Read: Chapters 5 & 6 attached.
WRITE:
First, all students should summarize how the Electoral College functions.
Explain the impact of the Electoral College and defend why it should be modified, but not kept as it is currently written or abolished. Be sure to include both the pros and cons of modifying the Electoral College.
Explain some of the main pros and cons in the debate about whether to keep or abolish the current Electoral College process. In addition, evaluate one proposal to change how the system works without formally abolishing it. Would this proposal effectively address some of the cons that you identified earlier in your post? Please explain your response
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6
The Executive Branch
© Andrew Gombert/epa/Corbis
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to
• Describe the history and evolution of the federal bureaucracy.
• Analyze the differences between political and civil service administration.
• Describe the rise of the civil service system.
• Describe the essential functions of bureaucracy.
• Analyze differences between various types of agencies and departments within the bureaucracy.
• Describe how the political branches of government attempt to control the bureaucracy and
ensure accountability.
• Evaluate the relationship among bureaucracy, Congress, and interest groups.
• Analyze the relationship between the nature and structure of American bureaucracy and American political culture.
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Components of the Federal Bureaucracy
Section 6.1
Upon taking office in January 2009, President Obama appointed several “czars,” White House
counselors tasked with particular policy responsibilities, to oversee several policy areas. Critics charged that the president was attempting to circumvent the bureaucratic process by running things from the White House, rather than through the traditional executive branch
departments. Critics also charged that by appointing czars who would work in the White
House, rather than as assistant secretaries in the various departments, the president was
avoiding the appointment process, which requires Senate confirmation. President Obama’s
actions were viewed as an attempt to avoid legislative oversight, as these czars could not easily be summoned to testify before Congress, nor could the products of their work be subjected
to the Freedom of Information Act.
The roots of the czar concept lie
in the 1939 Brownlow Committee report, which brought about
a reorganization of the executive
branch that included the creation
of the Executive Office of the President (EOP), which led to a greater
concentration of policymaking and
oversight of agencies and White
House departments.
Presidents with active policy agendas often believe they can achieve
better results if they do not have to
Associated Press
rely on a large federal bureaucracy.
President Obama appointed Carol Browner his energy
Although the president is both chief
czar in October 2009. The office was abolished in 2011.
executive and chief operating offiPresidents appoint czars for the sake of having more
cer of the executive branch, the fedpolicy control concentrated in the White House.
eral government is a vast organization of several million employees,
many of whom are protected by certain rules. A president can control his or her advisors in
the White House because they serve at his or her pleasure, but he or she has no such authority over the bureaucracy. While the president can remove department and agency appointees,
there are often political consequences to doing so. To be successful with Congress, presidents
need the bureaucracy to implement their policy agendas.
In this chapter, we look at the bureaucracy. We examine the concept of a bureaucracy, how it
developed in the United States, what it does, and how it is held accountable to the public.
6.1 Components of the Federal Bureaucracy
The federal bureaucracy is the structure of administrative agencies and departments in the
executive branch that is responsible for delivering public goods and services. For instance, the
Social Security Administration delivers retirement funds to older adults. The bureaucracy is
also responsible for implementing laws. While Congress and the president establish intent to
do something by enacting legislation, the bureaucracy must make it happen. As an example,
both houses of Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, and the president enacted
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Components of the Federal Bureaucracy
Section 6.1
it into law by signing the legislation. Yet the responsibility for implementing the law belongs
to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), an executive branch Cabinet-level
department through the delegation of authority, which was briefly discussed in Chapter 4.
Delegation of authority occurs when Congress grants authority to an executive branch department or agency for a specific task. (Authority for this particular law is also delegated to state
governments, as they are responsible for implementing various features of the law.) The federal bureaucracy is the part of the government responsible for implementing laws passed by
the president and Congress, and, as appropriate, executive orders signed by the president and
case law as determined by Supreme Court decisions. The nature and magnitude of the executive branch’s implementation authority has resulted in a large and complex bureaucracy that
includes Cabinet-level departments (discussed in Chapter 5) and several other agencies and
offices responsible for implementing the law. The work of the federal government must be
well organized in order to ensure that the will of the people, as reflected by congressional,
presidential, and judicial actions, is carried out. Yet the magnitude of the work warrants a
complex network of offices and agencies to fulfill their responsibilities.
Defining Bureaucracy
The term bureaucracy comes from the French term bureau, meaning department. Today we
use the term to mean the breaking down of administration into departments that have a specific purpose. The federal bureaucracy is structured to carry out the law in a politically neutral fashion. A large number of government employees function outside the political realm
and are not hired or fired based on election results. The purpose of the bureaucracy is to
establish an administrative framework to implement the decisions made through the political
process.
