Not a peep out of the MSM.
Not a single tweet.
Surprise!
No, not that non-surprise.
‘Stunning’ Executive Order Would Politicize Civil Service
"Politicize"
"President Trump signs directive that would potentially pull thousands of federal employees in "policy-making" positions out of the competitive service, making them at-will employees."
If you are like me, your first thought is – what took you so long.
"Positions in the new Schedule F would effectively constitute at-will employment,…"
Oh, so they'll be like millions of other American citizens who work for a living?
"“The [1883] Pendleton Act is clearly in the sights of this executive order,” said Donald Kettl, the Sid Richardson professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. “It wants to undo what the Pendleton Act and subsequent civil service laws tried to accomplish, which was to create a career civil service with expertise that is both accountable to elected officials…"
Do I need to quote Inigo Montoya again? Boy are our elites so well educated yet so,
I don't think the good professor realizes many of those folks haven't been accountable.
"American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley said …. the executive order is “the most profound undermining of the civil service system in our lifetimes.”
“This executive order strips due process rights and protections from perhaps hundreds of thousands of federal employees and will enable political appointees and other officials to hire and fire these workers at will,”…."
As Obama put it, elections have consequences.
"Separating employees who cannot or will not meet required performance standards is important, and it is particularly important with regard to employees in confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions." ….
"Pursuant to my authority under section 33o2(1) of title 5, Unites States Code, I find that conditions of good administration make necessary an exception to the competitive hiring rules and examinations for career positions in the Federal service of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character."
So the deep state bureaucracy is on notice.
A timely action, announced just in time to be buried by news out of Hunter's laptop.
posted by Fred
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
In American history the civil service was instituted to eliminate the spoils system — “to the victor belongs the spoils.”
Obviously the swamp would hate this, ergo it’s a good thing.
I would like to see if you still will think this is a good thing if Biden wins.
Alves,
If Biden wins Kamala will help him pack the court, pack the senate by creating 2 new states, and pack the democratic voter rolls with tens of millions of new citizens from abroad. On a related government policy note, Trump is looking into just what Obama-Biden did to Delphi retirees; by which I mean how he screwed them via the Treasury department’s political decisions:
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/white-house-review-delphi-pension-terminations
Well, then it’s really time for us to band together and keep Sleepy Joe and ,la from ever gaining any power. It will be a new campaign issue: how will the candidate decide hiring and firing procedures?
Government workers will also be then become a major issue in each election. Are our government agencies working FOR us or are they simply not interested in us? I really, really with this Lois Lerner had been subject to this rule.
Maybe Trump is going to use this during the last days now before the election. I can hear him now at one of his rallies.
Diana,
This is actually a quite minor change to civil service employment policies/procedures.
Fred’s right. Some years back those of us in certain job series were assigned to the Excepted Service category, no union involvement, and accelerated dismissal procedures. Hardly “at will” but simpler for everyone.
Civil Service Act is one thing. Unionized government employee workforce post JFK created an entirely new animal. On that has now come back dangerously to bite us, the hand that is forced to feed it with our own tax dollars.
One or the other because unionized government employees is simply not working and has created much of a the present breach between our government and the governed.
Beef up the Civil Service Act for dedicated employment protections- use public pensions as an incentive reward, but only after a career of ethical public service.
Yes, policy level employees shall continue their employment, but only at the will of the newly elected CEO. Either they all are forced to resign at each new CEO election, or else they can be terminated wtihout cause by the new CEO.
There should be no independent policy level positions in our government. Independent research and fact finding roles with due caution, but not unelected independent policy making positions – they work only at the pleasure of the duly elected CEO.
They work with that duly elected person; not actively against them as we have seen play out in these past 3.5 years. This ability to remain neutral and change course has to be built into the DNA of the government job description.
Quartered Safe Out Here.
I was a career SES in the intelligence series, appointed by waiver of congress into the job I had held as an active duty officer. My experience of career civil servants is that they would have been candidates for membership in the Drones Club in London. In the present era, the career civil servants abandoned their inherent duty to be apolitical and for that they deserve to be made more vulnerable to dismissal.
@ tjfxh: A welcome change from the existing system: “to the civil service protected go the elections.”
When Carter created the SES it was supposed to make it easier to make performance a criteria in continued membership in the SES vice reverting.
My experience with federal unions is that they could be a pain on minor issues, but not that big a deal. The difference between MSPB / EEO / FLRB protections wasn’t that big. Note that feds are “right to work” so unions quote the number of employees they represent rather than the number of dues-paying members. I guess some unions like NTEU might be more of a pain (no experience with them). My involvement was with FUSE (federal union of engineers and scientists) and NAGE (national association of government employees).
As far as republicans and civil service reform, the radicals / liberals were generally pro-civil service reform, but were stymied by powerful NY republican senator Conkling. Ironically Conkling protege Chester Arthur who became president on the death of Garfield turned reformer and implemented the Pendelton Act.
Fred, you’re right. I don’t see this as major change beyond expanding the number of positions that will be considered excepted service. I was in excepted service both in the Army (MICECP) and at DIA (DCIPS). You could be let go at any time for a number of reasons such as demonstrated poor performance or failure to hold a security clearance. The only safety net we had at DIA was an employee/management relations system to ensure dismissals met legal and regulatory standards. I don’t see the problem with expanding excepted service at all. In the Army, our program was much smaller. It seemed we served at the pleasure of a few senior program managers regardless of what the regulations said. It still worked.