The President’s Chief Helpers – the Cabinet

A) 1st and foremost, how did it start?

1) Way back in 1789, Congress created several departments to help out President Washington on various specific affairs

(As a result the cabinet is not in the Constitution!)

2)    The departments were:a)    the State Department (headed by Thomas Jefferson) b) the Treasury Department (headed by Alexander Hamilton)c) the War Department - later named the Defense Department (headed

by Henry Knox)

3) His advisors were soon nicknamed the Cabinet (it had nothing to do with the kitchen)

4) Since then the cabinet has grown to now include 15 departments

1) The President must nominate them – What does the president look for? a) You have to have the appropriate skills for the specific office (for example, you don’t want someone who has never been in the military to serve as head of Veteran’s Affairs)

B) How did they get their

job?

b) You need somebody who will satisfy the interest groups (for example, you need someone heading the education department who the teachers’ unions like)

d) They also consider having a cabinet made up of a variety of racial, sexual, geographic (New England vs Southern vs Western vs Midwestern) and ethnic backgrounds

e) It also helps if they are the same political party as the president – Why?

f) Presidents appoint candidates who will agree with him:

1) not much job security

A) you can be replaced when the president gets replaced

b) you can get replaced by the president ex: former Secretary of State Colin Powell

2) you get less money – around $191,300/year

2) The 2nd step to the process – Senate must approve them

a) usually the nominees names and careers are leaked to the media to get the public’s point of view

b) the senate committee which oversees each department must approve/deny the candidate during confirmation hearings

c) then a simple majority of the Senate (51 votes) must approve d) How many nominees have been shot down? - Less than a dozen

C) What is their job?

a) to advise the president1) they usually meet once a week 2) its up to the president to decide how much they want to listen to

them though

3) more often than not cabinets have been used as a sounding board for policy rather than actually advising the president

b) in any case all cabinet members must be able to run their agency (and sub-agencies) as its head secretary (or in the case of Department of Justice, the Attorney General) to satisfy the president, special interest groups, the media, and Congress even though they may all disagree with them

c) they must be able to keep secrets

d) they must all get along with the other agencies

e) they must also be ready to maybe to take over for the president(if the need arises)

•Vice President •Speaker of the House •President Pro Tempore of the Senate •Secretary of State •Secretary of the Treasury •Secretary of Defense •Attorney General •Secretary of the Interior •Secretary of Agriculture •Secretary of Commerce •Secretary of Labor •Secretary of Health and Human Services •Secretary of Housing and Urban Development •Secretary of Transportation •Secretary of Energy •Secretary of Education •Secretary of Veterans Affairs •Secretary of Homeland Security

Line of Succession • # Office Current officer

• 1 Vice President of the United States Joe Biden (D)

• 2 Speaker of the House John Boehner (R)

• 3 President pro tempore of the Senate Patrick Leahy (D)

• 4 Secretary of State John Kerry (D)

• 5 Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew (D)

• 6 Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel (R)

• 7 Attorney General Eric Holder (D)

• — Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell (D)[a]

• 8 Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (D)

• 9 Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker (D)

• 10 Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez (D)

• 11 Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius (D)

• 12 Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan (D)

• 13 Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx (D)

• 14 Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz (D)

• 15 Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (D)

• 16 Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki (I)

• 17 Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson (D)

If they don’t do a good job (as head of their agency that is) they can be fired by the President (without the Senate’s approval)