Lesson 49 of 1524
The Bureaucracy
Bureaucrats do not only carry out a clear order. They fill in the details Congress left open.
Practice this chapterRulemaking turns a statute’s general command into specific rules. Implementation is the day-to-day work of applying those rules to cases.
Red tape is the cost of written procedure: it slows action, and it is also what makes the action reviewable later.
From spoils to merit
Pendleton Act of 1883
Jobs began to follow exams and qualifications, not only the winner of the last election.
Worked example
A new president fires a career analyst for refusing to join the president’s party, and cites the spoils system as the reason. The analyst’s job is a competitive civil-service position. Is that firing lawful?
- 1The spoils system was the old practice of treating public jobs as rewards for campaign support.
- 2The Pendleton Act and later civil-service laws replaced that practice, for covered jobs, with hiring and firing based on merit.
- 3A career analyst in the competitive service is a covered job. Party membership is not a lawful reason to remove that person.
- 4The president still appoints and may remove many political appointees. This analyst is not one of them.
Result: No. Merit rules bar firing this employee for party membership.
Why. The merit system exists so that the government’s professional staff survives a change of party. The spoils justification describes the system the Pendleton Act was written to end.
A regulatory commission is not a cabinet department. Commissioners often serve fixed terms and are harder for the president to remove.
Practice margin
This chapter
A fresh set from this chapter only. Choose 10 or 20. Multiple choice and fill-in, with no repeat inside the set.