The transition team's
inability to examine each department and agency closely should
result in the new administration's political leadership relying
more on the federal government's civil service employees. The
Republican party's right wing will be horrified by this idea, but
most Americans think the federal government plays an important role
in many areas and want it to function effectively. Career
government employees, on the whole, are experts in their fields and
know more than any briefing book can offer. Forging early and close
relationships between each department's new political leadership
and its career staff will moderate any ideologically driven agendas
and produce a better-functioning government. The briefing books
will be hardly missed.
--Seth Harris, senior policy advisor at
the
Department of Labor under President Clinton
President-elect George W. Bush laid out a
dream and a remarkably detailed policy agenda during his election
campaign, with proposals ranging from substantial reform of Social
Security and Medicare to ambitious changes in federal education
policy and ways to reduce the historically high tax burden on the
American people. Now he must focus on how to implement that agenda.
The cacophony of advice he is receiving--from reducing his
political appointments to cleaning house--has been remarkable.
In
order to achieve his ambitious agenda, President Bush will need not
only to build coalitions on Capitol Hill but also to move
decisively to solidify commitment to his agenda within the
executive branch. Because of the extended dispute over the election
results, the President-elect has lost precious time in making the
transition to the Oval Office. He faces historically unprecedented
pressure in getting his team into place quickly and enabling them
to do the necessary spade-work for new policies within federal
agencies and departments. The President-elect must seize the
initiative by making sure that the quality of his personnel
managers--at the second and third tier positions in the
Administration--matches his policy agenda. It is at these levels of
government that the crucial details of policy will be formulated
and executed.
To
be successful, the new President must resist pressure to rely "more
on the federal government's civil service employees" and to reduce
his reliance on political appointments, particularly in key
agencies that will play a major role in advancing his agenda. He
must protect his right to select appointees based not only on their
managerial prowess but also on their commitment to his policy
agenda and their ability to advance, articulate, and defend it. He
must also protect the integrity of the civil service and maintain a
clear distinction between career and non-career functions.
Finally, the President must make sure that
his team at the White House and the Office of Personnel Management
(OPM) initiate the essential training of the political appointees
in their management responsibilities under the Civil Service Reform
Act and the Hatch Act. Political appointees must be well-educated
on the fundamental importance of the merit system and the laws,
rules, and regulations that protect the civil service from
political manipulation in order to ensure the smooth implementation
of the President's agenda.
WHY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT IS KEY TO POLICY
MANAGEMENT
It
is often said, correctly, that personnel is policy. The nexus
between personnel management and policy management is therefore
crucial. Good policies cannot be advanced without good, capable,
and committed personnel to formulate, implement, aggressively
promote, and steadfastly defend them. Presidents John F. Kennedy
and Ronald W. Reagan were noteworthy in this respect for making
strong and effective Cabinet appointments and solid White House
staffing decisions. Reagan, in particular, demonstrated the value
of having trusted "lieutenants" in the policy and supporting roles
of his Administration, giving his Cabinet appointees policy
options, preparing regulatory initiatives and dealing effectively
with Members of Congress and their staff.
Even
under the pressure of a truncated transition period, George W. Bush
must not allow himself to be deflected from the critical task of
exercising his control over the executive branch. In particular, he
must:
Accepting such advice would be a profound
mistake. For one thing, a politically neutral class of federal
civil servants should not be given the task of formulating major
policy changes, often drafted in partisan conventions. It is wrong
to force career civil servants to don a mantle of political
responsibility. Their credibility as neutral administrators of
politically directed policies would be permanently compromised. It
is the responsibility of political appointees to formulate and
oversee the execution of the details of a partisan policy agenda
ratified in an election, particularly an agenda for reversing
existing policy or initiating a major policy change.
Moreover, the President must insist that
only his political appointees, not career civil servants, speak to
Congress on matters of policy. This will have an added benefit of
making sure that Congress is clear on the message from the
Administration. Members of Congress cannot legislate in a political
vacuum, trying to second guess what the President may or may not do
in the course of the legislative process.
- Increase the
number of Schedule C appointments. There are a total of
1.7 million active federal employees in the executive branch of the
U.S. government. The total number of political appointees is
tiny--about 1,200 executive level and senior management positions
and another 1,500 or so support staff. The current number of
political appointees thus constitutes about 0.15 percent of the
executive branch workforce. Beyond that, there are numerous
statutorily designated positions, such as federal attorneys and
marshals and ambassadorial corps, that are also filled by
presidential appointment. Conversely, in the
legislative branch of the government, virtually all congressional
employees are political appointees--with the exception of
specialized agencies like the Architect of the Capitol, the
Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional Research Service,
and the General Accounting Office. Any reduction in the already
tiny portion of the executive branch workforce appointed by the
President would weaken his ability to implement his policy
agenda.
The President already operates under
strict limits in the appointment of executives. There are a total
of 7,815 Senior Executive Service positions in the federal
government. Under current law, no more than 10 percent of the
Senior Executive Service can be filled with non-career
appointments; and in any given federal agency or department, no
more than 25 percent of the Senior Executive Service can be
non-career appointments. So the new President and his team must
make sure that he allocates as many executive staff as he can to
agencies that will have the greatest role in carrying out his
reform agenda. Beyond that, the President must make sure that his
executives have a sufficient number of supportive confidential
(Schedule C) appointees to help him carry out his agenda. The
number of Schedule C personnel is set administratively by OPM,
which reports directly to the President. Thus, OPM, under the
authority of the President, can and should create the necessary
positions for carrying out his agenda.
- Hire non-career
personnel on the basis of their commitment to his policy
agenda.
