Burrowing

Looks Like We've Got Another Burrower

Natalie Sherman | December 3, 2008, 6:11PM

We've told you about the Bush administration's last-ditch efforts to help political appointees burrow into career posts in the bureaucracy -- where they can quietly affect government policy for years to come.

Well it looks like we've found another example.

A spokesman for the Department of Housing and Urban Development told TPMmuckraker today that Darlene Williams, who was appointed by President Bush in 2005 to the post of Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research, will return to a career post under the new administration.

Williams had joined the department in 2003 as General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research, before shifting over in 2005 to become General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Administration. Both of these are career posts. Later that year, she was appointed by Bush to the higher-ranking political job she now holds.

That's slightly different from the usual burrowing dynamic, in which presidential appointees are new to the department. But it would appear to be burrowing all the same.

This is hardly the first sign of muck at HUD under Bush. Former HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson was found in a 2006 inspector general's report to have urged staff members to favor friends of President Bush when awarding contracts. When Jackson resigned earlier this year, federal authorities were investigating whether he used his position to enrich himself and his friends.

As for Williams, she's drawn criticism from HUD workers and their union for leading a controversial office move, which is transferring members of the Policy Development and Research team into temporary cubicles while part of the office is renovated.

George Bush

Dems Bash Burrowing Bushies

Zachary Roth | November 19, 2008, 10:38AM

Yesterday we flagged a Washington Post report about the "burrowing" of Bush administration political appointees into career jobs at various departments -- most prominently Interior -- where it will be difficult for the incoming Obama administration to dislodge them.

Bush certainly didn't invent what's sometimes called the "headless nail" phenomenon, but he's taking a bit of heat for the news nonetheless. Yesterday, reports the Post in a followup, Democratic senators Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein wrote in a letter to the White House:

Today's report reveals that senior members of your administration are undermining your public commitment to ease the transition by reorganizing agencies at the eleventh hour and installing political appointees in key positions for which they may not be qualified," they wrote. "We respectfully urge you to stand by your public commitment to a smooth transition by directing executive agencies immediately to halt any conversions of political appointees to career positions.

And White House press secretary Dana Perino was forced to deny that there's an orchestrated effort to embed loyalists in the bureaucracy.

But there's evidence that the burrowing under Bush has been extensive, and hasn't just been confined to the administration's waning days. The Post adds:

The Government Accountability Office has long tracked such political-to-career conversions, and it reported in May 2006 that during the first four years of the Bush administration, 144 political appointments were converted to career positions. Thirty-six were at the Health and Human Services Department, 23 were at the Justice Department, 21 were at the Defense Department and 15 were at the Treasury Department.

It'd be nice to know just which Bushies have already embedded themselves in those departments. We'll see what we can find out...