Data for: Who Isn’t Running American Government: Appointee Vacancies in U.S. Executive Branch Agencies

Position vacancy data were constructed from two public release files: Office of Personnel Management (OPM) personnel data obtained through the Central Personnel Data File (CPDF) covering PAS appointees confirmed during the first Bush and Clinton administrations, from 1989 to 2001; and Government Accountability Office (GAO) data supporting the April 1994 report, “Political Appointees: Turnover Rates in Executive Schedule Positions Requiring Senate Confirmation,” (GAO/GGD-94-115FS, 1981-1990) covering PAS appointees confirmed, from 1981 to 1990. Using nomination and confirmation data drawn from the Senate record accessed via Thomas.gov, the research team verified and expanded the data file to cover the 1989-2015 time series. A full succession of appointments to each PAS position was assembled using Congressional Research Service reports published each Congress (Hogue 2003), annual Congressional Quarterly Staff Directory, contemporaneous media coverage obtained through LexisNexis, and a growing range of online resources.
Appointee departure dates presented the greatest difficulty, as reliable public data are not available (Dull and Roberts 2009: 449). A number of PAS positions are omitted, including U.S. attorney and U.S. marshal positions in the Department of Justice; Foreign Service and diplomatic positions in the Department of State; officer corps positions in the civilian uniformed services of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the Department of Commerce, and of the Public Health Service in the Department of Health and Human Services; and the officer corps in the military services. Excluded from the analysis are multilateral banking organizations, legislative branch agencies, the Appalachian Regional Commission, and the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia (Hogue 2003: 37). Recess appointments are included; “acting” appointees are not.

本职位空缺数据集由两份公开发布文件构建而成：一份为通过中央人事数据文件（Central Personnel Data File，CPDF）获取的美国人事管理办公室（Office of Personnel Management，OPM）人事数据，涵盖1989年至2001年乔治·H·W·布什第一任期与克林顿执政时期内获参议院确认的政治任命公职人员（PAS appointees）；另一份为美国政府问责局（Government Accountability Office，GAO）支撑1994年4月报告《政治任命人员：需参议院确认的行政调度职位人员流动率》（GAO/GGD-94-115FS，数据覆盖1981年至1990年）的相关数据集，该报告覆盖1981年至1990年的该类公职人员。研究团队借助通过Thomas.gov获取的参议院档案中的提名与确认数据，对数据集进行了验证与扩充，使其覆盖1989年至2015年的时间序列。此外，研究团队通过每届国会发布的国会研究服务处（Congressional Research Service）报告（Hogue 2003）、《国会季刊职员名录》年度版、通过LexisNexis获取的同期媒体报道，以及日益丰富的各类在线资源，整理出了每个PAS职位的完整任命继任序列。
任命人员的离职日期是本次数据构建中难度最高的环节，因目前尚无可靠的公开数据可供使用（Dull与Roberts, 2009：449）。本数据集剔除了多类PAS职位，包括司法部下辖的美国检察官与美国法警职位、国务院下辖的外交事务与外交职位、商务部下属国家海洋和大气管理局文职制服服务体系中的军官职位、卫生与公众服务部下属公共卫生服务体系中的军官职位，以及各军种的军官职位。本次分析未涵盖多边银行机构、立法部门机构、阿巴拉契亚区域委员会，以及哥伦比亚特区法院服务与罪犯监管局（Hogue, 2003：37）。数据集包含休会任命职位，但不包含代理任命人员。