The Plum Book | In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress

Every four years, just after the Presidential election, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (alternately) release a compilation called The United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions, better known as the “Plum Book.” This compilation features a list of over 7,000 civil service leadership and support positions within the legislative and executive branches. Many of these positions are filled through a noncompetitive appointment process.

The Plum Book. [Photo by Robert Brammer.]

The book categorizes the positions by branch and department. For each position, you will find the position location; title; the name of the appointee; the type of appointment; the pay plan; the level, grade, or salary of the appointee; and the tenure and expiration of the appointment.

The Plum Book is available online and in print.
A mobile device friendly version that provides enhanced sorting options is located here.

One Comment

Daniel Schuman
January 23, 2013 at 10:40 am
The Plum Book is at its most useful when it is make available to the public in formats that can be easily processed by computer programs (like in a spreadsheet). Fortunately, the New York Times went through the effort to transform the difficult-to-use PDFs into excel format. For more on why this matters, and a free copy of the Plum Book in excel format, visit the NY Times article here: http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/freeing-the-plum-book/

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