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 appointed.
‡ Person was an appointee of the previous administration and was reappointed or retained by the President.
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 appointed.
Appointee | Position | Term ↑ | President | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Name | Party | Name | Party | ||
Joseph Habersham | Federalist | Postmaster General | 1801‡ | Thomas Jefferson | Democratic-Republican |
Rufus King | Federalist | Minister to Britain | 1801–1803‡ | ||
James Bayard | Federalist | Treaty of Ghent peace commissioner | 1814 | James Madison | Democratic-Republican |
Richard Rush | Federalist | Comptroller of the Treasury | 1811–1814 | ||
Attorney General | 1814–1817 | ||||
Lewis Cass | Democratic | Ambassador to France | 1841–1842‡ | William Henry Harrison | Whig |
Joseph Holt | Republican | Commissioner of Patents | 1857–1859 | James Buchanan | Democratic |
Postmaster General | 1859–1860 | ||||
Secretary of War | 1861 | ||||
Andrew Johnson [a] | Democratic | Military Governor of Tennessee | 1862–1865 | Abraham Lincoln | Republican |
George B. McClellan | Democratic | Commanding General of the United States Army | 1861–1862 | ||
Henry Connelly | Democratic | Governor of the Territory of New Mexico | 1861–1865 | ||
George Foster Shepley | Democratic | Military Governor of Louisiana | 1862–1864 | ||
John S. Phelps | Democratic | Military Governor of Arkansas | 1862 | ||
Edwin M. Stanton | Democratic | Secretary of War | 1862–1865 | ||
Daniel Sickles | Democratic | Special Minister to the South American Republics | 1865 | ||
James Harlan | Republican | Secretary of the Interior | 1865–1866 | Andrew Johnson | Democratic/ National Unionist |
Henry Stanbery | Republican | Attorney General | 1866–1868 | ||
Alexander W. Randall | Republican | Postmaster General | 1866–1869 | ||
Orville H. Browning | Republican | Secretary of the Interior | 1866–1869 | ||
John M. Schofield | Republican | Secretary of War | 1868–1869 | ||
William M. Evarts | Republican | Attorney General | 1868–1869 | ||
Daniel Sickles | Democratic | Minister to Spain | 1869–1873 | Ulysses S. Grant | Republican |
George Bancroft | Democratic | Minister to Germany | 1869–1874‡ | ||
James Lawrence Orr | Democratic | Minister to Russia | 1872–1873 | ||
Caleb Cushing | Democratic | Minister to Spain | 1874–1877 | ||
David M. Key | Democratic | Postmaster General | 1877–1880 | Rutherford B. Hayes | Republican |
Allen G. Thurman | Democratic | Paris international monetary conference | 1881 | James A. Garfield | Republican |
William Rosecrans | Democratic | Register of the Treasury | 1889–1893‡ | Benjamin Harrison | Republican |
Walter Q. Gresham | Republican | Secretary of State [1] | 1893–1895‡ | Grover Cleveland | Democratic |
Theodore Roosevelt | Republican | Civil Service Commissioner | 1893–1895‡ | ||
Edward S. Bragg | Democratic | Consul General in Havana | 1902 | Theodore Roosevelt | Republican |
Consul General in Hong Kong | 1903–1906 | ||||
Luke E. Wright | Democratic | Secretary of War [1] | 1908–1909 | ||
Francis Cockrell | Democratic | Interstate Commerce Commissioner | 1905–1910 | ||
Jacob M. Dickinson | Democratic | Secretary of War [1] | 1909–1911 | William Howard Taft | Republican |
Herbert Hoover | Republican | Administrator of the United States Food Administration | 1917–1919 | Woodrow Wilson | Democratic |
Elihu Root | Republican | Ambassador extraordinary, mission to Russia | 1917 | ||
Edmund Platt | Republican | Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve | 1920–1921 | ||
Daniel Richard Crissinger | Democratic | Chairman of the Federal Reserve | 1923 | Warren Harding | Republican |
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. | Republican | Governor-General of the Philippines | 1933‡ | Franklin Roosevelt | Democratic |
Hugh R. Wilson [3] | Republican [4] | Ambassador to Switzerland | 1933–1937‡ | ||
Assistant Secretary of State | 1937–1938 | ||||
Ambassador to Germany | 1938 | ||||
William M. Jardine | Republican | Ambassador to Egypt | 1933‡ | ||
William H. Woodin | Republican | Secretary of the Treasury | 1933 | ||
Marriner S. Eccles | Republican [5] | Chairman of the Federal Reserve | 1933–1948 | ||
Henry Stimson | Republican | Secretary of War | 1940–1945 | ||
Robert P. Patterson | Republican | Under Secretary of War | 1940–1945 | ||
Frank Knox | Republican | Secretary of the Navy | 1940–1944 | ||
