Who can be selected to serve in the cabinet? Are there any requirements for age, citizenship, or anything else, as defined by law?
Also, how does the Senate confirmation work? Is it done by individual committees, or does each nominee require a majority of all senators to support them?
Finally, if a Senator doesn’t like the president’s choice, can he offer other suggestions?
https://www.google.com/search?q=presidential+cabinet+qualifications&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
TL;DR - no qualification in law other than being nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. With exception for Sec. of Defense and the length-of-time-after-military-service thing.
Plus you can’t be a relative of the President.
The law forbids nepotism, and it forbids military officers from serving as Sec. Def. That’s about it. The only other requirement is confirmation by the Senate.
Every nominee requires a majority confirmation by the whole Senate. The relevant committee will hold hearings and make their recommendation in a committee report.
Sure, he can suggest whatever the hell he wants.
Anyone at all in the world can offer suggestions, to which the President can attach any amount of weight he chooses. In practice, he’ll probably give more weight to a senator’s recommendations than to yours or mine, but he doesn’t have to.
In addition to the usual political maneuvering surrounding senate confirmation of a cabinet pick is the issue of senatorial courtesy:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Senatorial courtesy is a long-standing unwritten, unofficial, and nonbinding political custom (or constitutional convention) in the United States describing the tendency of U.S. senators to support a Senate colleague in opposing the appointment to federal office of a presidential nominee from that Senator’s state.
[/QUOTE]
Anyone want to bet whether the 8 nominees from states with at least one Democratic senator will be blackballed, and whether that will be respected? (C’mon, Michigan – spike Ben Carson!)
Actually, there are some statutes, such as that an AG must be “learned in the law”. I don’t know if there are any others, but since all Cabinet positions are enacted by Congressional statute, Congress can impose any conditions they like on who may hold the office.
Oh yeah, forgot that the Defense Secretary has to be a civilian for at least seven years, and that one’s been in the headlines.