority. If approved, they are sworn in and begin their duties. Aside from the Attorney General, and previously, the Postmaster General, they all receive the title Secretary. Members of the Cabinet serve at the pleasure of the President, which means the President may remove them at will.

Contents

Constitutional and legal basis

Confirmation requirement

Article Two, Section two of the U.S. Constitution says that the President

“ shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. ”

It is possible for incoming Presidents to retain sitting Cabinet members (as was the case with Robert Gates for example) in which case there is no need to re-confirm them in office.

Other Constitutional references

Article Two of the Federal Constitution provides that the President can require "the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices."[1] The Constitution did not then establish the names (or list or limit the number) of Cabinet departments. These details were left to Congress and the President to determine.

Later, upon the ratification of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, a provision was created allowing the Vice-President and "a majority of the principal officers" of the executive branch departments to transmit a notice (to the Speaker of the House and the U.S. Senate's President pro tempore) that the President is unfit for office. If the President contests this finding, then the U.S. Congress is directed to settle the matter.

U.S. Cabinet nominees are chosen from a very large pool of potential candidates. One of the few qualification restrictions is set out in the Ineligibility Clause of Article One of the U.S. Constitution: "no person holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either house during his continuance in office." Accordingly, a sitting member of the U.S. Congress must resign from his/her seat in Congress to accept a Cabinet appointment. This clause also bars any member of Congress from holding an executive office that was created by law during his/her current term in Congress.

This constitutional separation between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch is quite different from the British, Canadian, or Australian parliamentary cabinet systems, where the members of the Cabinet are required by long-standing precedents to be sitting members of the legislature. Proponents of the American system of government argue these differences lead to better qualified and more stable Cabinets than are possible under the Westminster system.

Federal law

There is no explicit definition of the term "Cabinet" in either the United States Code or the Code of Federal Regulations. However, there are occasional references to "cabinet-level officers" or "secretaries", which when viewed in their context do refer to the heads of the "executive departments" as listed in 5 U.S.C. § 101.

Under 5 U.S.C. § 3110 Federal officials are prohibited from appointing family members to certain governmental posts, including seats in the Cabinet. Passed in 1967, the law was a response to John F. Kennedy's appointment of his brother Robert F. Kennedy to the office of the United States Attorney General.

Salary

Main article: Executive Schedule

Cabinet officials receive an amount of pay determined by Title 5 of the United States Code. According to 5 U.S.C. § 5312, Cabinet level positions qualify for Level I pay, which amounts to $199,700. Some cabinet-level officials, including the Vice President and the White House Chief of Staff, have their salaries determined differently.

Precedence and succession

Order of precedence

During a meeting of the President's Cabinet, members are seated according to the order of precedence, with higher ranking officers sitting closer to the center of the table. Hence, the President and Vice President sit directly across from each other at the middle of the oval shaped table. Then, the Secretaries of State and Defense are seated directly to the right and left, respectively, of the President and the Secretary of Treasury and the Attorney General sit to right and left, respectively, of the Vice President. This alternation of ranked seating continues, with lower ranking Cabinet-level officers sitting farther away from the President and Vice President.

Line of succession

The Cabinet is also important in the presidential line of succession, which determines an order in which Cabinet officers succeed to the office of the president following the death or resignation of the president. At the top of the order of succession are the Vice President, Speaker of the House and President pro tempore of the Senate, and Secretary of State. Because of this, it is common practice not to have the entire Cabinet in one location, even for ceremonial occasions like the State of the Union Address, where at least one Cabinet member does not attend. This person is the designated survivor, and he or she is held at a secure, undisclosed location, ready to take over if the President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, President pro tempore of the Senate, Secretary of State and the rest of the Cabinet are killed.

Cabinet and Cabinet-level officials

See also: Confirmations of Barack Obama's Cabinet

The men and women listed below were nominated by President Barack Obama to form his Cabinet and were confirmed by the United States Senate on the date noted. An elected Vice President does not require Senate confirmation, nor do White House staff positions (e.g. the chief of staff or press secretary).