Nelson Rockefeller | Republican | Coordinator of the Office of Inter-American Affairs | 1940–1944 | ||
Assistant Secretary of State for American Republic Affairs | 1944–1945 | ||||
Fiorello La Guardia | Republican | Office of Civilian Defense | 1941 | ||
William Donovan | Republican | Head of the Office of the Coordinator of Information | 1941–1942 | ||
Head of the Office of Strategic Services | 1942–1945 | ||||
Patrick J. Hurley | Republican | Minister to New Zealand | 1942 | ||
Ambassador to China | 1945 | ||||
John Gilbert Winant | Republican | Ambassador to Britain | 1941–1946 | ||
U.S. Representative to UNESCO | 1946 | Harry S. Truman | Democratic | ||
Robert P. Patterson | Republican | Secretary of War | 1945–1947 | ||
Lewis Strauss | Republican | Member of the Atomic Energy Commission | 1946–1950 | ||
Herbert Hoover | Republican | Chairman of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government (Hoover Commission) | 1947 | ||
Warren Austin | Republican | Ambassador to the United Nations | 1947–1953 | ||
Thomas B. McCabe | Republican | Chairman of the Federal Reserve | 1948–1951 | ||
John Sherman Cooper | Republican | U.S. Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly | 1949–1952 | ||
Robert A. Lovett | Republican | Secretary of Defense | 1951–1953 | ||
Martin Patrick Durkin | Democratic | Secretary of Labor | 1953 | Dwight Eisenhower | Republican |
Walter F. George | Democratic | Special Ambassador to NATO | 1957 | ||
William McChesney Martin | Democratic | Chairman of the Federal Reserve | 1955–1961‡ | ||
Robert Bernard Anderson | Democratic | Secretary of Navy | 1953–1954 | ||
Deputy Secretary of Defense | 1954–1957 | ||||
Secretary of the Treasury | 1957–1961 | ||||
Robert McNamara | Republican [6] | Secretary of Defense | 1961–1968 | John F. Kennedy | Democratic |
C. Douglas Dillon | Republican | Secretary of the Treasury | 1961–1965 | ||
John McCone | Republican | Director of Central Intelligence | 1961–1965 | ||
McGeorge Bundy | Republican [7] [8] | National Security Advisor | 1961–1966 | ||
Christian Herter | Republican | U.S. Trade Representative | 1962–1966 | ||
Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. | Republican | Ambassador to South Vietnam | 1963–1964 | ||
Lyndon B. Johnson | Democratic | ||||
1965–1967 | |||||
Ambassador-at-large | 1967–1968 | ||||
Ambassador to West Germany | 1968–1969 | ||||
John W. Gardner | Republican | Secretary of Health and Human Services | 1965–1968 | ||
Jack Vaughn | Republican | Director of the Peace Corps | 1966–1969 | ||
Edward Brooke | Republican | Member of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission) | 1967 | ||
John Lindsay | Republican | Vice Chairman of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission) | 1967 | ||
William McCulloch | Republican | Member of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission) | 1967 | ||
Erwin Griswold | Republican | Solicitor General | 1967–1969 | ||
William H. Brown III | Republican | Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner | 1968–1969 | ||
Sargent Shriver | Democratic | Ambassador to France | 1969–1970‡ | Richard Nixon | Republican |
Elizabeth Hanford | Democratic [b] | Deputy Assistant to president for Consumer Affairs | 1969–1973 | ||
Federal Trade Commissioner | 1973–1977 | ||||
Paul Volcker | Democratic | Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Monetary Affairs | 1969–1974 | ||
John Connally | Democratic [b] | Secretary of the Treasury | 1971–1972 | ||
George W. Mitchell | Democratic | Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve | 1973–1974 | ||
Armistead I. Selden Jr. | Democratic | Ambassador to Fiji | 1974–1977 | ||
Daniel Patrick Moynihan | Democratic | Assistant for Urban Affairs | 1969–1970 | ||
Ambassador to India | 1973–1975 | ||||
Gerald Ford | Republican | ||||
Ambassador to the United Nations | 1975–1976 | ||||
Armistead I. Selden Jr. | Democratic | Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa | 1974–1977 | ||
Togo D. West Jr. | Democratic | Associate Deputy Attorney General | 1975–1976 | ||
Robert Casey | Democratic | Federal Maritime Commissioner | 1976–1977 | ||
James Schlesinger | Republican | Secretary of Energy | 1977–1979 | Jimmy Carter | Democratic |
Lawrence Eagleburger | Republican | Ambassador to Yugoslavia | 1977–1981 | ||
Kingman Brewster Jr. | Republican | Ambassador to the United Kingdom | 1977–1981 | ||