Successful bureaucracies are often organized according to principles first articulated by sociologist Max
Weber. Weber (1947) suggested that a bureaucracy
was the highest form of efficient administrative structure in that it was organized to achieve a set of objectives at the least cost. The characteristics that Weber
associated with bureaucracy are that it is based on
principles of full and official jurisdictional areas and
a division of labor. Bureaucracies are also ordered by
rules, laws, or administrative regulation, which ensure
that it will not operate in an arbitrary manner. The
regular activities of the bureaucracy are distributed in
the form of official duties, while the bureaucracy has
the authority to give commands based on rules. Additionally, a bureaucracy has provisions for the regular
and continuous fulfillment of officials’ stated duties,
and only those possessing generally regulated qualifications are to be employed.
These principles are found in the modern American bureaucracy, especially in the requirement that
executive branch functions are based on written
Fine Art Images/SuperStock
Sociologist Max Weber suggested
that a bureaucracy is the highest
form of efficiency.
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Components of the Federal Bureaucracy
Section 6.1
documents. Positions are legally defined, officials normally hold a form of tenure, and the
salaries are based on status, or some type of rank within the organization. The bureaucracy
allows the executive branch to divide administrative responsibilities based on specialization,
and it allows specialists in particular areas to perform their functions according to objective
criteria. Thus, bureaucrats seek to accomplish objectives set forth in legislation enacted by
political figures. It is not bureaucrats’ responsibility to get involved with questions of whether
those objectives are necessarily good, as those are considerations for elected officials.
Political Appointments Versus Career Civil Service System
The bureaucracy is made up of two distinct components: the political administration and
the civil service system. The administration refers to the bureaucracy that supports the
president. The civil service system refers to those federal employees who are professionals hired on the basis of merit. Whereas the civil service system is viewed as the permanent
government, the political administration is viewed as a temporary government, because it is
mostly replaced when a new president takes office. Each president’s political administration
is composed of his or her immediate White House staff, his or her Cabinet, and the political
appointees who staff various agencies and departments. As an example, in the State Department, there is a secretary of state and several assistant secretaries. Each assistant secretary
is responsible for a specific policy or programmatic area, such as the assistant secretary for
European affairs and the assistant secretary for East Asia. Political appointees in the administration also include the various ambassadors stationed abroad. Each embassy around the
world has an ambassador and several counselors who are also political appointees. Below
the political appointees are members of the civil service system, and in the case of the State
Department, the civil servants are members of the Foreign Service corps.
The key differences between political appointees and civil servants are the method by which
they obtain their jobs, the nature of their loyalties, and the tenure of their offices. Political
appointees are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Their loyalty is to
the president, who can have them removed from office. Civil servants are hired by the U.S.
Office of Personnel Management, and they are chosen on the basis of merit. Individuals going
into the civil service often start out in entry-level positions and may work their way up the
bureaucratic ladder to more senior-level management positions, which explains why, in part,
these persons are often referred to as career civil servants.
Civil servants are supposed to be loyal to their agencies and dedicated to the neutral delivery
of public goods and services. Civil servants are governed by the Hatch Act of 1939, which is a
law prohibiting federal employees from participating in partisan political activity. The Hatch
Act was an outgrowth of a long tradition of civil service reform. Named after Senator Carl
Hatch of New Mexico, it was a specific response to allegations that employees of the Work
Progress Administration, a New Deal program, were used by Democratic politicians in the
1938 congressional campaign. The Hatch Act specifically prohibits intimidation or bribery
of voters and restricts political campaign activities by federal employees. Federal employees
below the policymaking level are not permitted to have “any active part” in a political campaign and are prohibited from using any public funds for electoral purposes. Additionally,
civil servants are prohibited from promising jobs, promotion, financial assistance, contracts,
or any other benefit as a way to coerce campaign contributions or political support. In practical terms, this means that a political administrator may attend a fundraiser for members of
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The Rise of the Civil Service System
Section 6.2
the president’s political party, but a civil servant may not. While civil servants are permitted
to vote, like any other citizen, they may not campaign for political candidates.
The Hatch Act also prohibits federal employees from being members of “any political organization which advocates the overthrow of our constitutional form of government.” This has
been interpreted to preclude membership in the Communist Party.
Politics Versus Public Administration
The federal bureaucracy is structured on the principle
that politics should not play a role in the execution
of government functions. The reason for the separation is to maintain accountability, transparency, and
neutrality. In the 1880s, political scientist Woodrow
Wilson, who would later become president, put forth
the classical model of public administration. Proposing a strong executive who would also be accountable,
Wilson argued that public administration should be
separate from political and policy concerns. Rather,
public administration should be concerned solely
with the “detailed and systematic execution of public law” (Wilson, 1887). Law and policies are made
by elected officials, who are held accountable by voters at the ballot box. If the public is unhappy with the
policy choices made by elected officials, it can always
vote them out of office. The role of the bureaucracy is
to implement those policies. Wilson specifically called
for a set of principles to guide administrators in the
efficient performance of their duties.
