It will be tougher for President Donald Trump and his successors to appoint people to key federal positions without first getting Senate confirmation if a new bill from Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine, becomes law.

Presidents have always appointed people to temporarily fill Cabinet secretary positions, ambassador seats and other roles that otherwise require Senate approval. But faced with above-average turnover and vacancies, Trump has used significantly more “acting” officials — and used them for longer stints — than any other modern president, saying he enjoys the flexibility offered by such an arrangement.

“I like acting,” Trump told reporters when asked about the policy last year. “So we have a few that are acting. We have a great, great Cabinet.”

That stance has sparked concern from Democrats and government watchdogs, who note that Senate confirmation for key posts is mandated in the Constitution.

Porter’s Accountability for Acting Officials Act would shorten the maximum time that acting officials can stay in their posts, from 210 to 120 days. It also would raise qualification requirements and boost oversight by requiring appointees to report to Congress at least once every 60 days during their tenures.

“President Trump has shown time and again that he doesn’t believe in the accountability that comes from our constitutionally required nomination process,” Porter said. “Instead, he’s consistently filled his administration with loyal, often unqualified followers — and the American people have to live with the consequences.”

There are roughly 1,200 federal jobs where the President gets to select a candidate but the Senate must confirm that choice. Out of 753 key positions that require Senate confirmation, a tracker from the Washington Post finds 138 to be either vacant or filled by interim leaders chosen by Trump.

Last summer, Porter noted, the Administration had more than a dozen unconfirmed acting officials leading various agencies. Also, the Administration recently has removed qualified individuals from Inspector General roles, she said, “threatening to politicize these offices that the law requires be independent.”

Porter said she’s particularly concerned about the lack of a Senate-confirmed Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, which has had five different leaders during Trump’s presidency.

Chad Wolf has been serving as acting directory of the agency since Nov. 13. Kevin McAleenan was acting secretary for five months before that, taking over for Kirstjen Nielsen, who was confirmed in the role but resigned amid controversy over her implementation of a Trump administration policy of separating immigrant families accused of illegally crossing the border.

Homeland Security also oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, an agency that Porter noted plays an important role in pandemic preparedness and response.

“The fact that we still don’t have a Senate-confirmed permanent secretary there, after a year, means that leadership over a key agency is fragmented,” Porter said. “The Acting Secretary hasn’t been approved by the Senate, and the normal safeguards against an unqualified candidate haven’t been met.”

Other Democrats overseeing agencies that have been headed up by acting officials voiced support for Porter’s bill, H.R. 6689.

“Checks on this abuse are long overdue,” said Rep. Grijalva, D-Ariz., who chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Anne Joseph O’Connell, a Stanford Law School professor who recently published research on temporary leaders in federal agencies dating back to President Ronald Reagan, said Trump is the only president who has used more acting than confirmed secretaries. She noted that most recent presidents have used interim officials during their first year in office or when they were faced with a Senate controlled by the opposite political party, while Trump has had a GOP-led Senate and continued to rely on acting officials throughout his tenure.

While it’s hard to judge the relationship between government vacancies and performance, O’Connell said many people point to Hurricane Katrina, where large numbers of FEMA vacancies were widely blamed for a poor government response.

Porter’s bill, H.R. 6689, should be discussed first in the House Oversight Committee, though that meeting hasn’t yet been scheduled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It likely will face a tough battle in the Senate, O’Connell said. Though both parties have discussed the need for reforming rules around acting officials, and Republicans haven’t been vocal about defending the President’s use of interim appointees, O’Connell said the current GOP-controlled Senate has largely acquiesced to Trump on this issue.