Politics and the Weakening of Government Institutions
As a young boy of 15, I resonated with President Kennedy’s call to “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” I had – still have – a deep love for and faith in our republican form of government. After graduating from college, I was prime draft material, but rather than seek a deferment by attending graduate school, I enlisted in the Air Force. I recall vividly standing in the base movie theater while the National Anthem played before each film, seeing images of the Capitol. It was thrilling. That emotion has never left me.
At 26, I left the military and went to work for the Office (now Department) of Education in Washington, D.C. Each morning, as I walked from the bus to our building, the Capitol was now right in front of me. I spent 34 years in the civil service. I had no newsworthy achievements; I just played my part to serve the nation that has been so good to me. I served with passion and integrity. Public service was, for me, a calling, not just a job. There are millions more like me.
I saw politics up close in seven administrations. I worked with many political appointees, including some who began their tenure with skepticism or outright distrust of “feds.” Still, they understood that meeting public needs depended on government institutions that could be trusted. They knew that civil servants might make mistakes but would serve faithfully, no matter who won the presidency. That’s the oath of office we took. They came to appreciate our politically neutral competence, based on our years of experience. They understood that without a healthy career-political relationship, government institutions fail and public cynicism grows.
The Trump Administration often failed the test of developing such relationships. Convinced they were opposed by a nefarious “deep state” within agencies, they frequently distrusted, threatened, disparaged, demoted or replaced career expertise. No leadership research will tell you that this is the way to get good performance.
Two bookends of his presidency illustrate this. In early 2017, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates said she could not defend, on legal or Constitutional grounds, the president’s proposal to temporarily ban the admission of refugees and bar travel from certain Muslim-majority countries. Rather than fix the problems she identified, President Trump fired her for insubordination (the courts would later prove her concerns valid). After the 2020 election, the president fired Chris Krebs, Director of DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for saying the presidential election was secure.
The president attacked the career civil service in a host of other agencies as well. He disparaged the NIH, CDC, and FDA for their adherence to science with regard to COVID 19. He disdained highly respected Foreign Services Officers such as Marie Yovanovich, decorated military officers such as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and pushed for the removal of multiple Inspectors General, whose job it is to find fraud, waste and abuse in their agencies. He criticized the National Park Service for its crowd estimates at his inauguration and the National Weather Service for not backing up his wrong claim that a hurricane would hit Alabama.
Most recently, the president issued an Executive Order to establish a Schedule F for certain government jobs. This would remove tens of thousands of career employees from the protections of the civil service by designating their positions as involved with policy. They would hold their jobs at the pleasure – and whim - of the president. He appears to be moving swiftly to implement this, perhaps to fire many people before he leaves office.
To the public, such actions may seem minor (or even welcome). Years spent by politicians and many Americans seeing government workers as the problem ignore all the ways they are the solution. If the “feds” are that useless or dangerous, why is it the public complains so much when government gets shut down?
Americans also don’t know or forget that today’s civil service was designed to replace its nineteenth century predecessor, the “spoils system”, in which the president filled government with loyal supporters regardless of their qualifications. We certainly wouldn’t want that approach used in hospitals, airlines, or the food industry. Nor should we want it used in the Defense Department, EPA or the NIH. A president who wants to get rid of a government worker who places her Constitutional oath over loyalty to the boss can always find ways to call political disloyalty “poor performance,” allowing demotion or removal. Schedule F would damage the ability to recruit and retain talent, further weakening public trust in agencies. Who would take a job knowing they can keep it only if they submerge their best judgment to the demand for political loyalty?
Americans may not worry about the chilling impact on public servants of such behavior by any administration. Yet they should. When politics weakens public institutions, it weakens the nation. President Biden needs to rescind the Executive Order on Schedule F and work to restore the public’s trust in government.
Photo Credit: Carol Donsky Newell
