Experts

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas

Practitioner Senior Fellow
TenpasVitaSEPT2020.pdf

Fast Facts

  • Director, Initiative on Improving Interbranch Relations and Government and visiting fellow with Governance Studies, Brookings Institution
  • Host, Democracy in Question podcast, Brookings Institution
  • Advisory board member, White House Transition Project 

Areas Of Expertise

  • The First Year
  • Governance
  • Elections
  • Leadership
  • Politics
  • The Presidency

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas is director of the Initiative on Improving Interbranch Relations and Government and a visiting fellow with Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. She is also an advisory board member of the White House Transition Project.

A recent recipient of a Packard Foundation grant, Tenpas is a scholar of the American presidency focusing on White House staffing and turnover and presidential transitions. She also studies interbranch relations, particularly the complex relationship between federal courts and Congress. She is the author of Presidents as Candidates: Inside the White House for the Presidential Campaign and has published more than 80 articles, book chapters, and papers on these topics.

Tenpas earned her BA degree from Georgetown University and her MA and PhD degrees from the University of Virginia.

Featured Publications

Presidents as Candidates
Presidents as Candidates

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas News Feed

AP
Sluggish pace of confirmations vexes Biden White House
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas of the Brookings Institution noted that Obama was criticized for not moving quickly enough on judges. “It’s clear to me the Biden people have learned from that mistake,” she said.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Associated Press
The Hill
Senators slow Biden with holds at Pentagon, State
The Biden administration lags behind the past three administrations in the pace of confirmations, according to Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, nonresident senior fellow in governance studies with the Brookings Institution.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas The Hill
Roll Call
With big spending plans looming, key roles are unfilled at DOT
During the first 200 days of his presidency, Biden saw 88 confirmations of his nominees. By contrast, former President Donald Trump had 89 confirmed in the first 200 days of his presidency. Former President Barack Obama had 238. Former President George W. Bush had 240, according to research by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a nonresident senior fellow with Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, a moderate think tank.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Roll Call
The Hill
Senate backlog of Biden nominees frustrates White House
“There are plenty of nominees that are somewhere in the confirmation process and they’re just stuck,” said Kathryn Tenpas, a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution’s governance studies program.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas The Hill
NPR
Biden Wants To Reengage With The World, But His Ambassadors Are Mostly Absent
In comparison, at the 200-day mark (which was Sunday for Biden) former President Barack Obama had 59 ambassadors confirmed, George W. Bush had 53 ambassadors confirmed and Donald Trump had 19, according to Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, who tracks presidential appointees for the Brookings Institution. "The sluggish pace is simply striking, and the dearth of U.S. ambassadors that have been confirmed at this point in his administration is a historic low," said Tenpas, who is also a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas NPR
The Hill
Biden's budget vacancy raises eyebrows
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, called it “highly unusual” for the OMB job to remain unfilled this far into the administration. She noted the Senate has been slower than past administrations in confirming Biden’s nominees, but in the case of OMB the president has yet to put forward another pick since withdrawing Tanden.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas The Hill