Congress — not the president — should appoint the next GAO head, bipartisan coalition argues

A bipartisan coalition on Monday argued that lawmakers should enact reforms so that the next head of the Government Accountability Office is appointed without the president’s involvement. 

“We urge Congress to resolve the institutional framework for selecting the next comptroller general before the next appointment is made,” according to the letter organized by the American Governance Institute. “Congress, and Congress alone, should choose its agency heads.”

The Institute is a fiscally sponsored project of the Fund for Constitutional Government nonprofit. More than 20 other individuals and organizations signed the letter, including nonprofits critical of the Trump administration such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Partnership for Public Service and the Project On Government Oversight as well as right-leaning groups such as Americans for Prosperity and the R Street Institute. 

GAO is housed within the legislative branch and examines the effectiveness and efficiency of agency programs. For fiscal 2025, the agency reported that its work generated $62.7 billion in financial benefits for the federal government. 

Under the current process, the comptroller general selection procedure begins with a commission of 10 senior House and Senate lawmakers from both parties that recommends individuals for the position to the president. Whoever the president selects is subject to Senate confirmation for one nonrenewable 15-year term. 

The organizations behind the letter did not prescribe how the comptroller general should be chosen without the president’s involvement but also contended that the existing congressional review panel doesn’t need to be reinvented. 

“Whatever structure Congress chooses, preserving GAO's independence, impartiality, professionalism and credibility across party lines is essential to its ability to serve Congress and hold the federal government accountable,” they wrote. “It is time to change the process by which the comptroller general is chosen so the next person to serve in that office is chosen solely by Congress.”

The comptroller general position opened up in December 2025 when Gene Dodaro retired. Orice Williams Brown, the agency’s chief operating officer, is currently leading GAO in an acting capacity. 

If Congress acts on the letter’s suggestion, it would continue a trend of lawmakers claiming hiring and firing authority over legislative branch agency heads from the president.

The House in June passed, by voice vote, the Legislative Branch Agencies Clarification Act (H.R. 6028) that would require the librarian of Congress and director of the Government Publishing Office to be appointed by a bipartisan congressional commission. Currently, those positions are chosen by the president subject to Senate approval. 

The librarian of Congress leads the more than 200-year-old cultural institution and overseer of copyright law, while the GPO distributes official government publications. 

Trump in 2025 removed Carla Hayden as the librarian of Congress. Under the House measure, however, an official in either position could only be removed by a majority vote of the House and Senate majority and minority leaders.  

Likewise, President Joe Biden in 2023 enacted a bill that authorized a bipartisan congressional commission to appoint or remove an architect of the Capitol, who leads the office that preserves and maintains the complex. 

The Trump administration has criticized GAO, particularly over instances when the agency found that officials violated rules around impoundments, which is when the executive branch delays or withholds congressionally approved spending. Lawmakers also have accused agencies of not cooperating with and being slow to respond to GAO audits under the current president.