Cabinet: Familiar Faces

In assembling a generally first-rate Cabinet from among the Republican Party’s stock of experienced hands, President-elect George Bush has acted more like the leader of a parliamentary than a presidential democracy. Instead of trying the untested, he has relied on the veterans of the last three Republican Administrations, Capitol Hill stalwarts and a few long-time personal friends. As the Cabinet nears completion--only Bush’s energy secretary and his “drug czar” remain to be named--it’s clear that the talent search has been focused inside the Capital Beltway; only three of Bush’s 15 nominees live or work outside the Washington metropolitan area.

There are definite advantages in sticking with familiar faces. The collective experience of Bush’s nominees assures a high degree of professionalism in the operations of the government. For the most part, they know their way around Capitol Hill; five of them served in either the House or the Senate. And none are strangers to the President-elect himself, which means that they probably will have more success in gaining the Chief Executive’s ear than did some of their predecessors. The contrast with President Reagan’s first Cabinet appointments could not be starker; some of Reagan’s people ran into trouble because they lacked experience in the federal Establishment, misunderstood Congress’ folkways and scarcely knew their President.

Unlike Reagan, Bush seems to have little taste for ideologues. His nominees have been drawn largely from the moderate center of the Republican Party and do not approach their new jobs with fixed agendas. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, a carry-over from the Reagan Administration, shows no sign of pursuing the doctrinaire anticivil rights causes that embroiled his predecessor, Edwin Meese III. Bush’s nomination of Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) as secretary of housing and urban development may be a gesture to the party’s conservative wing, but the President-elect also has been willing to take a few risks. He has put in charge of social policy, as secretary of health and human services, a black medical-school dean, Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, whose personal views on abortion already have alienated anti-abortion activists and evangelicals (though Sullivan seems to have tempered them publicly in order to land this job).

Our main complaint is that this is shaping up as a Cabinet--and an Administration--of white males, which points up the disadvantage of relying on familiar faces. Bush may have reached out to blacks with the appointment of Sullivan to a high-profile job and to Latinos with the nominations of Lauro F. Cavazos to head the Education Department and Rep. Manuel Lujan Jr. (R-N.M.) to direct the Interior Department. But women are underrepresented, despite the growing cadre of accomplished Republican women. Just one woman, Elizabeth Hanford Dole, a veteran of three Republican Administrations, has been named to the Cabinet, as labor secretary, and only one other, the equally experienced Carla Anderson Hills, will enjoy Cabinet rank, as U.S. trade representative.

Both Dole and Hills have served before in the Cabinet, which makes us wonder whether, for females, previous Cabinet experience is a prerequisite for a top Administration job. If that’s true, it suggests a higher standard than that applied to male Cabinet prospects, it means that women will never be represented in more than token numbers and it smacks of the discrimination that blocks the advancement of women in American society. Bush and his transition team need only to look beyond their immediate orbit to find many other superbly qualified women--members of Congress, Republican judges and executive branch officials at the assistant secretary level--who would bring much talent to the Cabinet and to the sub-Cabinet jobs still to be filled. Where women are concerned, Bush needs to fish in a deeper pond.