Republicans and the Civil Service
In his masterful cinematic retelling of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic Lord of the Rings trilogy, director Peter Jackson lays the groundwork for an impending cataclysmic struggle with a dire warning from one of his protagonists. The elf queen Galadriel, voiced brilliantly by Cate Blanchett, alerts her listeners to the coming danger while noting ruefully, "some things that should not have been forgotten were lost."
Were Galadriel warning about the prospects for civil-service reform during Donald Trump's second term as president, her words would be equally apt. The fate of Middle Earth may not lie in the balance, but the future of the United States civil service and its 2.2 million civilian employees very well may. Republican policymakers are clearly eager to respond to real challenges, but they are acting without awareness of the hard-earned lessons that have shaped the civil service we inherited.
The struggles to establish a modern meritocratic civil service in America were protracted and politically brutal, with advocates of the spoils system fighting tenaciously in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to stop the movement in its tracks. Ironically, it was the Republican Party that led the way in pushing forcefully for the creation of a professional civil service.
Today, that love affair has gone sour. Many within the Grand Old Party are calling for the dismantling of civil-service protections for tens or even hundreds of thousands of federal employees. Some decry the so-called "deep state" as an enemy of American democracy and seek to shut it all down. Others at the fringes go further, calling for the mass arrest of career federal employees. Even among mainstream Republicans, the rhetoric has become remarkably heated: In August 2023, Florida governor Ron DeSantis claimed that if elected president, he would start "slitting the throats" of federal bureaucrats on day one.
How did we get here? Few would argue that the current federal civil service is without serious problems. It can be difficult to fire non-performers and attract talent for fields in high demand. Many have bemoaned the bureaucracy for its cost, inefficiency, and non-responsiveness. Change is clearly needed, and would in fact be welcome in many corners of the federal government. But even in these radical and polarized times, care must be taken to avoid adopting a cure much worse than the disease.
The spoils system was shoved into the dustbin of history for reasons that remain highly relevant today. Many current initiatives are unlikely to build a more capable and responsive public sector. There are far more constructive ways to achieve the objectives that Republicans claim to seek while retaining a high-performing, meritocratic civil service.
THE EVOLUTION OF FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT
In our current political moment, one could easily forget that much of the federal civil service's contemporary architecture was designed and advanced by Republicans. In fact, the first legislation to create a meritocratic civil service was proposed during the Civil War by a Republican senator from Massachusetts. Though that initial bill went nowhere, it marked the beginning of a prolonged struggle for civil-service reform.
Between 1864 and 1882, lawmakers introduced some 60 bills on the subject. In 1871, Ulysses Grant became the first president to create a civil-service commission. It was not popular among lawmakers, however, and when it expired in 1874, Congress did not renew its funding.
By the early 1880s, several dynamics converged that culminated in the passage of the landmark Pendleton Civil Service Act. A popular rebellion against the abuses of the spoils system had developed, with various good-governance initiatives sprouting up in a burst of grassroots activism. France, Germany, and Great Britain had already taken measures to professionalize their public sectors, while in the United States, comparable reforms were underway at the state level. But it was the shooting of President James Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker in July 1881 that finally galvanized the country. Reform advocates skillfully exploited the assassination to press for ending the spoils system, and public sentiment — heretofore largely indifferent to the matter — swung strongly in favor of reform.
The Republican-led Congress initially did little in the wake of Garfield's death. But Democrats ended up dominating the 1882 House elections after coming out strongly in favor of meritocratic civil-service reform. Not wishing to be outmaneuvered, and faced with the prospect that the incoming Democratic majority could potentially unseat thousands of their appointees, Senate Republicans helped pass the Pendleton Act in late December 1882, which was signed into law by Republican president Chester Arthur in January 1883. The final vote in the Senate was 39-5, with all Republicans voting in favor, and 155-46 in the House, with only eight Republicans in opposition.
The Pendleton Act required a competitive examination for around 13,200 posts, or roughly 10% of the existing public sector. It forbade the firing or demotion of employees covered by the law for political reasons, and prohibited the practice of requiring them to make political contributions. It also reestablished the Civil Service Commission and empowered it to enforce the act.
