Special Joint Subcommittee on Gubernatorial Appointments
CHS. 803 and 938-
ACTS OF ASSEMBLY OF 2005
September 21, 2005
Members of the special
joint subcommittee are: Senators Jeannemarie Davis (chair), Charles Hawkins,
and Janet Howell, and Delegates John Cosgrove (vice-chair), Riley Ingram,
Johnny Joannou, Mark Cole, and Frank Hargrove.
PRESENTATION BY
SECRETARY RIMLER
Status of the
Governor's Interim Appointments
Secretary
of the Commonwealth, Anita Rimler, distributed a letter from the Governor
making additional interim appointments for the period August 1 to September
21, 2005, and adding to the June 1 and August 1 appointments letters that
had been provided earlier to the subcommittee.
Of the approximately 3,000 appointments that are made by a governor, it
is required that 1909 (or 66 %) of the appointees must meet statutory
qualifications or restrictions, such as being appointed from a submitted
list, meeting geographic criteria, or fulfilling specific qualifications.
To date in 2005, the Governor has made 622 appointments, of which 56 were
confirmed in the 2005 Session.
Review of the
Appointment Process
Secretary Rimler
reviewed the current appointment process followed by the Governor including
interviews with secretaries, agency heads, and board chairs to review
the make-up of present boards; contacts with elected officials, association
representatives, and interested parties for suggested appointees; and
their questionnaire and background check processes that remain part of
the Governor's confidential working papers.
Resumes and financial
statements are provided to the Privileges and Elections Committees for
all appointees and have been provided to the joint subcommittee for the
agency heads appointed in the June 1 and August 1 communications. The
2005 legislation creating the joint subcommittee requires the prompt transmission
by the Secretary of appointment paperwork for agency heads but not for
all the boards and commissions. She reported that most of the paperwork
for all appointees will be made available to the joint subcommittee in
the next week.
Secretary Rimler
also provided the members with a six-page listing of boards indicating
which of those boards she and her office thought were the most deserving
of more careful review in the confirmation process because of their powers
and importance. The subcommittee reviewed the list and singled out those
boards that they considered deserving of more careful review.
The subcommittee
agreed that the standing committees with jurisdiction or the subcommittee
itself should conduct interviews of appointees to the most significant
positions as early in the process as possible. The paperwork coming from
the Secretary's office will be divided and distributed by the chair and
staff to individual subcommittee members for careful review.
The subcommittee
asked for a listing of agency heads subject to confirmation, as well as
entities with condemnation powers to be provided to the members.
NEXT MEETING
The next meeting
of the special joint subcommittee will be held on December 1, 2005, in
Richmond, at 2 p.m. in Richmond, at the General Assembly Building, 3rd
floor West Conference Room.
Chairman:
The Hon. Jeannemarie
D. Davis
For information,
contact:
Mary Spain,
DLS Staff
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