This paper examines the politicization of Federal Reserve (Fed) appointments. In contrast to the extant appointment literature’s almost exclusive focus on ideological proximity as a predictor of Fed nominations and confirmations, I theorize that senators will be more likely to vote against confirmation when their constituents have little confidence in the Fed because it allows them to more credibly defer blame on the Fed for economic downturns. Drawing on novel estimates of state-level confidence in the Fed as well as new common space estimates of senators’ and central bankers’ monetary policy preferences, I demonstrate that when constituents do not have confidence in the Fed, senators are less likely to vote in favor of confirmation regardless of their ideological proximity to the nominee. The results have important implications for the ability to fill Fed vacancies and, in turn, the balance of power between the Fed and regional bank Presidents in the monetary policymaking process.

本文考察了美联储 (Fed) 任命的政治化。与现有的任命文献几乎完全专注于意识形态接近性作为美联储提名和确认的预测指标相反，我的理论是，当他们的选民对美联储缺乏信心时，参议员更有可能投票反对确认，因为这使他们能够更可信地推迟将经济衰退归咎于美联储。绘制关于美联储国家水平信心的新颖估计，以及参议员和中央银行社的新普通空间估计，我证明，当成员没有信心的美联储时，参议员不太可能投票无论他们与被提名人在意识形态上的接近程度如何，都赞成确认。