The Venn-diagram overlap shrinks

About a month ago, I wrote about the difficulty of staffing the U.S. Department of Education early in the Trump administration. The secretary, it seemed to me, had been put in a particularly tough position that could inhibit her ability to run the agency.

Now it seems that things might’ve gotten harder.

I had argued, using a Venn diagram, that, in order to get hired for a senior-level role, a candidate had to possess five sets of characteristics. Missing any one of them would be a deal-breaker. The person had to pass the Trump team’s stringent loyalty test, have substantial experience in education policy so as to add value to the department’s work, be aligned with the limited-federal-government-in-schools zeitgeist, not have disqualifying things in her background; and be willing to serve in this administration.

The problem is that the overlap of those circles is very small. For example, not that many conservatives build careers in K-12 education policy, lots of conservatives were critical of the president during the campaign and wouldn’t be considered loyal, and so on.

But a recent Politico article suggests that we now need to add a sixth circle…making the overlap even smaller.

Evidently, a respected, highly experienced, conservative state superintendent (someone — in full disclosure — that I’ve worked with and I admire) who was in line to take a senior position at the department had her potential nomination scuttled by congressional concerns. A source said that, because of the superintendent’s support for Common Core, a dozen GOP senators wouldn’t be able to support her confirmation.

Obviously, the U.S. Senate has confirmation authority, and obviously individual senators have the right to decide whom to support and oppose. And it’s not unheard of for senators to raise objections about the qualifications or views of possible assistant secretaries. But in the early days of most administrations, there’s a long, long list of potential hires for most high-level positions, so the Senate’s quiet veto of a candidate doesn’t have a major influence on a department’s staffing.

But given the very small Venn-diagram overlap to begin with during the Trump era (see Jim Geraghty’s recent National Review piece), adding another circle is meaningful. The very limited supply just got more limited. And that’s going to limit this administration’s ability to advance its agenda and Secretary DeVos’s ability to run her department.

First published at AEIdeas.org on March 30, 2017.