NOTHING WRONG WITH CEDING POWER TO THE HILL:

As President Trump's Cabinet secretaries settle into their new offices across Washington, they could find their earliest efforts hampered by vacancies stretching several layers down the chain of command at each agency.

Of the 1,212 administration jobs that require Senate confirmation, just 14 were successfully filled during the first month of Trump's presidency. [...]

Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University, said the quality of political appointees below the Cabinet level can have a dramatic effect on how administration policies are ultimately executed.

"Do they affect the operation of government? The short answer is very much," Reeher said. "These are the folks who actually attempt to implement the policy changes that the administration is trying to push down from above."

Reeher said the relationships between politically appointed officials in top positions and the career bureaucrats who make up the rest of the federal government are "critical" for ensuring policies get put in place smoothly.

"If these lower appointments are not being thoroughly vetted for subject expertise and management savvy, if the appointments become bottle-necked for a long period of time, if the filling of the positions becomes rushed -- any of these conditions could create some real problems for successful change, agency morale and ultimately effective government," Reeher said.

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