cabinet

In government, a group of ministers holding a country's highest executive offices, who generally advise on, decide, or administer government policy. In the US, the cabinet consists of the secretaries (heads) of the executive departments, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The secretaries are not members of Congress; they are advisers to the president. In the UK, the cabinet system originated under the Stuart monarchs; under William III it became customary for the king to select his ministers from the party with a parliamentary majority. The chief royal adviser was called the prime minister.

The members of the cabinet are ranked according to seniority of office. In some cases the office was created before the department and this is noted where appropriate in the following list: secretary of state (1789), secretary of the Treasury (1789), secretary of Defense (1949 an amalgamation of the offices of secretary of war (1789), secretary of the Navy (1789), and secretary of the Air Force (1947)), attorney-general (office created in 1789, became a member of the cabinet in 1814, although the Department of Justice was not created until 1870), secretary of the Interior (1849), secretary of Agriculture (commissioner of Agriculture from 1862, when the Department of Agriculture was created, became secretary in 1889 and a member of the cabinet), secretary of Labor and Commerce (created as separate offices and departments in 1903 and amalgamated in 1913 and became a member of the cabinet), secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (1953), secretary of Housing and Urban Development (1965), and secretary of Transportation (1966). From 1829 to 1970 the postmaster-general, whose office dates from 1789, was also a member of the cabinet, but his membership ceased when the Post Office became a federal agency in 1970. In recent years the ambassador to the United Nations has also been given cabinet rank, although it is not clear that he is actually a member of the cabinet as of right.

After various provisions for the succession to the presidency in the event of the death, resignation, or removal of the president and the vice-president, the Presidential Succession Act 1947 laid down that the succession should run through the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the president pro tempore of the Senate, and through the cabinet in order of seniority of the offices. In the event of the illness or other incapacity of the president, the cabinet and vice-president have, following the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution (1967), the responsibility for deciding whether the president is able to discharge his or her powers and duties. If the vice-president and a majority of the cabinet inform Congress that the president is incapacitated then the vice-president assumes the powers of the president.

The secretary of state, who is responsible for the conduct of US foreign policy, holds the most highly prized position in the cabinet and is often a close adviser of the president.

The role of the US cabinet The role of the US cabinet depends very largely on the attitude of the president. Some presidents, such as Dwight D Eisenhower, held frequent and regular cabinet meetings, others, such as John F Kennedy, seldom called the cabinet together, preferring to deal with individual members and to work through other institutions, such as the National Security Council or the Council of Economic Advisers. Furthermore, because of the separate and staggered elections for president and for the two Houses of Congress, it is possible for the president and most of his or her cabinet to belong to one party, whilst Congress is controlled by another. In addition the president does not feel obliged to appoint only people who belong to his or her own party as members of his cabinet, and it is quite common for a Democratic president to have one or more Republicans in their cabinet and vice versa.