Library of Congress
Woodrow Wilson argued that administration should be separate from
political and policy concerns.
Consider for a moment members of Congress who need to raise money for their reelection.
It would not be out of the ordinary for wealthy contributors to have greater access to these
elected officials and a greater chance of being listened to than would ordinary voters. But we
would not want a civil service system to give preference to rich people or to Republicans over
Democrats in the delivery of benefits such as Social Security payments. The point of the separation is to ensure that delivery of public goods and services will happen on an impartial and
equal basis. Civil service, then, requires an intricate set of procedures and rules that must be
followed so that the delivery of services will, in fact, be impartial and professional.
6.2 The Rise of the Civil Service System
The modern civil service system is an outgrowth of the Progressive Era (1890s–1920s), when
social and government reformers sought to deliver governmental services on the basis of
merit. The idea of a neutral, nonpartisan, and impartial civil service system was revolutionary. Prior to the civil service system, people obtained government employment through political connections, also known as the spoils system.
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The Rise of the Civil Service System
Section 6.2
The Spoils System
Under the spoils system, the political party that won office would be able to staff the government. Newly elected persons would replace those working for the government with new
employees who were loyal to them. This was, quite literally, a system of “to the victor go the
spoils.” This meant that no one could be assured of long-term government employment, and
workers were subject to being fired when their patron either left office or was defeated in an
election. Workers did not necessarily have to be qualified for their jobs; they only needed to
be loyal to the person who hired them. It would not be uncommon, for instance, for a local
postal worker to be replaced after a presidential election.
President Andrew Jackson first used the spoils system
to reward people who voted for him. Following Jackson’s inauguration as president in 1829, about 20% of
the federal workforce, mostly in the Post Office, was
replaced. Despite attempts by administration officials
to justify personnel changes, it became evident that the
sole criterion for employment was loyalty to Jackson.
Ironically, the spoils system reflected Jackson’s revolutionary democratic spirit. Government was supposed
to belong to the people. By that standard, it should be
staffed by ordinary citizens, not technical experts. But
the problem with this system was uneven delivery of
services. As an example, a mail carrier whose loyalty
was to Jackson and his Democratic Party might be
less inclined to deliver mail with the same frequency
or care to those areas that supported Jackson’s opponents. Subsequent presidents continued to use the
spoils system to encourage people to vote for them.
© Bettmann/Corbis
The spoils system was problematic for various other This cartoon alludes to the fact that
reasons. One of the legacies of the American Revolution Andrew Jackson was closely associwas a deep-seated distrust of centralized power, which ated with the spoils system. He used
meant that Americans had a very negative view of gov- it to reward people who voted for
ernment. For more than a century after the Constitu- him.
tion was ratified, the most desirable government was
the one that governed least. A government staffed by experts or elites might be unaccountable
to the public. In Europe, it was considered a matter of prestige to be a civil servant. But in those
European societies, one who served the public did not necessarily need to be accountable for
the simple reason that civil servants had expertise while the public did not. Jacksonian democracy, by contrast, was built on the premise that the common man should govern. Moreover, at
the federal level, there was not much for government workers to do. It was only as governmental operations became more complex that there would be a greater need for professionalism.
The Good Government Reform Movement
The Good Government Reform movement sprang from the Progressive Era of the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. There were efforts at the national level to eliminate the spoils system and
replace it with a professional civil service system as early as 1865.
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The Rise of the Civil Service System
Section 6.2
The reforms that did lead to the modern administrative state actually began at the local level.
In cities such as New York around the turn of the 20th century, local party leaders would typically offer patronage to immigrants. They would go to the docks to greet new arrivals with
offers of employment and assistance to find housing and other needs. Often, the party leader
would own a construction company that held building contracts with the city.
Meanwhile, these party leaders controlled party nominations, and they could help guarantee
that their people would be elected by delivering the support and votes of their immigrant
employees. In exchange for jobs, these party leaders would request that employees support
their candidates. Elected city leaders owed something to these party leaders who put them
there, and they paid that debt with construction contracts.
The spoils system also allowed local party leaders to reward their loyal followers with jobs in
the local bureaucracy. Irish immigrants and their descendants, for instance, staffed many
police departments. As a result, many elites believed that they were being displaced. The only
way they could see to reclaim what they considered to be their lost and rightful positions of
employment was to choose employees based on merit. In other words, by changing the rules
of the game, more educated elites could displace those whose only qualification was their
loyalty. Reformers sought greater efficiency and equity in the delivery of local governmental
services by pushing to require workers to take and pass qualifying exams.
At the federal level, the impetus
for replacing the spoils system was
the 1881 assassination of President James Garfield, who was shot
by a disgruntled campaign worker
whose repeated requests for a job
through the spoils system had
been rejected. Garfield’s successor,
Chester Arthur, had no interest in
continuing with a system that he
thought resulted in the …
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