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The United States Cabinet (usually referred to as the President's Cabinet or simplified as the Cabinet) is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States. Its existence dates back to the first American President, George Washington, who appointed a Cabinet of four people (Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson; Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton; Secretary of War Henry Knox; and Attorney General Edmund Randolph) to advise and assist him in his duties. Cabinet officers are nominated by the President and then presented to the United States Senate for confirmation or rejection by a simple majority. If approved, they are sworn in and begin their duties. Aside from the Attorney General, and previously, the Postmaster General, they all receive the title Secretary.

Constitutional and legal basis

Confirmation requirement

Article Two, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution says that the President

"...shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments."

Other constitutional references

Article Two of the Constitution provides that the President can require "the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices."^[1] The Constitution did not then establish the names (or list or limit the number) of Cabinet departments; those details were left to the Congress to determine.

Later, upon addition of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, a provision was created allowing the Vice President and "a majority of the principal officers" of the executive branch departments to transmit a notice (to the Speaker of the House and the Senate President pro tempore) that the President is unfit for office. If the President contests this finding, the Congress is directed to settle the matter.

United States Cabinet nominees are chosen from a large pool of potential candidates. One of the few qualification restrictions is set out in the Ineligibility Clause of Article One of the Constitution: "no person holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either house during his continuance in office." Accordingly, a sitting member of the United States Congress must resign his or her seat to accept a Cabinet appointment. This clause also bars any member of Congress from holding an executive office that was created by law during his or her current term in Congress.

This constitutional separation between the executive and the legislative branches is the opposite of the British parliamentary cabinet system, where members of the Cabinet are required by convention to be sitting members of the legislature.

The Cabinet in federal law

There is no explicit definition of the term "Cabinet" in either the United States Code or the Code of Federal Regulations. However, there are occasional references to "cabinet-level officers" or "secretaries", which when viewed in context appear to refer to the heads of the "executive departments" as listed in 5 U.S.C. § 101.

Under 5 U.S.C. § 3110 federal officials are prohibited from appointing family members to certain governmental posts, including seats in the Cabinet. Passed in 1967, the law was a response to John F. Kennedy's appointment of Robert F. Kennedy to the post of Attorney General.

Precedence and succession

The Cabinet of Barack Obama meeting in the Cabinet Room

Order of precedence

During a meeting of the President's Cabinet, members are seated according to the order of precedence, with higher ranking officers sitting closer to the center of the table. Hence, the President and Vice President sit directly across from each other at the middle of the oval shaped table. Then, the Secretaries of State and Defense are seated directly to the right and left, respectively, of the President and the Secretary of Treasury and the Attorney General sit to right and left, respectively, of the Vice President. This alternation according to rank continues, with Cabinet-rank members (those not heading executive departments, the Vice President excluded) sitting at the very ends, farthest away from the President and Vice President.^{[citation needed]}

Line of succession

The Cabinet is also important in the presidential line of succession, which determines an order in which Cabinet officers succeed to the office of the president following the death or resignation of the president. At the top of the order of succession are the Vice President, Speaker of the House and President pro tempore of the Senate, and Secretary of State. Because of this, it is common practice not to have the entire Cabinet in one location, even for ceremonial occasions like the State of the Union Address, where at least one Cabinet member does not attend. This person is the designated survivor, and he or she is held at a secure, undisclosed location, ready to take over if the President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, President pro tempore of the Senate, Secretary of State and the rest of the Cabinet are killed.

Cabinet and Cabinet-level officials

The Obama Cabinet.

The men and women listed below were nominated by President Barack Obama to form his initial Cabinet and were confirmed by the United States Senate on the date noted. An elected Vice President does not require Senate confirmation, nor do White House staff positions like chief of staff or press secretary.

Secretary Gates was previously confirmed by the Senate (as President Bush's Secretary of Defense) and therefore did not need to be re-confirmed.

Cabinet

Department	Office	Incumbent	Image	in Office since
Department of State	Secretary of State	Hillary Rodham Clinton		January 21, 2009
Department of the Treasury	Secretary of the Treasury	Timothy Geithner		January 26, 2009
Department of Defense	Secretary of Defense	Robert Gates		December 18, 2006
Department of Justice	Attorney General	Eric Holder		February 2, 2009
Department of the Interior	Secretary of the Interior	Ken Salazar		January 21, 2009
Department of Agriculture	Secretary of Agriculture	Tom Vilsack		January 21, 2009
Department of Commerce	Secretary of Commerce	Gary Locke		March 24, 2009
Department of Labor	Secretary of Labor	Hilda Solis		February 24, 2009
Department of Health and Human Services	Secretary of Health and Human Services	Kathleen Sebelius		April 28, 2009
Department of Housing and Urban Development	Secretary of Housing and Urban Development	Shaun Donovan		January 26, 2009
Department of Transportation	Secretary of Transportation	Ray LaHood		January 22, 2009
Department of Energy	Secretary of Energy	Steven Chu		January 21, 2009
Department of Education	Secretary of Education	Arne Duncan		January 21, 2009
Department of Veterans Affairs	Secretary of Veterans Affairs	Eric Shinseki		January 21, 2009
Department of Homeland Security	Secretary of Homeland Security	Janet Napolitano		January 21, 2009

Cabinet-level officers

Department	Office	Incumbent	Image	in Office since
Office of the Vice President	Vice President of the United States	Joseph Biden		January 20, 2009
Executive Office of the President	White House Chief of Staff	Rahm Emanuel		January 20, 2009
Office of Management and Budget	Director of the Office of Management and Budget	Peter Orszag		January 20, 2009
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative	United States Trade Representative	Ron Kirk		March 18, 2009
Environmental Protection Agency	Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency	Lisa P. Jackson		January 22, 2009
United States Mission to the United Nations	Ambassador to the United Nations	Susan Rice		January 22, 2009
Council of Economic Advisers	Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers	Christina Romer		January 28, 2009

Salary

Cabinet officials receive an amount of pay determined by Title 5 of the United States Code. Some cabinet-level officials, including the Vice President and the White House Chief of Staff have their salaries determined differently.

