ChiefHRO.com

A new bill introduced in the House of Representatives, titled the Public Service Reform Act, is not about public service and is certainly not reform. Rather than addressing accountability or hiring and pay challenges, the bill would make all federal workers at-will employees. The result would be a civil service that is little more than two million political appointees.

Here is the key text of the bill:

Imagine the civil service after passage of this bill. A supervisor tells his direct report to doctor the numbers in an employment report. The employee, recognizing that factual data is essential to effective government, says no. S/he is fired and replaced with someone who will do as they are told. A political appointee decides an office should be shut down and relocated to somewhere more friendly to his/her cause. No problem, just fire all of the staff in the office. No need to run a RIF, because “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, rule, or regulation” means those rules are irrelevant. In fact, courts have consistently ruled that such language means exactly what it says. Don’t bother pointing to some law that offers protection, because the plain language of the bill says “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, rule, or regulation.” Rather than a government of qualified people, we would end up with a government of partisans and sycophants whose word cannot be trusted and who will no longer have any job security when they choose to do the right thing. Rather than a civil service where the rule of law is enforceable by the courts, we would have a civil service that relies on politicians always doing the right thing.

Supporters of the bill argue that the provisions that say “An employee may not be subject to any adverse personnel action under this Act for any reason prohibited section 2302(b) of title 5, United States Code” would protect employees from prohibited personnel practices. I do not believe that is much protection. First, the bulk of the prohibited personnel practices do not address actions that basically boil down to “I don’t like you.” They are related to veteran preference, racial and other discrimination, and whistleblowing. Second, the only route to appeal a downgrade or removal would be the process the President and an agency creates. It clearly sates “Nothing in this subparagraph shall be construed to grant an employee the right to review or appeal an adverse personnel action outside such procedures.” It goes on to lay out procedures for taking actions, keeping decisions entirely within the agency taking the action. Employees would have no right to a hearing, no right to discovery, and no right to a third party review. Bargaining unit employees would not have a right to grievance and arbitration procedures. Employees with performance problems would not be covered by the adverse action procedures in 5 USC Chapter 43. Because employees would be subject to the whims of their agencies, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) would no longer be necessary and would be abolished. Let’s just forget the fact that agencies win their cases before the MSPB 85 to 90 percent of the time. Apparently batting .900 isn’t good enough for the sponsors and proponents of this bill.

The bill does appear to provide access to EEOC for complaints regarding prohibited personnel practices, but says “an individual who is an employee or applicant to be an employee and who alleges that the individual was subject to an adverse personnel action that is a prohibited personnel action described in section 2302(b)(1) of title 5, United States Code, shall seek relief for such action from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as if such individual was an employee of an employer (as that term is defined in section 701 of such Act).” Section 701 of the Civil Rights Act excludes the United States government from the definition of an employer. The way this bill is constructed, it appears there may really be no recourse outside the agency,

Proponents of this bill argue that the Merit System Principles and Prohibited Personnel Practices are all the protection employees really need. I simply do not believe that is true. After working in and around the federal government for more than 40 years, I have seen examples of managers who took actions against employees they simply did not like. I have seen officials who were supposed to make unbiased decisions on disciplinary and adverse actions proposed by their subordinates have improper conversations with those subordinates before they rendered a decision. I have seen political appointees from both parties deciding in their first week on the job that career employees cannot be trusted, only to see them change their minds once they work with them for a while. If this bill became law, those appointees would likely fire the employees before they had a chance to prove themselves.

If you think the courts would sort this mess out, think again. First of all, the bill says there is no recourse to third parties outside of procedures in the agency and defined by the President. Courts may find they have no ability to review anything, On top of that, the plain language of the bill says federal workers are at-will employees who can be fired for good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all, and that the bill’s provisions are effective notwithstanding any other law, rule or regulation. If some provisions of this law do end up in court, the courts are likely to look at that plain and unambiguous language to determine that federal workers are exactly what the bill says – at-will employees.

The Pendleton Act created the modern civil service in 1883. Prior to its passage, we had a spoils system that meant large swaths of the federal government turned over at every change of administration. Some proponents of this billl and of Schedule F would have you believe that job protections for the civil service did not exist prior to President Kennedy’s 1962 Executive Order 10987, which directed agencies to establish internal appeals processes. What about President McKinley’s Executive Order 101, signed in 1897, that said “No removal shall be made from any position subject to competitive examination except for just cause and upon written charges filed with the head of the Department, or other appointing officer, and of which the accused shall have full notice and an opportunity to make defense.” Or the Lloyd-LaFollette Act of 1912, that codified the protections found in EO 101, saying employees in the classified civil service could not be removed “except for such cause as will promote the efficiency of said service and for reasons given in writing, and the person whose removal is sought shall have notice of the same and of any charges preferred against him.” It also provided protections to whistleblowers.

If you think the proposal for Schedule F is bad, wait until this monstrosity is enacted. There is virtually nothing good that can come out of this bill. It might make it possible to fire the small number of poor performers who are not dealt with, but it would do it at the expense of a merit-based civil service. It would have such a chilling effect that civil servants would be hesitant to speak the truth to their bosses.

Given the rabid partisanship that has engulfed this country, do we really think the partisans who are appointed will not clean house every time the White House changes hands? Do we really think a government of political hacks and sycophants is in the best interests of the American people? Do we think that making government more partisan will make it more trusted by the people?