William H. Webster | Republican | Director of the FBI | 1978–1981 | ||
Frank Carlucci | Republican | Deputy Director of the CIA | 1978–1981 | ||
Mike Mansfield | Democratic | Ambassador to Japan | 1981–1988‡ | Ronald Reagan | Republican |
Paul Volcker | Democratic | Chairman of the Federal Reserve | 1983–1987‡ | ||
Jeane Kirkpatrick | Democratic [b] | Ambassador to the United Nations | 1981–1985 | ||
William Bennett | Democratic [b] | Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities | 1981–1985 | ||
Secretary of Education | 1985–1988 | ||||
R. James Woolsey Jr. | Democratic | Delegate at Large to the U.S.- Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Talks | 1983–1986 | ||
Delegate to the Nuclear and Space Arms Talks [9] | 1986–1987 | ||||
Paul Nitze | Democratic | Chief Negotiator of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty | 1981–1984 | ||
Eric J. Fygi | Democratic | Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Energy | 1981–1989‡ | ||
Max Kampelman | Democratic | Ambassador to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe | 1981–1983‡ | ||
Delegation to the Negotiations with the Soviet Union on Nuclear and Space Arms in Geneva | 1985–1989 | ||||
Counselor to the Department of State | 1987–1989 | ||||
Richard Stone | Democratic | Ambassadors-at-large and Special Envoy to Central America | 1983–1984 | ||
Preston Robert Tisch | Democratic | Postmaster General | 1986–1988 | ||
John P. LaWare | Democratic | Federal Reserve Board of Governors | 1988–1989 | ||
Lauro Cavazos | Democratic | Secretary of Education | 1988–1990 | ||
George H. W. Bush | Republican | ||||
Dennis B. Ross | Democratic | Director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff | 1989–1992 | ||
Eric J. Fygi | Democratic | Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Energy | 1989–1993‡ | ||
Griffin Bell | Democratic | Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform | 1989 | ||
William Hathaway | Democratic | Federal Maritime Commissioner | 1990–1993 | ||
Robert Strauss | Democratic | Ambassador to Soviet Union/Russia | 1991–1992 | ||
Diane Ravitch | Democratic | Assistant Secretary of Education | 1991–1993 | ||
Richard Stone | Democratic | Ambassador to Denmark | 1992–1993 | ||
Michael Chertoff | Republican | Attorney for the District of New Jersey | 1993–1994‡ | Bill Clinton | Democratic |
William S. Sessions | Republican | Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation | 1993‡ | ||
David Gergen | Republican | Counselor to the President | 1993–1993 | ||
Sheila Bair | Republican | Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Acting | 1993 | ||
Roger W. Johnson | Republican | GSA Administrator | 1993–1996 | ||
Louis Freeh | Republican | Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation | 1993–2001 | ||
John Negroponte | Republican | Ambassador to the Philippines | 1993–1996 | ||
William J. Crowe | Republican | Chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board | 1993–1994 | ||
Ambassador to the United Kingdom | 1994–1997 | ||||
Julie Belaga | Republican | Board of Directors of the Export Import Bank | 1994–1999 | ||
Marc L. Marks | Republican | Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commissioner | 1994–2000 | ||
John Hamre | Republican | Comptroller of the Department of Defense | 1994–1997 | ||
Deputy Secretary of Defense | 1997–2000 | ||||
Alan Greenspan | Republican | Chairman of the Federal Reserve | 1995–2001‡ | ||
William Cohen | Republican [10] | Secretary of Defense | 1997–2001 | ||
Robert Mueller | Republican | Attorney for the Northern District of California | 1998–2001 | ||
David M. Walker | Republican | Comptroller General of the United States | 1998–2001 | ||
John DiIulio | Democratic [11] | Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives | 2001 | George W. Bush | Republican |
George McGovern | Democratic | Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture | 2001‡ [12] | ||
Richard Swett | Democratic | Ambassador to Denmark | 2001‡ | ||
John Marburger | Democratic | Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy | 2001–2009 | ||
Tom Schieffer | Democratic | Ambassador to Australia | 2001–2005 | ||
Ambassador to Japan | 2005–2009 | ||||
Eric J. Fygi | Democratic | Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Energy | 2001–2009‡ | ||
Norman Mineta | Democratic | Secretary of Transportation | 2001–2006 | ||
Richard Carmona | Democratic | Surgeon General | 2002–2006 | ||