While the Pendleton Act marked an important milestone in the evolution of the modern federal bureaucracy, only its most ardent advocates in the 1880s would have bet on its ultimate success. The commission's staffing was tiny, and few within Congress or the executive branch were either pulling for it to succeed or willing to allow it to tread unchallenged on their patronage prerogatives. It would fall on another Republican policymaker — one who accepted his role on the Civil Service Commission reluctantly when his preferred position of assistant secretary of state fell through — to give the act political heft and meaning.
Theodore Roosevelt assumed his post as one of three civil-service commissioners in the spring of 1889, and he would spend the next six years on the job. Ambitious and politically savvy, he had initially viewed the role as a political dead end. Yet he was passionate about civil-service reform, and threw himself into his duties with prodigious enthusiasm. His tenure would ultimately witness a major expansion of civil-service protections to around 50,000 positions, or a quarter of the federal workforce. At the same time, many federal agencies professionalized their employment and labor practices and articulated the foundational principles undergirding the modern bureaucracy.
Roosevelt was relentless in cultivating the press, raising the commission's profile, and fighting for reform. Many of his most brutal battles were fought against his fellow Republicans. One of them, Postmaster General John Wanamaker, was a strong believer in the spoils system and had been one of the major financial backers of Benjamin Harrison's presidential campaign. He squared off with Roosevelt on numerous occasions, as did powerful members of Congress. Yet Roosevelt's adroit use of the press and ability to capture the mood of the time thwarted efforts to remove him. When the White House changed over to Democratic hands in 1893, he was invited to stay on as a commissioner.
Though advocates made a compelling case for reform based on the enhancement of professionalism, competence, and fairness in the federal workforce, the expansion of the modern meritocratic civil service often had less to do with lofty ideals than with crude political calculus. The Pendleton Act left the determination of positions to be covered by civil-service protections up to the president, and both Democrats and Republicans used this provision liberally to lock in their own appointments and stymie their successors. The result was steady, incremental expansion of civil-service protections. By the time Herbert Hoover was president, such protections had grown to cover 80% of the federal workforce.
Over the next 60 years, a variety of changes were made to add new functions and flesh out existing provisions. The last major change to the civil-service workforce occurred under the Carter administration in 1978. Congress disbanded the Civil Service Commission and divided its duties among three new independent agencies: the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which would manage the federal workforce; the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which would adjudicate complaints and protect meritocratic practices; and the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), which would oversee federal labor-management relations. It created an independent agency within the MSPB known as the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC) to investigate allegations of improper, retaliatory, or abusive behavior. The legislation also established the Senior Executive Service, or SES, to create a senior managerial cadre and provide administrations with more flexibility in staffing senior executive positions.
In the conservative retelling of this history, it is the left that either by design or default created the system that shields public employees from accountability. Project 2025, an initiative developed by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative think tanks, holds that "progressive intellectuals and activists demanded a more professionalized, scientific and politically neutral Administration" — a statement that is both accurate and woefully incomplete.
In truth, throughout its history, supporters and opponents of civil-service reform could be found in both parties. In 1939, Congress passed the Hatch Act, which prohibited federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity; all 157 Republican lawmakers voted in favor of the bill (as did many Democrats). The United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions manual (also known as the "Plum Book"), which listed key leadership and policy positions to be filled by presidential appointees, originated in 1952 with the Eisenhower administration. Congress passed the Federal Vacancies Reform Act in 1998 to cover acting appointments; it was introduced by Republican senator Fred Thompson and relied heavily on Republican support for its passage. Meanwhile, major reforms such as the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act passed with overwhelming bipartisan support by a margin of 87-1 in the Senate and 365-8 in the House. Whistleblower protections for civil-service employees were enacted in 1989 without congressional opposition.
REPUBLICAN REFORM PROPOSALS
Contemporary Republican efforts to restructure the civil service stand in stark contrast to this history. They reflect disparate intellectual and political strands that resonate deeply within today's GOP — from a hoary resistance to the expansion of federal roles and missions dating back to the New Deal, to more recent resentments about mask mandates and social distancing, to an Ayn Rand-style minimalism that eschews economic redistribution and views the state's primary purpose as that of securing individual rights and property. Some reformers on the right are animated by perspectives on the unitary executive, popular among conservative think tanks and legal circles; others by traditional fiscal conservatism and worries about the size of government and the deficit; still others by visceral suspicions that federal agencies are staffed by liberals who are seeking to "weaponize" government against conservatives. Undergirding it all is an increasing eagerness to curry favor with the party's populist base by portraying the GOP as the enemy of detached and out-of-touch coastal elites who make their living in the Washington "swamp."