The reality is that there is too much partisanship already, and the more partisan government becomes, the less the people will trust anything federal workers say. They already do not trust the politicians. The only way this bill would make things better is if every political appointee from both parties and every manager and supervisor does the right thing for the American people every day. And that will happen when pigs fly.

Look at the news and it is hard to miss the articles regarding groups of former Trump Administration employees planning for a rebirth of Schedule F, the infamous plan to gut the federal civil service and replace tens of thousands of career civil servants with “Schedule F” appointments. For those who missed the first round of Schedule F, it is a proposed way of hiring people that are, in effect, political appointees.

Those who are pushing for schedule F (if the republicans win the 2024 presidential election) say it is necessary because of a “deep state” that opposes presidential policies. Calling them unelected bureaucrats, these folks argue that career civil servants undermine the goals of the President, and therefore should be replaced with people who are not subject to the same requirements as career civil servants. Requirements like actually being qualified for the job.

Is there any truth to the allegations that the “deep state” undermines Presidents? Not really. Political appointees of both parties get irritated with career employees. At least that has happened in the administrations I have personal experience with, going back more than 40 years. New political appointees come into office, decide they want to do something that violates a law or regulation, then get upset when a career employee points out that what they want is not legal. I have personally had those discussions with appointees up to and including the Secretary level.

They usually respond by asking what they can do, and if there is a legal way to accomplish what they are trying to do. Career employees do their jobs, and explain what is and is not doable under existing law and regulations. In some cases they help draft new regulations, proposals for legislation, or other changes necessary to carry out the policy objectives of the administration. In some cases there is simply no legal way to accomplish what the politicals want, and the career employees tell them that. Most appointees come to appreciate the career workforce, see them as assets, and work closely with them to carry out their administration’s agenda.

Every administration in recent decades, with the exception of the Trump Administration, accepted the fact that not all things are possible, and that breaking the law is not an option that they should expect career employees to help them execute. Rather than trying to work with the career civil service, the Trump Administration proposed Schedule F. When the proposal first rolled out, there was widespread belief that it was an attempt to politicize the civil service and add tens of thousands of political appointees.

Would implementing Schedule F really be that bad? After all, shouldn’t an administration be able to do what they want? Yes, it would be that bad, and administrations should be able to do whatever they want only when what they want complies with the law. Imagine the consequences of 50,000 new political appointees.

The American people have been losing confidence in government in recent years. The bulk of that loss of confidence is not the result of skilled civil servants doing their jobs. It is the political process that is damaging confidence in government’s ability to get things done. Partisan politics undermines everything when the goals of a party outweigh the good of the people. The fear that partisan politics will undermine effective government is not new. In 1787, James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10, “The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.”

If we surveyed the people and asked if they thought 50,000 more politicians running around the federal government would be a good idea, does anyone really think the answer would be yes? Does any reasonable person think that having 50,000 more political appointees turning over every four or 8 years is a good idea? Is replacing technical experts with political hacks the way to run an effective government? Do the republicans who want to replace 50,000 civil servants with political appointees relish the idea of their 50,000 partisans being booted out and replaced with 50,000 partisans appointed by the next democrat in the White House?

The people want their government to work. They may disagree on the size and scope of government, but reasonable people want the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and others, to work. They want to be able to trust what government tells them, and not have to question whether economic data, or census data, and basic scientific facts were manipulated by political appointees for their own partisan purposes.

The Preventing a Patronage System Act, sponsored by Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA), would prohibit current and future administrations from implementing Schedule F without congressional approval. It has passed the House, but has not yet passed the Senate. The bill is called the Preventing a Patronage System Act because the federal government has experience with a patronage system. Nothing about that experience was good. Prior to the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883, the federal government was filled with patronage jobs. The spoils system meant that every change of administrations resulted in a mad dash for partisans to get a government job. The primary qualification for a job was not experience, but rather politics.

Theodore Roosevelt was a staunch opponent of the spoils system. Mr. Roosevelt wrote ““The government cannot endure permanently if administered on a spoils basis. If this form of corruption is permitted and encouraged, other forms of corruption will inevitably follow in its train. When a department at Washington, or at a state capitol, or in the city hall in some big town is thronged with place-hunters and office-mongers who seek and dispense patronage from considerations of personal and party greed, the tone of public life is necessarily so lowered that the bribe-taker and the bribe-giver, the blackmailer and the corruptionist, find their places ready prepared for them.” President James Garfield described the partisan job seekers as “vultures lying in wait for a wounded bison.” Mr. Roosevelt later said “The worst enemies of the Republic are the demagogue and the corruptionist. The spoils-monger and spoils-seeker invariably breed the bribe-taker and bribes-giver, the embezzler of public funds and the corrupter of voters.”

It is time to put up a guardrail to stop that corruption from taking hold. The best step that can be taken now is for the Senate to pass Mr. Connolly’s bill, and for President Biden to sign it. It does not guarantee that a future administration and Congress will not conspire gut the civil service and return us to a spoils system, but at least it means the House, Senate and President would have to approve doing it and everyone would know who was responsible for putting the interests of a political party ahead of the interests of the people, and taking us back to the corruption of the 1880s.