Former Cabinet departments

• Department of War (1789–1947): subsumed into new Department of Defense.
• Department of the Navy (1798–1947): subsumed into new Department of Defense.
• Post Office Department (1829–1971), headed by the Postmaster General: reorganized as the United States Postal Service, an independent executive agency.

Renamed Cabinet offices

• Secretary of Foreign Affairs: created in July 1789 and renamed Secretary of State in September 1789.^[2]
• Secretary of Commerce and Labor: created in 1903 and renamed Secretary of Commerce in 1913 when its labor functions were transferred to the new Secretary of Labor.
• Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare: created in 1953 and renamed Secretary of Health and Human Services in 1979 when its education functions were transferred to the new Secretary of Education.

Executive officials no longer of Cabinet rank

• Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (1996–2001): created as an independent agency in 1979, raised to Cabinet rank in 1996,^[3] lost Cabinet rank in 2001.^[4]
• Director of Central Intelligence (1995–2001)^[5][6][7]
• Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (1993–2009)^[8][9]
• Administrator of the Small Business Administration (1994-2001)^[10]

Proposed Cabinet departments

• U.S. Department of Commerce and Industry (proposed by business interests in the 1880s)
• U.S. Department of Agriculture and Labor (proposed by members of U.S. Congress)
• U.S. Department of Peace (proposed by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Senator Matthew Neely, and other members of the U.S. Congress)^[11]
• U.S. Department of Public Welfare (proposed by President Warren Harding)
• U.S. Department of Natural Resources (proposed by former President Herbert Hoover, the Eisenhower administration, President Richard Nixon and the GOP national platform in 1976)
• U.S. Department of Social Welfare (proposed by President Franklin Roosevelt)
• U.S. Department of Public Works (proposed by President Franklin Roosevelt)
• U.S. Department of Conservation (proposed by Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes)
• U.S. Department of Urban Affairs (proposed by President John F. Kennedy)
• U.S. Department of Business and Labor (proposed by President Lyndon Johnson)
• U.S. Department of Community Development (proposed by President Richard Nixon; to be chiefly concerned with infrastructure)
• U.S. Department of Human Resources (proposed by President Richard Nixon; essentially a revised Department of Health, Education, and Welfare)
• U.S. Department of Economic Development (proposed by President Richard Nixon; essentially a consolidation of the Departments of Commerce and Labor)
• U.S. Department of Environmental Protection (proposed by Senator Arlen Specter)
• U.S. Department of International Trade (proposed by the Heritage Foundation)
• U.S. Department of Global Development (proposed by the Center for Global Development and others)
• U.S. Department of Culture (proposed by Quincy Jones)^[12]

Lists of Cabinets

See also

• Black Cabinet
• Kitchen Cabinet
• List of first African Americans to hold U.S. Cabinet Secretaryships
• List of first women to hold U.S. Cabinet Secretaryships
• List of United States political appointments that crossed party lines
• List of US Cabinet Secretaries who have held multiple cabinet-level positions
• Living former cabinet members

References

Further reading

• Rudalevige, Andrew. "The President and the Cabinet", in Michael Nelson, ed., The Presidency and the Political System, 8th ed. (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2006).
• Grossman, Mark. Encyclopedia of the United States Cabinet (three volumes). Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2000. ISBN 0-87436-977-0. A history of the United States and Confederate States cabinets, their secretaries, and their departments.
• Bennett, Anthony. 'The American President's Cabinet' Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1996. ISBN 0-333-60691-4. A study of the U S Cabinet from Kennedy to Clinton.

External links

• Official site of the President's Cabinet
• U.S. Senate's list of cabinet members who did not attend the State of the Union Address (since 1984)

Cabinet of President Barack Obama (since 2009)   Cabinet Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (since 2009) Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner (since 2009) Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (since 2009) Attorney General Eric Holder (since 2009) Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (since 2009) Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (since 2009) Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke (since 2009) Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis (since 2009) Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius (since 2009) Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (since 2009) Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan (since 2009) Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood (since 2009) Secretary of Energy Steven Chu (since 2009) Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki (since 2009) Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano (since 2009)   Cabinet-level Vice President Joe Biden (since 2009) White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (since 2009) Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson (since 2009) Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag (since 2009) Trade Representative Ron Kirk (since 2009) Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice (since 2009) Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer (since 2009) See also: Confirmations of Barack Obama's Cabinet

Current members of the United States Cabinet Bidenc · Chu · Clinton · Donovan · Duncan · Emanuelc · Gates · Geithner · Holder · Jacksonc · Kirkc · LaHood · Locke · Napolitano · Obamac · Orszagc · Ricec · Romerc · Salazar · Sebelius · Solis · Shinseki · Vilsack c - cabinet-level

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