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For decades good government advocates have been arguing to reduce the number of political appointees. The current administration is a very good illustration as to why.
Instead, Trump wants to remove civil service protections and creates a new class of political appointees. https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1319051104294928387
Instead, Trump wants to remove civil service protections and creates a new class of political appointees. https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1319051104294928387
As a President, Trump has prioritized loyalty over competence. He has targeted career officials for demotion or removal for the crime of co-operating with Congress. Giving him the power to fire career officials would be a disaster. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3607309
Trump's Executive Order that would allow him to turn career officials into appointees who could be fired comes on the same day that a group of public administration professors published an open letter decrying the politicization of the career civil service https://twitter.com/billresh/status/1318920275556143106?s=20
It is not just that Trump is making radical changes to the civil service system as quietly as possible - he is also claiming he can sweep away decades of rules and laws via executive order. https://twitter.com/NormOrnstein/status/1319309782092840960?s=20
Important to note that this EO was not one that involved any open consultation with experts or professional groups on public management. Leading government experts are just now looking at it, and the consensus is that this is a very big deal. https://twitter.com/davidlewisvu/status/1319289516419510273?s=20
Max Stier is not prone to overstatement and has worked with both parties to improve government performance (he featured prominently in "The Fifth Risk").
If he is this concerned about Trump's EO politicizing the career civil service, you should be too. https://twitter.com/MaxStier/status/1319366912015536128?s=20
If he is this concerned about Trump's EO politicizing the career civil service, you should be too. https://twitter.com/MaxStier/status/1319366912015536128?s=20
The vague and sweeping nature of Trump's EO allows it to have potentially massive consequences on public service. From @DonKettl: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/10/trumps-order-sets-stage-loyalty-tests-thousands-feds/169492/
Another reason why I am worried about Trump's EO: there is a growing push to apply unitary executive theory to the civil service. What does this mean? President can fire who he wants regardless of Congress.
From a scholar at Scalia School. George Mason. https://administrativestate.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2020/02/Howard-Restoring-Accountability-to-the-Executive-Branch.pdf
From a scholar at Scalia School. George Mason. https://administrativestate.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2020/02/Howard-Restoring-Accountability-to-the-Executive-Branch.pdf
If you believe in unitary executive theory, basic civil service protections or collective bargaining might be seen as unconstitutional. So an EO that will trigger a court challenge would allow a Federalist Society SCOTUS to grant the President new powers in these areas:
Best case scenario: Trump's EO is an unprecedented assertion of exec control, tenfold increase in number of political appointees, lets him fire advisers like Fauci or whistleblowers (see article).
Worst case: basically ends the US civil service system. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/us/politics/trump-executive-order-federal-workers.html
Worst case: basically ends the US civil service system. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/us/politics/trump-executive-order-federal-workers.html
Trump's acting head of Office of Personnel Mgt and Deputy Director of OMB, Mike Rigas is a Heritage alum who questioned whether the civil service is constitutional. Trump officials started planning this EO during a post-impeachment purge of the "disloyal" https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/21/democrats-blast-trump-federal-workers-coronavirus-199026
Tom Fitton is a Fox News deep state conspiracy theorist: If he is celebrating this executive order, we should be very worried. While Fitton is a nut, he is a connected one, and so we should take his prediction of "tens of thousands" of appointees seriously.
A 2017 Domestic Policy Council memo from another Heritage Foundation alum laid out the framework for dismantling public sector unions and making it easier to fire employees, including the "originalist" theory that the President can fire anyone. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6948593/Sherk-White-House-document.pdf
Hard to overstate how radical Trump's EO is. There are bipartisan groups who focus on federal management as well as serious researchers. But Trump outsourced his federal management to the v. partisan Heritage Foundation. S/O to Bush alum @robertjshea here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-federal-civil-service/2020/10/23/02fbf05c-1549-11eb-ba42-ec6a580836ed_story.html
Why is it that all big policy changes that rely on unitary executive theory are developed in secret? No consultation with affected employees, professional organizations like @napawash or scholars who study the topic.
Plan: Heritage ->White House-> SCOTUS.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-federal-civil-service/2020/10/23/02fbf05c-1549-11eb-ba42-ec6a580836ed_story.html
Plan: Heritage ->White House-> SCOTUS.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-federal-civil-service/2020/10/23/02fbf05c-1549-11eb-ba42-ec6a580836ed_story.html
Trump appointee, lifelong Republican, resigns protesting the attack on civil service: "clearly an attempt to require the political loyalty of those who advise the President, or failing that, to enable their removal with little if any due process." https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-civil-servants-resign/2020/10/26/69d05a22-17a4-11eb-82db-60b15c874105_story.html
Democrats in the House have introduced a bill that would reverse Trump's EO to politicize the career public service. As with any bill, Mitch McConnell can block it or Trump can veto it, so best chance of success is to fold into a spending bill in December. https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/10/union-sues-and-democrats-introduce-bill-block-trump-order-politicizing-civil-service/169592/
Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management is encouraging agencies to move as quickly as they can to convert career officials into at-will status, promising they will ratify *the next day*
We are so used to a merit-based civil service, we do not understand its value. For one thing, it is bulwark against authoritarianism. One strategy of authoritarians is to remove voices of dissent or independent sources of information that does not align with the leader’s views.
Research shows that government is able to attract and retain more capable employees b/c they care about policy. Those people will no longer be interested in joining the public service or developing expertise if they can be dismissed by any new regime. Hurts quality of government.
Trump's EO focuses on employees whose work involves policymaking. The federal govt does not deliver many services directly. Entire Depts e.g. HUD or Education are largely employees who work on policy. Order could affect hundreds of thousands of employees. https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/10/agencies-have-wide-latitude-deciding-which-jobs-strip-civil-service-protections/169533/
The context of Trump's EO to allow him to fire civil servants is clear: he believes he should be able remove anyone he sees as disloyal. Multiple examples of how the WH has punished civil servants in different ways. Lasting damaging to the public service. https://twitter.com/eilperin/status/1321784435793104897?s=20
As @DonKettl points out here, in the pre civil service era, political job seekers and unqualified employees were to politicians what fundraising is today: a massive time drain that makes governance worse. https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/10/why-merit-matters/169657/
