Personnel is Policy: Ideology and Political Misalignment in the Rulemaking Process

This paper studies how political alignment between bureaucrats and the President affects the rulemaking process in the United States. Combining data on the regulatory process with personnel data and voter registration records, we document the presence of significant agency frictions. While politicians seek political alignment with the rule-writing bureaucrats, expertise mismatches prevent full alignment. We find that rules initiated by regulators that are aligned with the President complete the rulemaking process faster. Linking rules to the Code of Federal Regulations, we find that sections revised by an aligned regulator tend to be more concise and better written. These rules are in turn less likely to attract public opposition and to be challenged in court.