Civil Service Day

On this date in 1883 the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was signed by President Chester MacArthur.  The Pendleton Act gave birth to today's federal civil service system, eliminating political patronage for most government positions and providing job protection for employees.  At the senior level about 5,000 positions remain to be appointed by each new Administration of the approximately 2.8 million civil servants in the federal government.

Prior the Pendleton Act federal jobs were patronage based, doled out by each new incoming Administration to its political supporters; in those days the number of federal jobs was much smaller.

Concerns over corruption and incompetence had prompted several attempts at reform but it was the 1881 assassination of President Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker that finally prompted passage of reforms.

Today it is time to repeal the Pendleton Act and revert to a patronage based system.  The current civil service system served its purpose for a time, but that time has expired. 

With its growth and added political power, the federal civil service has become an unelected 4th branch of government that operates on its own terms, complete with job security and court and legislative fiats that encourage a lack of accountability along with poor decision making.  A new administration, particularly one not aligned with the existing value system of the bureaucracy, has limited impact on its operations being able to only pick a few critical fights where it seeks to impose its agenda.  A couple of years ago I was at an event and ended up talking with the guy sitting next to me.  Turns out he was a recently retired senior civil service employee at the Department of Agriculture.  At one point he told me that the job of a career employee at his level was to "make sure the political appointees didn't make any important decisions".   He was a nice guy, but that's just wrong.  This is not how our governmental system is supposed to work.

We need to drastically reduce the number of protected civil service positions and revert to a patronage system for the rest.  The only civil service positions should be those that are strictly ministerial and entail no discretionary decision making, such as making social security, medicare, and medicaid payments.  Everything else, including administrative positions supporting other positions would be patronage appointments.

Will it take longer to fill positions?  Yes.  But perhaps we will find that all those positions are not really necessary.  Will there be some disruption?  Yes, but worth the price in order to restore accountability and the ability of elected officials to actually govern.

Maybe after 50 years it'll be time to go back to a civil service system.