The result has been a host of eclectic proposals. Some are narrow, targeted, and carefully formulated; others are sweeping, almost akin to primal-scream therapy (aptly illustrated by one proposal titled Retire All Government Employees, or RAGE). At their core, they share an unrelenting hostility toward the federal government and the employees who work for it. The Republican Study Committee (RSC) — a group of 177 conservatives who make up around 80% of the Republican conference in the House — expressed the sentiment succinctly in March 2024: "The biggest losers in this system are hardworking taxpayers who are forced to subsidize the bloated salaries of unqualified and unelected bureaucrats working to force a liberal agenda on a country that does not want it."
Perhaps the most prominent proposal has come to be known as "Schedule F." Formally titled Executive Order 13957, Schedule F was rolled out in the waning months of the first Trump administration, immediately canceled at the beginning of the Biden administration, then reintroduced on the first day of the second Trump administration. (Trump's reinstatement order dropped the designation "F" and replaced it with "Policy/Career.") It marks what could become the most consequential set of civil-service reforms in nearly 50 years.
The order sought to remove civil-service protections from any career official with a policymaking role, providing the White House with much greater discretion in personnel decision-making. Schedule F employees would be subject to streamlined hiring procedures and exempted from certain preferences in recruitment. Due-process rights surrounding termination, such as the right to appeal to the MSPB, would no longer apply.
The number of positions that could be designated as Schedule F is unknown and was left for individual agencies to determine, but estimates have ranged from 50,000 to higher. (Currently, there are around 4,000 political positions, out of which 1,200 are subject to congressional approval.)
Beyond Schedule F, lawmakers have advanced several other reform proposals in recent years. In the House, the RSC has consistently put forth a broad range of personnel-policy proposals and other measures for managing the federal workforce, most recently in March 2024. Some are straightforward and compelling, such as eliminating bonuses to employees who were sanctioned for misconduct and requiring the mandatory removal of workers convicted of criminal activity. Others fall within areas where reasonable people can differ, such as reviewing the formulas under which final salary benefits are calculated and retirement benefits are linked to inflation. Still others are aspirational but light on detail, such as reforming the General Schedule pay system to reward highly skilled and productive federal workers and avoid overpaying less-qualified employees. A few are dubious, such as eliminating annual cost-of-living adjustments for federal pensioners.
Senator Rick Scott of Florida has been especially aggressive in pressing for a radical restructuring of the civil service. In 2022, Scott rolled out his 12-point Rescue America Plan. The sixth pillar of the plan, titled "Government Reform and Debt," argued that most government agencies should be either moved out of Washington or shuttered entirely. This idea has surfaced repeatedly in Republican circles; in fact, during his 2024 campaign, candidate Trump pledged to move 100,000 civil-service positions "to places filled with patriots who love America." (Around 85% of the federal workforce is already located outside the greater Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.)
Along with others in the Senate and House, Scott introduced the Public Service Reform Act in May 2023. The act would in essence eliminate all civil-service protections for federal employees and place them in an "at-will" employment status, allowing them to be terminated, as the bill phrased it, "for good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all." The act provided only limited recourse involving whistleblower and Equal Employment Opportunity complaints. It also proposed eliminating the MSPB.
Many moderate congressional Republicans and Democrats find their hands tied by such proposals. They recognize the value of a neutral and independent civil service that can provide high-quality technical advice while simultaneously respecting lawful political guidance — a delicate balancing act that, when performed well, can bring the best of both worlds. Yet fearing the wrath of their party's base, few Republicans are willing to come out openly against efforts to radically restructure the civil service. Meanwhile, Democrats are wary that any efforts to reduce civil-service protections or go after non-performers will earn them the ire of public-sector unions.