Tony P. Hall | Democratic | Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture | 2002–2006 | ||
Paul McHale | Democratic | Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense | 2003–2009 | ||
Gracia Hillman | Democratic | Election Assistance Commissioner | 2003–2009 | ||
Pam Iovino | Democratic | Assistant VA Secretary for Congressional and Legislative Affairs | 2004–2005 | ||
Joseph E. Brennan | Democratic | Federal Maritime Commissioner | 2004–2009‡ | ||
Christine Griffin | Democratic | Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner | 2005–2009 | ||
R. David Paulison | Democratic | Federal Emergency Management Agency | 2005–2009 | ||
Pete Geren | Democratic | Acting Secretary of the Air Force | 2005 | ||
Secretary of the Army | 2006–2009 | ||||
Zell Miller | Democratic | American Battle Monuments Commission member [13] | 2005–2009 [13] | ||
Lanny Davis | Democratic | Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board | 2006–2007 | ||
Diane Farrell | Democratic | Board of Directors of the Export Import Bank | 2007–2009 | ||
Lois Lerner | Democratic | Director Exempt Organizations | 2006–2009 | ||
Neel Kashkari | Republican | Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability | 2009‡ | Barack Obama | Democratic |
Michael B. Donley | Republican | Secretary of the Air Force | 2009–2013‡ | ||
Robert Mueller | Republican | Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation | 2009–2013‡ | ||
Ray LaHood | Republican | Secretary of Transportation | 2009–2013 | ||
Robert Gates | Republican | Secretary of Defense | 2009–2011‡ | ||
Jon Huntsman Jr. | Republican | Ambassador to China | 2009–2011 | ||
Dan Rooney | Republican | Ambassador to Ireland | 2009–2012 | ||
Douglas Kmiec | Republican | Ambassador to Malta | 2009–2011 | ||
John M. McHugh | Republican | Secretary of the Army | 2009–2015 | ||
Jim Leach | Republican | Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities | 2009–2013 | ||
Chuck Hagel | Republican | Co-chair of President's Intelligence Advisory Board | 2009–2013 | ||
Secretary of Defense | 2013–2015 | ||||
Larry Pressler | Republican | U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad | 2009–2014 | ||
Ben Bernanke | Republican | Chairman of the Federal Reserve | 2009–2014‡ | ||
Connie Morella | Republican | American Battle Monuments Commission member | 2010–2017 | ||
Jeff Immelt | Republican | Chairperson of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness | 2011–2013 | ||
Jerome Powell | Republican | Federal Reserve Board of Governors | 2012–2017 | ||
James Comey | Republican | Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation | 2013–2017 | ||
Sloan D. Gibson | Republican | United States Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs | 2014–2017 | ||
Robert A. McDonald | Republican | Secretary of Veterans Affairs | 2014–2017 | ||
Michael Flynn | Democratic [b] [14] | National Security Advisor | 2017 | Donald Trump | Republican |
Gary Cohn | Democratic | Director of the National Economic Council | 2017–2018 | ||
Ivanka Trump | Democratic [b] [15] | Advisor to the President | 2017–2021 | ||
Peter Navarro | Democratic [b] | Director of the National Trade Council | 2017 | ||
Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy | 2017–2021 | ||||
Robert O. Work | Democratic | Deputy Secretary of Defense | 2017‡ | ||
Eric J. Fygi | Democratic | Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Energy | 2017–2021‡ | ||
Dan Maffei | Democratic | Federal Maritime Commissioner | 2019–2021‡ | ||
Christopher A. Wray | Republican | Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation | 2021–present‡ | Joe Biden | Democratic |
Zalmay Khalilzad | Republican | U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation | 2021‡ | ||
John J. Sullivan | Republican | Ambassador to Russia | 2021–2022‡ | ||
Jeff Flake | Republican | Ambassador to Turkey | 2021–present | ||
Cindy McCain | Republican | Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture | 2021–2023 | ||
Jerome Powell | Republican | Chairman of the Federal Reserve | 2022–present‡ | ||
Meg Whitman | Republican | Ambassador to Kenya | 2022–present | ||
Michael B. Donley | Republican | Director of Administration and Management | 2021–present |
‡ Person was an appointee of the previous administration and was reappointed or retained by the President.
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