Bush Cabinet Resigns?

[Ignatz]

I see postings about one or another cabinet member resigning. Is it still true that in fact all cabinet members submit letters of resignation upon the president’s re-election but that we hear about only those that are accepted?

[paperbackwriter]

Cabinet members are under no legal or constitutional obligation to resign when their boss gets re-elected. There is usually some turn-over, simply because it is a good time for those advisors that want to move on to do so, but that is by choice.

[Josh_dePlume]

True, there’s no constitutional or legal requirement for them to offer their resignations, but it is traditional for them to do so. Or at least that’s the widely held belief that the OP is asking about.

[Walloon]

I happen to know one of the Bush cabinet members. To make it short, no the story is not true.

[Ignatz]

From Googling the subject, The Ithaca Times of 11/10/04 said this in an article on the matter:

“Unlike some previous presidents, Bush hasn’t asked Cabinet members to submit their resignations as a group. Even so, he’s made it clear that he expects changes in his administration.”

I knew it had happened in previous re-elections, but I see it’s clearly optional.

[Zoe]

Walloon, I wish you were Secretary of Education.

[Walloon]

Aw, thanks.

[brianmelendez]

@Ignatz

I see postings about one or another cabinet member resigning. Is it still true that in fact all cabinet members submit letters of resignation upon the president’s re-election but that we hear about only those that are accepted?

Earlier thread on a related topic: Must US Cabinet Secretaries be re-appointed after election?

An executive officer who serves at the President’s pleasure, including a Cabinet secretary, holds office until the President accepts his or her resignation or dismisses him or her. Most reelected presidents have asked for their appointees’ resignations after reelection, accepted a few resignations, and declined the other resignations:

There is a third kind of transition when a president wins a second term. In the administrations preceding Nixon’s, it was the tradition that all presidential appointees (other than those serving statutory terms) were to submit pro forma letters of resignation to the reelected president. White House Executive Clerk William J. Hopkins would, if needed, telephone diplomatic reminders to the innocently ignorant cabinet officers. He would then give the president the bundle of signed letters, most of which the chief executive would pitch into the wastebasket. Until Nixon’s reelection.

Immediately following the 1972 election, Nixon chief of staff Bob Haldeman issued a presidential directive to all noncareer appointees who were not serving fixed terms and to all Schedule C employees: submit a letter of resignation. The same mandate went to Nixon’s White House staff offices but without an invitation to accompany the pro forma letter with a second communication stating the staffer’s actual personal preference. Nixon accepted a significant number of departmental resignations … Neither Reagan nor Clinton repeated Nixon’s action; it may be that the long-standing tradition in which a reelected president requests resignations across the board has come to and end.

Bradley H. Patterson Jr., The White House Staff: Inside the West Wing and Beyond 227-28 (2000).