Cabinet

Department Office Incumbent Image in office since

Department of State		 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton January 21, 2009

Department of the Treasury		 Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner January 26, 2009

Department of Defense		 Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta July 1, 2011

Department of Justice		 Attorney General Eric Holder February 2, 2009

Department of the Interior		 Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar January 20, 2009

Department of Agriculture		 Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack January 20, 2009

Department of Commerce		 Secretary of Commerce John Bryson October 21, 2011

Department of Labor		 Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis February 24, 2009

Department of Health and Human Services		 Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius April 28, 2009

Department of Housing and Urban Development		 Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan January 26, 2009

Department of Transportation		 Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood January 22, 2009

Department of Energy		 Secretary of Energy Steven Chu January 20, 2009

Department of Education		 Secretary of Education Arne Duncan January 20, 2009

Department of Veterans Affairs		 Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki January 20, 2009

Department of Homeland Security		 Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano January 20, 2009

Cabinet-level officers

Agency Office Incumbent Image in office since

Office of the Vice President		 Vice President Joe Biden January 20, 2009

Executive Office of the President		 White House Chief of Staff William Daley January 13, 2011

Office of Management and Budget		 Director of the Office of Management and Budget Jacob Lew November 18, 2010

Environmental Protection Agency		 Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa P. Jackson January 23, 2009

Office of the Trade Representative		 Trade Representative Ron Kirk March 18, 2009

United States Mission to the United Nations		 Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice January 22, 2009

Council of Economic Advisers		 Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Alan Krueger November 3, 2011

Former Cabinet departments

Renamed Cabinet offices

Executive officials no longer of Cabinet rank

Proposed Cabinet departments

Lists of Cabinets

See also: List of United States Cabinets

See also

References

  1. ^ Constitution of the United States, gpoaccess.gov
  2. ^ The office of Secretary of Foreign Affairs existed under the Articles of Confederation from October 20, 1781 to March 3, 1789, the day before the Constitution came into force.
  3. ^ "President Clinton Raises FEMA Director to Cabinet Status" (Press release). Feberal Emergency Management Agency. 1996-02-26. http://web.archive.org/web/19970116185236/www.fema.gov/home/NWZ96/cabinet.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-22. 
  4. ^ Fowler, Daniel (2008-11-19). "Emergency Managers Make It Official: They Want FEMA Out of DHS". CQ Politics. http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hsnews-000002988269&cpage=1. Retrieved 2010-03-03. "During the Clinton administration, FEMA Administrator James Lee Witt met with the cabinet. His successor in the Bush administration, Joe M. Allbaugh, did not."  (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/5ny13zsIv)
  5. ^ Tenet, George (2007). At the Center of the Storm. London: HarperCollins. p. 136. ISBN 0061147788. "Under President Clinton, I was a cabinet member - a legacy of John Deutch's requirement when he took the job as DCI - but my contacts with the president, while always interesting, were sporadic. I could see him as often as I wanted but was not on a regular schedule. Under President Bush, the DCI lost its Cabinet-level status." 
  6. ^ Schoenfeld, Gabriel (July/August 2007). "The CIA Follies (Cont'd.)". Commentary. https://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-cia-follies--cont-d--10897?page=all. Retrieved 2009-05-22. "Though he was to lose the cabinet rank he had enjoyed under Clinton, he came to enjoy “extraordinary access” to the new President, who made it plain that he wanted to be briefed every day." 
  7. ^ Sciolino, Elaine (1996-09-29). "C.I.A. Chief Charts His Own Course". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/29/us/cia-chief-charts-his-own-course.html?scp=5&sq=John%20M.%20Deutch%20cabinet%20rank&st=nyt&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2009-05-22. "It is no secret that Mr. Deutch initially turned down the intelligence position, and was rewarded for taking it by getting cabinet rank." 
  8. ^ Clinton, Bill (1993-07-01). "Remarks by the President and Lee Brown, Director of Office of National Drug Control Policy". White House. http://clinton6.nara.gov/1993/07/1993-07-01-presidents-remarks-at-swearing-in-of-lee-brown.html. Retrieved 2009-05-22. "We are here today to install a uniquely qualified person to lead our nation's effort in the fight against illegal drugs and what they do to our children, to our streets, and to our communities. And to do it for the first time from a position sitting in the President's Cabinet." 
  9. ^ Cook, Dave (2009-03-11). "New drug czar gets lower rank, promise of higher visibility". Christan Science Monitor. http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/03/11/new-drug-czar-gets-lower-rank-promise-of-higher-visibility/. Retrieved 2009-03-16. "For one thing, in the Obama administration the Drug Czar will not have Cabinet status, as the job did during George W. Bush’s administration." 
  10. ^ Staff reporter (2009-02-09). "Bipartisan leaders of the Senate Small Business Committee renewed their call for President Obama to elevate the SBA administrator to cabinet-level status". Business Research Services, Inc.. http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/03/11/new-drug-czar-gets-lower-rank-promise-of-higher-visibility/. Retrieved 2009-05-22. "The SBA administrator held cabinet rank in the Clinton administration, but not under President Bush." 
  11. ^ "History of Legislation to Create a Dept. of Peace". http://www.thepeacealliance.org/content/view/54/130/. 
  12. ^ Clarke, Jr., John (2009-01-16). "Quincy Jones Lobbies Obama for Secretary of Culture Post". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/15765/90864. Retrieved 2010-08-19. 

Further reading

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