Political appointments in the United States

According to the United States Office of Government Ethics, a political appointee is "any employee who is appointed by the President, the Vice President, or agency head". As of 2016, there were around 4,000 political appointment positions which an incoming administration needs to review, and fill or confirm, of which about 1,200 require Senate confirmation.[1][2] The White House Presidential Personnel Office (PPO) is one of the offices most responsible for political appointees and for assessing candidates to work at or for the White House.[3] The Director of PPO is him or herself a political appointment position that does not require senate confirmation.

These positions are published in the Plum Book (officially, the United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions), a new edition of which is released after each United States presidential election.[4] The list is provided by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The 2020 edition of the Plum Book was published on December 1, 2020.[5]

Categories

There are four basic categories of political appointments:

  • Non-career Senior Executive Service (NA): The Senior Executive Service (SES) forms the level just below the presidential appointees. While the SES largely consists of career officials, up to 10%, or (as of 2016) 680 positions, can be political appointees.[1]
  • Schedule C appointments (SC): As of 2016, there were 1,403 Schedule C appointees,[1] who serve in confidential or policy roles immediately subordinate to other appointees. Unlike the presidential appointments, the non-career SES and Schedule C appointments tend to be made within each agency and then approved by the White House Presidential Personnel Office (PPO).[7]

President Trump changes

In January 2020, President Trump appointed John McEntee director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office,[9] reporting directly to Trump, and tasked him with identifying and removing political appointees and career officials deemed insufficiently loyal to the Trump administration.[10][11][12][13][14]

In October 2020, President Trump signed an executive order creating a new Schedule F category within the excepted service for employees “in confidential, policy-determining, policy-making and policy-advocating positions”. He also instructed agencies to identify and transfer competitive service employees that meet that description into the new job classification, an initiative that could strip hundreds of thousands of federal workers of their civil service protections and effectively making them at-will employees. Reviews by agencies are due at the PPO by January 19, 2021, a day before the end of the Trump presidency.[15]

Ethics restrictions

Political appointees are subject to stricter ethics restrictions than regular executive-branch employees. There are two categories of appointees, and each category is subject to additional and slightly different ethics restrictions:[16]

  • The spoils or patronage system is a practice where government jobs are given, usually after winning an election, to political party supporters, friends and relatives as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party.
  • The merit system is the process of promoting and hiring government employees based on their ability to perform a job. A common conception of the federal government's merit system principles is that they are designed to ensure fair and open recruitment and competition and employment practices free of political influence or other non-merit factors. Although that is certainly true, a closer reading of those principles suggests a much broader policy objective that relates directly to managing the ongoing performance of the federal workforce.

Political appointees are required to take an ethics pledge not to accept gifts from lobbyists. This is because of Executive Order 13490. Under Section 102 of Executive Order 12674, political appointees who are appointed by the president are not allowed to receive any income from outside employment or activities.[16] Exceptions to the gift rule include:

Political appointees sometimes attempt to transfer to a career position in the competitive service, excepted service, or Senior Executive Service. This practice, known as "burrowing in", is desired by employees due to increased pay and job security, as career positions do not end when a presidential administration changes. As these appointed positions are selected noncompetitively, while career employees are supposed to be selected on the basis of merit and without political influence, these conversions are subject to extra scrutiny. Since 2010, such conversions require advance approval from OPM, and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) periodically audits the conversions. In 2008, members of Congress criticized the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice for improperly allowing political employees to convert to career positions.[19]

History

In United States politics, the system of political appointments comes from a history of the spoils system (also known as a patronage system) which is a practice where a political party, after winning an election, would give government jobs to its supporters, friends and relatives as a reward for working toward victory. The term was derived from the phrase "to the victor belong the spoils" by New York Senator William L. Marcy, referring to the victory of the Jackson Democrats in the election of 1828, with the term "spoils" meaning goods or benefits taken from the loser in a competition, election or military victory. Though it is commonly assumed that the patronage system in the United States first came into general use during Andrew Jackson's presidency, it actually has an older history. President Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, favored a policy of keeping rival Federalists out of government.

The patronage system thrived in the U.S. federal government until 1883. In 1820 Congress limited federal administrators to four-year terms, which led to constant turnover; by the 1860s and the Civil War, patronage had led to widespread inefficiency and political corruption. Although it used to be confined to cabinet positions, department heads, and foreign ambassadorships, by the 1860s patronage had spread to low-level government positions. This meant that when the incumbent political party lost a presidential election, the federal government underwent wholesale turnover.

On July 2, 1881, Charles J. Guiteau, a disaffected and mentally unstable political office seeker, assassinated President James Garfield. This highlighted how much the patronage problem had gotten out of control, and shifted public opinion, convincing the United States that the President of the United States had more important things to do than to engage in patronage. Congress was eventually spurred to pass the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883,[20] which created a Civil Service Commission and advocated a merit system for selecting government employees.[21]

In addition, passage of the Hatch Act of 1939 forbade the intimidation or bribery of voters and restricted political campaign activities by federal employees. It prohibited using any public funds designated for relief or public works for electoral purposes. It forbade officials paid with federal funds from using promises of jobs, promotion, financial assistance, contracts, or any other benefit to coerce campaign contributions or political support, which restricted most partisan political activities of federal employees. By 1980, 90% of federal positions had become part of the civil service system, which led state and local governments to employ large patronage systems. Big-city political machines in places such as New York City, Boston, and Chicago thrived in the late nineteenth century. Being as a patronage system not only rewarded political supporters for past support, it also encouraged future support, because persons who have a patronage job would try to retain it by campaigning for the party at the next election. Large-scale patronage systems declined steadily during the twentieth century. During the Progressive Era (1900–1920), "good government" reformers overthrew political machines and installed civil service systems. Chicago, under Mayor Richard J. Daley, remained the last bastion of patronage, existing in its purest form until the late 1970s.[22]

Issues

The United States has more political appointees in government than any other industrialized democracy. Even though the United States has one of the largest number of political appointees, the efficiency of political appointees is constantly shifting. Political appointees are engraved in everyday decisions even making the final call on major events. As of 2013, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was lacking a Senate-confirmed administrator since 2006 when Marilyn Tavenner was acting administrator.[23] At least 60 positions for appointment remain vacant and 45 positions have remained vacant for more than a year.

