WASHINGTON — Republican leaders have skipped a bipartisan deliberative process for recommending the next comptroller general to head the Government Accountability Office, as lawmakers prepare to consider a nomination for the post from President Donald Trump.

Sources said Trump is planning to nominate Eric Ueland, who currently serves as deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget. The White House submitted ethics paperwork on Ueland — required for nominations — to the GAO, according to a source.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Thursday posted notice of a committee hearing Nov. 19 to examine more than a dozen presidential nominees for executive and judicial offices, including “a nominee to be Comptroller General.”

The post identifies by name all of the nominees except the candidate for comptroller general. The post has been filled by an acting comptroller general, Orice Williams Brown, since Gene L. Dodaro completed his 15-year term at the end of last year.

The move by Paul to short-circuit the convening of a legislative commission to recommend candidates infuriated top Democrats, who excoriated the chairman in a joint statement Wednesday night. A special bipartisan, bicameral legislative commission is supposed to recommend at least three candidates for comptroller general to the president, according to statute.

Homeland Security Committee GOP staff solicited recommendations for a comptroller general from some Democratic congressional offices Wednesday afternoon, imposing a deadline of 8 a.m. Thursday, according to Democratic aides.

The president nominates the head of the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Paul pushed back on the criticism Thursday, saying, “Democrats have known about this for months and months and months.” He said the last time the special commission made recommendations for the office, when Barack Obama was president, “Democrats submitted their own list, Republicans submitted their own list. So they can complain all they want but they just need to make their list and submit it.”

In the past, however, the special commission convened, sought applications for the position, interviewed candidates and deliberated before sending recommendations to the president.

History of nominations

A 1980 law states that when there is a vacancy in the comptroller general position, “there is established a commission to recommend individuals to the President for appointment to the vacant office,” and that the commission must submit at least three names.

Under the statute, the commission includes the speaker, Senate majority and minority leaders, House majority and minority leaders, chairs and ranking members of the Senate Homeland Security and House Oversight and Government Reform committees, and the Senate president pro tempore.

In 1981, for example, after the law took effect, the two congressional leaders, Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr., D-Mass., and Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker, R-Tenn., sent a letter to President Ronald Reagan saying the special commission had met and voted to recommend eight candidates to succeed Comptroller General Elmer Staats.

“The members of the Commission have taken their statutory responsibility seriously,” they wrote.

Reagan nominated Charles A. Bowsher, who was on the list, and he was confirmed.

After Bowsher’s term ended in 1996, the commission eventually formed, interviewed multiple candidates, and deliberated for several months. Republicans controlled both chambers, and Bill Clinton was president. The members of the commission could not reach agreement, and as a result, the Republicans on the committee submitted their list to Clinton, and the Democrats on the panel submitted theirs.

Clinton also had his own list. Clinton nominated David M. Walker, who was on all three lists, and he was confirmed by the Senate more than two years after Bowsher’s departure. Walker argued Thursday against short-circuiting the commission process.

“The position is of critical importance and the related statutory Commission process should not be circumvented,” Walker said. “Doing so would undercut the credibility of the person and the effectiveness of the GAO.”

Walker resigned in March of 2008, when George W. Bush was still president. He appointed Dodaro as acting comptroller general when he left. The commission got going several months later, creating a website with application instructions and candidate questions.

Over the next two years, the commission interviewed some 20 candidates. Democrats and Republicans on the panel were unable to reach agreement, and Democrats, who had a majority on the commission, submitted their own list to Obama in 2010. Republicans followed up with their list.

“The Commission has been working in earnest on this undertaking for more than one year and has dedicated considerable time and effort to present you with highly qualified candidates for this important position,” then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., along with other Democratic leaders, wrote to Obama when they submitted the Democrats’ list.

The Democrats’ move drew a rebuke from Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who was ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee at the time.

Collins said in a statement she was “extremely disappointed” that Democrats “abruptly ended the selection process for the next Comptroller General without a bipartisan agreement” on the recommendations. “We have had several exceptionally qualified individuals apply to be the next leader of the GAO, and it should have been possible to come up with a consensus list.”

Obama nominated and the Senate confirmed Dodaro, who was one of four recommendations from the Democrats.

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