Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

List of United States political appointments across party lines

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Remove ads
Remove ads

United States presidents typically fill their Cabinets and other appointive positions with people from their own political party. The first Cabinet formed by the first president, George Washington, included some of Washington's political opponents, but later presidents adopted the practice of filling their Cabinets with members of the president's party.[1]

Appointments across party lines are uncommon. Presidents may appoint members of a different party to high-level positions in order to reduce partisanship or improve cooperation between the political parties.[2] Also presidents often appoint members of a different party because they need Senate confirmation for many of these positions, and at the time of appointment the Senate was controlled by the opposition party of the president.[2] Many of the cross-partisan nominees are often moderates within their own parties.[2]

This is a list of people appointed to high-level positions in the United States federal government by a president whose political party affiliation was different from that of the appointee. The list includes executive branch appointees and independent agency appointees. Independent or nonpartisan appointees, nominally apolitical appointments (such as Article III judges and military officers), and members of explicitly bipartisan commissions are not included. A third party member has never been an appointee.

Remove ads

List of appointees

Summarize
Perspective
More information Appointee, Position ...

‡ Person was an appointee of the previous administration and was reappointed or retained by the President.

Remove ads

Other notable appointments that crossed party lines

Remove ads

Notes

  1. Johnson was an 1864 vice-presidential running mate, the 16th Vice President of the United States of America, and the 17th President of the United States of America (1865). With the exception of Gerald Ford and Nelson Rockefeller, vice presidents are elected and not appointed. Abraham Lincoln and Johnson ran as members of the National Union Party and not as a Republican and a Democrat.
  2. Herbert Hoover was also appointed to be Administrator of the United States Food Administration from 1917–1919 by Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, but this was not a cross-party appointment because Hoover did not declare his allegiance to the Republican Party until 1920.
  3. Appointee was a Democrat at the beginning of this tenure.

References

Loading content...

Key

Loading content...
Loading related searches...

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads