Bureaucratic Reform

<h1>Text Preview</h1> <p> <P>Until the 1880s, most jobs in government were filled through <b>patronage</b>. In the patronage system, a newly elected official could fire some or even most of the people working under him and replace those workers with people who had supported him during his election campaign. The awarding of jobs to supporters is often called the <b>spoils system</b>. It was a means for a president to reward his backers and entrench political power. Because of his many replacements, Andrew Jackson is remembered as the father of the spoils system.<br></P> <P>Spoils system appointments were often made without regard for the person's fitness for the position. The federal government became riddled with inefficiency and corruption as political hacks, who knew their job would be gone when another party came to power, tried to make the most of their tenure in office by lining their pockets at the public's expense.</P> </p> <p> <P>Disgusted with the shenanigans in Washington, many Americans called for reform but without much success. Then in 1881, James Garfield was assassinated less than six months after being elected president. The man who shot Garfield had been bitterly disappointed at not being rewarded with a government post after supporting Garfield in the election.</P> </p> <p> <P>An outraged public assisted Garfield's vice president and successor, Chester A. Arthur, in pressing Congress to pass the <b>Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883)</b>. The Pendleton Act divided the bureaucracy into unclassified and classified positions. Unclassified positions were still subject to appointment by the president, but the classified positions were removed from the prerogative of the president and instead were based on merit. As a result of the Pendleton Act, the Civil Service Commission was created to assess the merit of individuals applying for a government post on the basis of education and testing for the job.</P> </p> <p> <P>In the first years after passage of the Civil Service Act of 1883, only 10 percent of government jobs were civil service jobs. The president had the power to change the designation of federal jobs, however, and as time went by, more and more positions were moved to the classified category. Presidents learned to protect the employment of their appointees by making their jobs classified and, hence, beyond the power of the next president to replace. By the time Theodore Roosevelt left office in 1909, two-thirds of federal employees were civil service. Presently, about 90 percent of the two million employees in the federal bureaucracy are in civil service positions.</P> </p> <p> <P>In 1939, the <b>Hatch Act</b> was passed by Congress to de-politicize the bureaucracy. Federal employees were prohibited from participating in partisan politics, including running for office or contributing funds to parties or campaigns. Some people feel that this restriction is unnecessary or even unconstitutional. Others, however, see it as a protection both for civil service employees and for a non-partisan bureaucracy.</P> </p> <p> <P>In 1978, President Carter felt the bureaucracy had become stagnant because of unnecessary complexity, red tape, and lack of performance requirements. Carter called on Congress for another round of reform, and the result was the replacement of the Civil Service Commission with two new independent agencies: the <b>Office of Personnel Management (OPM)</b> and the <b>Merit Systems Protection Board</b>. The OPM takes care of recruiting and hiring federal civil service workers, and the Merit Systems Protection Board ensures adherence to the principle of hiring on merit. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 established the GS scales for job rating and pay. Its purpose was to reform the hiring and pay of federal employees. <br></P> <P>During the Clinton administration, Vice President Gore headed a program called <b>Reinvent Government</b> that restructured the bureaucracy, cut duplication in programs, reassigned workers to new programs, and used attrition to trim the size of the bureaucracy. In addition, the bureaucracy was upgraded in technology with Internet and computer linkages for more efficiency. </P> </p> <p> <P>Every four years, just after the presidential election, the <b>Plum Book</b> is published. The Plum Book is a publication issued by Congress listing all of the jobs that the president has available to appoint. These jobs usually need Senate confirmation after appointment. They vary from under-secretary positions to bureau chiefs. While the president can appoint anyone to fill these jobs, they are sometimes filled from the ranks below where the expertise in the jobs is found. For the most part, plum appointments do not stay in their jobs for long, since they often find they have little power and are constantly challenged for control by the career civil servants.<br></P> <P>The federal bureaucracy is an enormous undertaking staffed by hundreds of thousands of people. Though it is sometimes hard to see why such a large executive branch is necessary, our nation depends on government services and regulations and, therefore, on the bureaucracy.</P> </p> <p id="TextCopyright">Copyright 2006 The Regents of the University of California and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education</p>