The President's ultimate success will in large part depend
on the degree of commitment to his agenda among the people he
appoints to ensure its success.
It is of course desirable that Cabinet
Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries, and other agency heads have
extensive managerial experience. But managerial experience or
technical expertise--amply available within the ranks of the senior
career civil service--is no substitute for commitment to the
President's policies or his vision for America. Thus, the most
important rule of presidential personnel management is to appoint
people who are fully committed to the presidential agenda.
Moreover, the appointees must be fully prepared to articulate that
agenda, effectively defend it in the public forum, and oversee the
correct execution of the President's specific policies by the
career civil service.
- Protect his
appointive power against congressional
encroachments.
Respecting the prerogatives of the Chief Executive on personnel
management issues has been a continuing challenge for many Members
of Congress. Regardless of their differences with an
Administration, Members of Congress must accept the right and duty
of the President to appoint his own men and women.
Remarkably, Members of the 104th Congress,
perhaps motivated by political hostility to President Bill Clinton,
at one point unwisely proposed cutting the already small number of
executive branch political appointees by one-third, intending to
fill those positions with career civil servants. Such a wrongheaded
policy not only would have weakened President Clinton's legitimate
control over the execution of his policy agenda, but also would
have undermined his overall management of the government. President
Clinton successfully warded off this congressional encroachment on
his authority. President George W. Bush should just as aggressively
resist any attempt by Congress to limit his ability to appoint the
number of political appointees that he thinks necessary or
desirable to carry out his agenda.
-
Review
non-career-to-career conversions.
The new President and his team should recognize the tendency of
every outgoing Administration, whether Democratic or Republican, to
try to "burrow" non-career, or political, appointees into career
positions. Political appointees of the Clinton Administration over
the course of eight years have already burrowed into the federal
civil service. With the unusually long election season, doubtless
more Clinton political appointees have been seeking every loophole
available in civil service law to burrow into the career
bureaucracy and secure permanent civil service protection. Bush
should ask his management team to review these conversions for
their legality and then quickly rectify any career conversion
actions that were inappropriate.
-
Train political
appointees in their management responsibilities under the Civil
Service Reform Act of 1978.
Leading and managing the federal workforce is at the heart of
efficient government. The Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) was an
historic attempt by President Jimmy Carter and Congress to make
government more directly accountable, more efficient, and more
effective. In the interest of sound management, President Carter
had recognized the importance of performance and accountability in
federal management--the two principles at the heart of the CSRA.
President Reagan built upon this legislative achievement by
implementing performance measures for the federal workforce. Both
management and staff, career and non-career personnel are, under
the CSRA, bound together by a performance appraisal and performance
reward system that rewards those who successfully enact the
policies set by the President within the laws of Congress.
Political appointees are not only in charge of policy, but they are
also an integral part of an effective management team.
- Train political
appointees in their responsibilities under the Hatch
Act.
In December 2000, Michael Hash, Acting Administrator of the Health
Care Financing Administration (HCFA), unknowingly violated the
Hatch Act, a federal law that prohibits federal employees,
including political appointees, from engaging in partisan
politics.
Hash had hosted a political fundraiser at his home for a candidate
for Congress. After realizing he had violated the Hatch Act, Hash
himself reported the infraction to the Office of Special Counsel
and resigned as part of a settlement.
This episode, among others, shows that
innocent mistakes by honest people can be costly. Political
appointees must be aware that they are subject to the provisions of
the Hatch Act even though they enjoy no civil service protection
and are appointed outside of the regular rules that govern the
competitive civil service. They must learn the provisions of the
law and avoid "headline-making" mistakes that could embarrass the
Administration or land themselves in serious trouble. The Hatch
Act, enacted in 1939, was originally designed to erect a wall of
separation between the federal civil service and partisan politics.
The law can still easily trip up new appointees, even though
President Clinton signed legislation into law in 1993 to weaken its
provisions, reducing barriers to partisan political activities on
the part of federal employees.
- Insist that new
appointees maintain clear lines of demarcation between career and
non-career employees and functions.
Maintaining a clear distinction between career and non-career
functions and employees is a perennial challenge for every
administration. The new President and his team must insist on clear
accountability and maintain policies that reinforce this basic
distinction. The failure to understand or appreciate the distinct
functions of the political appointees and the career civil service
has been a recurrent source of embarrassment for executive branch
officials in both Republican and Democratic administrations. The
abuse of the career civil service for partisan political purposes
and the bureaucratic usurpation of sensitive policymaking, which
should be the sole responsibility of political appointees, are
threats to both good government and sound management. They should
never be tolerated.
CONCLUSION
The
new President and his team can achieve significant success in
advancing his substantive agenda in the early stages of his term by
taking advantage of the President's broad powers of appointment to
quickly secure competent personnel committed to his agenda and
ensure that his political appointees operate as a team. He must
make sure that his appointees understand their management
responsibilities as well as opportunities for improving employee
performance under the Civil Service Reform Act. He must insist that
they maintain a sharp line between career and non-career staff and
functions, and provide clear leadership for the civil service,
demonstrating respect for their professionalism and
responsibilities in the execution of government policy.
Personnel is policy. The success of the
new President is dependent not only on articulating his vision for
America and his commitment to policies that will realize that
vision, but also on appointing people to his management and policy
team--from the Cabinet-level Secretary to the confidential
assistant in an agency office--who share that vision and are
willing to work tirelessly to make it a reality. The American
people will be the direct beneficiaries of that kind of sound
presidential personnel management. Delivering on campaign promises
by transforming ideas into effective policy is the essence of good
government in a free society.
Robert
E. Moffit, Ph.D., is Director of Domestic Policy Studies
at The Heritage Foundation.
Endnotes