Nominating Information on the Scholarship and Public Service of Prof. G. Calvin Mackenzie

Congress
In the 1970s Mackenzie worked on the internal organization and operation of both houses of Congress. As a consultant to the Committee on the Operation of the Senate (Stevenson Committee), he wrote several papers analyzing Senate operations and served on a small group of scholars that advised the committee.

Mackenzie was a full-time staff member with the title Senior Research Analyst for the House Commission on Administrative Review (Obey Commission) that undertook a comprehensive review of the administration and management of the House after the Wayne Hays scandal of 1976. The report of the Commission, much of which he drafted, became a blueprint for administrative changes implemented over the following several years. These included especially the creation of the office of House Administrator to concentrate authority in a single set of hands for the management of House operations. This assignment also provided Mackenzie's first exposure to government ethics issues since part of the Obey Commission task was to develop a new ethics code for the House. That, too, was implemented over the years that followed.

When the work in the House was completed at the end of 1977, Mackenzie and Joseph Cooper edited a book, The House at Work (University of Texas Press, 1981) that explored many of the special problems of public administration in a legislative context.

Over the next 25 years, Mackenzie has been invited back to Congress on a number of occasions to testify on issues of public administration, public personnel management, and government ethics.

Presidential Appointments
Mackenzie's doctoral dissertation at Harvard was on the topic of the nomination and confirmation of presidential appointees. In the years since its submission in 1975, Mackenzie has contributed more to public understanding of the appointments process than any other American. His books on this topic have described that process in detail and focused sharp attention on its flaws and on options for change. A strong believer that talented people are the critical ingredient in any scheme of public administration, Mackenzie has consistently argued that the inadequacies of the appointment process impose a high cost on the capacity of presidents and their administrations to manage the federal government effectively. His first book on the topic, The Politics of Presidential Appointments (Free Press, 1980) remains the classic study of the appointments process. Subsequent books--America's Unelected Government (Harper and Row, 1983); The In and Outers (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), Obstacle Course (Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1996), and Innocent Until Nominated (Brookings, 2001)--have tracked the evolution of the appointment process over the decades and brought it under ever closer and more revealing scrutiny.

In addition to his scholarly work on presidential appointments, Mackenzie has been at the center of most practical efforts to reform the process. In 1980, he participated in a NAPA study of presidential transitions; his contributions concentrated on the special difficulties of managing the appointment process during a transition. Starting in 1983 and for most of the rest of the decade, Mackenzie directed NAPA's Presidential Appointee Project, the most comprehensive analysis up to that time of the appointments process. He was the primary author of the NAPA panel's report, Leadership in Jeopardy: The Fraying of the Presidential Appointment Process (1985) and he wrote the Presidential Appointee's Handbook and the Handbook for the Senior Executive Service to help new appointees navigate through the complexities of public service.

In 1996, Mackenzie served as Executive Director of the Twentieth Century Fund's Task Force on Presidential Appointments, the work of which concluded with more than a dozen recommendations for improvements in the appointment process. In 2000, after a year as the John Adams Fellow at the Institute for U.S. Studies at the University of London, Mackenzie joined the Brookings Presidential Appointee Initiative as Senior Advisor. He directed a number of PAI's research projects and edited Innocent Until Nominated: The Breakdown of the Presidential Appointments Process (Brookings, 2001) which was selected by Choice as one of the outstanding academic books of 2002. Mackenzie also played a central role in developing the catalog of PAI recommendations for restructuring of the appointments process that were submitted to Congress in April 2001.

Government Ethics
Over the years, Mackenzie has emerged as one of the country's leading students of government ethics. Virtually all of his work on presidential appointments has included analyses of the role that ethics regulations play in the recruitment and retention of non-career officials. He has been a consultant to public and private organizations on ethics questions including, for example, providing all-day ethics seminars for senior officials of the U.S. Treasury Department. In his home state, he was elected chair of the Maine Ethics Commission. His book Scandal Proof: Can Ethics Laws Make Government Ethical (Brookings, 2002) provoked a broad public debate on what Mackenzie regards as the excessive over-reach of many recent ethics regulations. David Broder of the Washington Post devoted an entire column to the book, praising it for "taking on the conventional wisdom and tearing it apart" and for "recommendations as bracing as its analysis." In March, 2003, Mackenzie gave the plenary address at the 12th Annual Conference of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

Other Activities
Cal Mackenzie has been engaged in state and federal reorganization and reform activities throughout his professional life. In addition to the many examples cited above, he was Project Director for NAPA's Re-Engaging Citizens in Governance Project in 1997 and 1998. Working with a panel chaired by Paul Volcker, Mackenzie directed a study of declining public trust in government, its causes and impacts, and options for enhanced civic engagement. In 2002-2003, he served as Senior Advisor to the National Commission on the Public Service and played an important role in the development of its recommendations and the draft of its report.

In Maine, Mackenzie has advised the state government on a number of management issues. From 1993-1998, he was one of three alternating chairs of the state Board of Arbitration and Conciliation. In that role he chaired panels assigned to resolve difficult public sector labor-management conflicts all over the state.

Throughout all these years, Mackenzie has been a full-time member of the political science faculty at Colby College where he has instructed thousands of students in public administration and public policy. At Colby, he was one of the youngest people ever promoted to the rank of full professor and to an endowed chair.

Summary
Mackenzie's lifetime of dedication to the study and practice of public administration fully qualifies him for election to the National Academy. His scholarly contributions in several fields have been path-breaking and provocative. He has gone well beyond scholarship to participation in many efforts to change the way federal and state governments are administered. He has participated with vigor and insight in national debates on the staffing of government, the proper character of ethical regulation of public employees, and numerous other issues. His experience, reputation, and scholarship indicate a commitment to the highest ethical standards.