Judicial vacancies have also become a problem as well with numerous open seats for circuit and district judges left to be filled.[24] At the conclusion of President Obama's first term, 13% of presidential-appointee positions had not been filled.[25] Political appointees also come under heat for their own actions including Ben Bernanke's involvement with private banks and also Michael Brown's involvement in Hurricane Katrina.[26] One study published in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory by Nick Gallo and David Lewis evaluated more than 350 managers with a program assessment rating tool ("PART") to determine efficacy and found that programs run by political appointees tended to be less effective.[27] Furthermore, those with previous government experience or appointees who had not worked for a political campaign tended be more effective than appointees with experience in the business or non-profit sectors. Gallo and Lewis stated that they thought careerist and appointees should work in a balanced atmosphere to be more productive and share skills. Professional rapport between careerists and appointees is considered in a study of presidential environmental appointees by Matthew Auer.[28] Auer found that oft-mentioned problems in the appointment system, such as short time-in-office and lack of government experience were less pronounced among top federal environmental appointees, across both Republican and Democratic administrations.

See also

References
  1. Piaker, Zach (March 16, 2016). "Help Wanted: 4,000 Presidential Appointees". Partnership for Public Service Center for Presidential Transition. Archived from the original on January 12, 2017. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  2. The Editorial Board (November 14, 2016). "Donald Trump Is Now Hiring". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  3. Shirley Anne Warshaw. Powersharing: White House-Cabinet Relations in the Modern Presidency. SUNY Press. p. 160. ISBN 978-1-4384-2331-9.
  4. "Plum Book: About". Government Publishing Office. Archived from the original on November 30, 2016. Retrieved April 18, 2018.
  5. https://www.govinfo.gov/collection/plum-book?path=/gpo/United%20States%20Government%20Policy%20and%20Supporting%20Positions%20(Plum%20Book)/2020
  6. NLRB v. SW General, Inc., no. 15-1251 (March 21, 2017) (U.S. Supreme Court)
  7. Tuutti, Camille (November 9, 2012). "How to become a presidential appointee". FCW. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  8. Obama signs bill giving him more power over appointments
  9. Tenpas, Kathryn Dunn (October 7, 2020). "Tracking turnover in the Trump administration". Brookings Institute. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
  10. Haberman, Maggie (December 14, 2019). "Ex-Trump Aide Is Expected to Return to White House". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 8, 2020.
  11. Shear, Michael D.; Haberman, Maggie (February 13, 2020). "Trump Places Loyalists in Key Jobs Inside the White House While Raging Against Enemies Outside". The New York Times. Retrieved February 13, 2020.
  12. Olorunnipa, Toluse; Parker, Ashley; Dawsey, Josh (February 22, 2020). "Trump embarks on expansive search for disloyalty as administration-wide purge escalates". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
  13. Diamond, Jeremy; Acosta, Jim; Collins, Kaitlan; Holmes, Kristen (February 21, 2020). "President's new personnel head tells agencies to look out for disloyal staffers". CNN. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
  14. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-white-house-purge/2020/11/13/2af12c94-25ca-11eb-8672-c281c7a2c96e_story.html
  15. ‘Stunning’ Executive Order Would Politicize Civil Service
  16. "Political Appointees". U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Archived from the original on December 17, 2013. Retrieved November 11, 2013.
  17. "3 U.S. Code § 105 – Assistance and services for the President". Legal Information Institute. Cornell Law School. Retrieved July 25, 2014.
  18. "3 U.S. Code § 107 – Domestic Policy Staff and Office of Administration; personnel". Legal Information Institute. Cornell Law School. Retrieved July 25, 2014.
  19. Schwemle, Barbara L. (November 2, 2012). "Conversion of Employees from Appointed (Noncareer) Positions to Career Positions in the Executive Branch" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. pp. 1, 5, 8. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  20. "Patronage". Rice University. Retrieved November 11, 2013.
  21. Peskin, Allan (1976). Garfield: A Biography. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. p. 591. ISBN 978-0873382106.
  22. "Anti- Corruption Report" (PDF). Retrieved November 11, 2013.
  23. Meyer, Theodoric (February 27, 2013). "Under Obama, More Appointments Go Unfilled". ProPublica. Retrieved November 18, 2013.
  24. Jennifer Bendery (December 2, 2012). "Judicial Vacancies Skyrocket During President Obama's First Term". Huffington Post. Retrieved November 15, 2013.
  25. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (2012). Plum Book (PDF). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
  26. Vedantam, S. (November 24, 2008). "Who are the Better Managers -- Political Appointees or Career Bureaucrats?". Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 27, 2013. Retrieved November 11, 2013.
  27. Gallo, Nick; David Lewis (May 16, 2011). "The Consequences of Presidential Patronage for Federal Agency Performance". Public Administration Research Theory. 22 (2): 219. doi:10.1093/jopart/mur010. Retrieved November 11, 2013.
  28. Auer, Matthew (January 7, 2008). "Presidential Environmental Appointees in Comparative Perspective". Public Administration Review. 68 (1): 68–80. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6210.2007.00838.x.
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