Research
Book Project
Book Project
Unconfirmed Power: Unilateral Governance at the Pleasure of the President
The first comprehensive examination of the political power that vacancies and acting appointees offer presidents as a means to unilaterally control the administrative state. Tracing more than two centuries of appointment authority in the federal executive branch and introducing an original dataset of every appointee, empty position, and nominee for nearly 500 Senate-confirmable positions from 1981 to 2025, the book upends the assumption that presidents staff the government only through Senate approval.
Published Articles
2021
APSR
Control without Confirmation: The Politics of Vacancies in Presidential Appointments
American Political Science Review Scholarship on separation of powers assumes executives are constrained by legislative approval when placing agents in top policymaking positions, yet presidents frequently fill agency leadership with unconfirmed, temporary officials or leave positions empty entirely. Using a novel dataset of vacancies across 15 executive departments from 1977 to 2016, I show that presidents’ nomination strategies include leaving positions empty and making interim appointments, and that these choices reflect presidents’ priorities and the character of vacant positions. Interim appointees are more likely in positions with substantial capacity to act on presidential priorities, suggesting presidents capitalize on their first-mover advantage to evade Senate confirmation.
2022
PSQ
Serving the Law or Playing Politics? The Strategic Use of U.S. Attorney Appointments
Presidential Studies Quarterly The strategic nature of presidential appointments and the politicization of federal prosecution have flourished as separate strains of research, and this article opens a dialogue between them by developing expectations for the three distinct origins of interim U.S. Attorneys. We test these expectations using an original, continuous dataset of all 93 U.S. Attorney positions from 1987 to 2016, which uniquely includes details of appointment and service for both Senate-confirmed and interim appointees. We find that the opportunity to realize his agenda and divergence from his predecessors motivate the president’s revealed preference for interim U.S. Attorneys of his own choosing.
2021
AJPM
2013
JFEI
Modeling the Impact of the Affordable Care Act and the Individual Mandate on Californians
Journal of Family and Economic Issues This article models the impact of the Affordable Care Act and its individual mandate on health insurance coverage in California. Using microsimulation of California’s insurance markets, we project enrollment and coverage outcomes under the law with and without the mandate. The results show the mandate plays a substantial role in expanding coverage among Californians.
In Progress
Under Review
Hollow Consent: A Theoretical Analysis of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act
The Senate’s advice and consent power is widely viewed as a check on presidential control of the administrative state, but that check assumes interim staffing is costly for presidents. We develop a formal model of confirmation bargaining in which vacancy management is a first-order strategic choice among appointing a political acting, relying on a career acting, or keeping the position empty. Political actings enable presidents to secure more ideologically aligned nominees, weakening Senate leverage precisely when it would otherwise be most effective.
Working Paper
Who Remains: Vacancies and Rulemaking at Independent Commissions
This paper investigates how vacancies influence policymaking at independent regulatory commissions, where unfilled positions affect both the composition of the commission and the authority of remaining commissioners. Analysis of commission composition and rulemaking data demonstrates that vacancies modify both the volume and direction of regulatory activity. These findings indicate that vacancies serve as a mechanism of political control, even within agencies structured for independence.
Working Paper
Oversight of Whom? Personnel Politics and Congressional Monitoring
This study examines how congressional oversight responds to a federal bureaucracy increasingly led by the President’s unconfirmed acting appointees. Drawing on a panel dataset of acting and confirmed appointees for every PAS position in the fifteen Cabinet departments from 1981 to 2024, along with the complete record of congressional hearing testimony, the analysis finds that increased unconfirmed leadership is associated with reduced legislative scrutiny. This pattern changes following the 1988 and 1998 statutory reforms that normalized acting service, which weakened the informational connection between confirmation and oversight.
Working Paper
Acting Appointees and Agency Performance in the Federal Government
Recent scholarship reports that federal agency performance falls with months of vacancy in Senate-confirmed leadership, a finding that rests on a 2020 expert survey of federal executives. We replicate the relationship on the workforce inside the agencies under evaluation, pairing fifteen years of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey with an original position-day record of every Senate-confirmed appointment across the 15 cabinet departments. The bureau-level effect depends on the granularity at which the sample is constructed, and the article opens the operational distinction between acting leadership and an empty seat to systematic empirical analysis.
Working Paper
Delaying Democracy: Capacity and Political Control at the Federal Election Commission
We study the Federal Election Commission, where vacancies have repeatedly stripped the agency of the quorum it needs to act. Using data on the Commission’s enforcement and regulatory activity, we show how appointment politics translates directly into the capacity, or incapacity, to administer campaign finance law. The findings illustrate how strategic inaction in appointments can disable an agency charged with protecting electoral integrity.
Working Paper
The Politics of Unmet Need: Medicaid and State Legislative Attention
Research on legislative responsiveness typically treats Medicaid eligibility and enrollment as interchangeable measures of district-level health demand; we show they are not, and that they move state legislative attention in opposite directions. Drawing on the 2008 Oregon Health Insurance Experiment and seven sessions of the Oregon State Legislature, we find that health-bill sponsorship and passage rise with the latent gap in coverage and fall with realized take-up, indicating that legislators respond to the political visibility of unmet need rather than to evidence the program is reaching constituents.
In Development
The Political Origins of Inferior Administration
The Appointments Clause never clarifies who holds residual authority when Congress establishes an office without specifying its staffing. Drawing on evidence from the first three presidential administrations, we trace how executive control over inferior officers became the default through institutional inheritance, administrative necessity, and congressional inaction, a settlement that was practical rather than principled.
Book Project
Administrative Ambition: The Revolving Door of Congressional Influence in the Executive Branch
This book project examines the revolving door of congressional influence in the executive branch. It traces how careers that span the branches carry congressional priorities, networks, and ambitions into administrative positions. The project asks what this mobility means for political control of the bureaucracy and the separation of powers.
Work in Progress
Power Concentration in the American Bureaucracy
This project examines how vacancies and appointment politics concentrate authority in fewer hands within the federal bureaucracy. It maps where and when power pools as positions sit empty or are filled on an acting basis. The aim is to understand the consequences of concentrated authority for accountability and policymaking.