UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CABINET APPOINTMENTS DATASET

A cabinet of US federal department executives has been a part of every US administration since George Washington. While a cabinet is not formally required by the US constitution, Article II, Section 2 effectively assumes it by authorizing the president to seek advice from the principal officer in each of the executive departments.  

This dataset consists of a series of csv files described below:

APPOINTMENTS
The primary listing, consisting of all confirmed cabinet appointments from Washington through to the current administration. It includes data on name, service dates, notable scandals, education, military service, foreign birth, known minority and gender status, whether the appointee died in office, and the senate confirmation vote tallies.

CABINET LEVEL
Listing from Carter to the current administration of unofficial cabinet-level positions, such as Administrator of the EPA, Chief of Staff, and the Director of National Intelligence.

DECLINED
Listing of senate approved cabinet appointments where the administrator declined to accept the appointment.

METADATA
Detailed information about each data field contained in the Appointments File.

POSITIONS
The full list of official cabinet positions for each administration as they evolved over time.

REJECTIONS
Nominations that failed in a senate vote to receive confirmation.

REVISIONS
Publication history of the dataset

WITHDRAWN NO ACTION
Nominations that were withdrawn or otherwise never received a senate confirmation vote.

***

PRIMARY SOURCES (not exhaustive)

Garcia, Rogelio, Senate Action on Cabinet Nominations, 1789-1985, Congressional Research Service, report #85-1120
Grossman, Mark, Encyclopedia of the United States Cabinet, Santa Barbara, California: ABC-Clio, 2000
Sobel, Robert, and Sicilia, David B., The United States Executive Branch, A biographical directory of heads of state and cabinet officials, Greenwood Press, 1990
Byrd, Robert C., The Senate, 1789-1989, Washington: GPO, 1988

***

APPOINTMENT CATEGORIES NOT LISTED IN PRIMARY APPOINTMENTS FILE

Confirmed by the Senate but declined to serve
Nomination withdrawn
Nomination failed confirmation by the Senate
Interim appointments during suspension (cf. Secretary of War Stanton in 1867)
No action taken by the senate to confirm nomination
Cabinet-level positions which are not official cabinet appointments (e.g. Ambassador to the United Nations)

***

Note that multiple entries in one field are separated by semicolons (";").

***

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0 US) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

Chamberlain, Tait. 2020. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CABINET APPOINTMENTS DATASET. GitHub. https://github.com/taitcha/American_cabinet_appointments