The Federal Bureaucracy
The Monster Child of the Executive Branch
“The Fourth Branch”
What is a bureaucracy?
A set of complex hierarchical departments, agencies, commissions, and their
staffs that exist to help a chief executive officer carry out his or her duties.
Bureaucracies may be private organizations of governmental units.
A holiday parallel would be: Bureaucrats are like Santa's little elves. They do all
the dirty work.
Modern bureaucracies are characterized by:
-A top to bottom chain of command
-Workers with specialized roles
-Formal rules
Growth:
1789 – four initial departments – Foreign affairs, War, Treasury, Attorney General
Early 19th century – post office became major department as country moved
west. Postmaster general was a big position.
Andrew Jackson used the bureaucracy as part of “the spoils system” – the firing
of public-office holders of a defeated political party and their replacement with
loyalists of the newly elected party.
The Modern Bureaucracy has 1.8 million civilian
employees, not including the postal service
mmm…
pie
The Civil War and the Growth of
Government
The Civil War spawned the need for new
government agencies.
-Department of Agriculture (1862) – need
to feed troops
-Pension Office (1866) – pay benefits to
veterans
Many of the new jobs were used for
patronage – jobs, grants, and other
special favors given as rewards to friends
and political allies for their support.
From the Spoils System to the Merit System
1880 – James Garfield becomes President.
-Besieged by office seekers (patronage seekers)
-Wished to reform the system
-Irony: assassinated by a frustrated job seeker
-Reaction to Garfield’s death and increasing
criticism of spoils system led to:
Civil Service Reform Act of 1883
also known as
The Pendleton Act:
Garfield – full beard
-Established the principle of federal employment on the
basis of open, competitive exams.
-Created a bi-partisan Civil Service Commission
-New system became known as The Merit System –
the system by which federal civil service jobs are
classified into grades or levels, to which appointments
are made on the basis of performance on exams.
Civil Service – Having a government job.
Civil Service System – the system by which the
appointments to those jobs are made.
Garfield – mustache only
Regulating the Economy and the Growth of Government in the 20th
Century
-Growth of big business, price fixing, and other unfair business
practices after the Civil War stimulated Congress to create the
Interstate Commerce Commission
-First Independent Regulatory Commission – agency
created by Congress that is generally concerned with a
specific aspect of the economy.
-More on this later.
-Theodore Roosevelt
-Asked Congress to establish the Department of Commerce
and Labor to oversee employer-employee relations
-Woodrow Wilson
-Divided Dept. of Commerce and Labor into two departments
-Creation of the Federal Trade Commission – to protect small
business from unfair big business.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
-Created hundreds of new government agencies during the
New Deal
-Lyndon B. Johnson
-War on Poverty created additional growth in the bureaucracy
For example – EEOC, HUD
See chart p.
318 – growth of
federal
employees
Government Workers and Political Involvement
The Hatch Act
Law enacted in 1939 to prohibit civil servants from taking activist roles in partisan
campaigns.
Civil Servants could not make political contributions, work for a political party, or
campaign for a particular candidate.
What were the criticisms of this?
Federal Employees Political
Activities Act
1993 liberalization of the Hatch Act.
Allowed federal employees to run for office in nonpartisan elections and to contribute
money to campaigns in partisan elections.
The Modern Bureaucracy
1.8 million workers in executive branch
90 percent are part of civil service system – merit standards, civil service exams.
10 percent not covered by civil service
•Appointive policy-making positions (ex: cabinet secretaries)
•Independent Regulatory Commissioners (appointed by President)
•Low-level, non policy patronage positions (ex: secretarial assistants)
Who are these people?
Examples: forest rangers, FBI agents, computer programmers, security
guards, librarians, administrators, engineers, plumbers, lawyers, doctors,
postal carriers, zoologists, scientists
In other words, anybody and everybody. Whoah.
Difficulty in Removing Bureaucrats
Discuss: Is this a legitimate protection of employees rights or does it make it too
difficult to fire incompetent workers?