Though, as a candidate, Donald Trump sought to distance himself from Project 2025, many of its architects have ended up in the second Trump administration, and the principles and policies it espouses appear to be exerting a major influence on the new administration's thinking. The Project 2025 document is schizophrenic in its treatment of the federal bureaucracy. Its rhetoric is tough and uncompromising: "The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values"; "freedom and liberty [are] under siege as never before"; federal bureaucrats are largely "underworked, over-compensated and unaccountable"; conservatives must "dismantle" the administrative state, fire federal bureaucrats, shutter wasteful and corrupt agencies, restore constitutional authority, and save taxpayer dollars in the process.
Yet its analysis of the White House, central agencies, and federal personnel policy is more subtle and nuanced, grounded in a careful review of the relevant institutions and legal and regulatory frameworks. Project 2025 embraces both Schedule F and the unitary-executive theory of government, but its chapters advance several initiatives worthy of serious consideration. They focus on addressing deficiencies in systems for performance monitoring and evaluation, reestablishing effective entry-level testing, and enhancing the use of merit-based pay. They also argue for streamlining grievance-redress processes. Other recommendations concern the reform of federal retirement benefits and relations with public-sector unions.
Interestingly, none of these proposals were explicitly picked up in the Republican Party platform in 2024. Channeling the urge for retribution by Trump and his supporters, the platform pledges only to hold accountable those who have "misused the power of Government to unjustly prosecute their Political Opponents." It also promises to "root out wrongdoers" and "fire corrupt employees." But no explicit mention of Schedule F or expanding the number of political appointees is to be found within the document.
In retrospect, Project 2025 seems almost quaint, and deferential to established bureaucratic norms and traditions. Beginning on the president's first day in office, the second Trump administration has acted aggressively on a range of fronts, pushing legal frontiers where possible and ignoring them where not. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has stated bluntly that the president "has the power to fire anyone within the executive branch that he wishes to," and the administration has acted on this principle.
Some of the administration's actions press the boundaries of relevant legislation, such as the decision to terminate 17 inspectors general. As amended, the Inspector General Act requires that Congress receive 30 days' notice of these terminations and that they be accompanied by a "substantive rationale," including detailed and case-specific reasons for removal. Ironically, few entities are more knowledgeable or better positioned to tackle waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government than the inspectors general; they could have been a powerful asset to the work of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Other decisions fall clearly outside the law, such as the closure of agencies like the United States Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without congressional authorization. They include the termination of Justice Department career employees who worked on various Trump cases (and potentially FBI officials who were involved in the investigation of January 6th cases, should the latter come to pass). They also include the firing of members of independent boards, such as the National Labor Relations Board, who can only be terminated for neglect of duty or malfeasance.
OBJECTIVES AND CHALLENGES
The Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz once wrote, "[e]verything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult." The same could be said for personnel management.
The objectives are clear, and largely commendable. The bureaucracy should be responsive to its political leadership while faithfully executing the laws passed by Congress. Employees should be motivated and helpful to the citizenry. Meritocracy should be enshrined in recruitment and promotion; strong performers should be rewarded while weak performers should be subject to remedial action and, if necessary, dismissal; and all employees should adhere to the highest standards of ethical conduct. Compensation should be affordable but sufficient to give agencies access to individuals with the skills they need to perform their functions effectively; personnel management should be fair and consistent with relevant rules and regulations; and management should encourage flexibility, innovation, and productivity. Grievance-redress procedures should provide adequate protections against political retaliation or unfair managerial practices without being so cumbersome as to coddle poor performers.
While laudable, many of these objectives conflict with one another. The real challenge involves effectively managing the tensions and trade-offs among them in a workforce consisting of more than 2 million civilian employees spread across 441 agencies and sub-agencies, all of which have already developed an extensive set of regulations and institutions to manage these contradictory impulses over time.
Beyond the political arena, scholars and practitioners are becoming increasingly aware that the current system of personnel management is antiquated and in desperate need of overhaul. In 2017 and 2018, the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) — which is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan organization chartered by Congress — published a two-part white-paper series titled No Time to Wait: Building a Public Service for the 21st Century. These documents declared that the federal government's human-capital system is "fundamentally broken," with too many rules and too little flexibility. The authors observed that government's changing responsibilities require a more highly skilled and agile workforce built around competencies and occupational standards rather than positions.
NAPA offered three broad sets of essential, interrelated reforms for policymakers to consider in order to address these challenges. These included providing individual agencies with the flexibility to create human-capital systems that best meet their unique mission-driven needs, upholding core civil-service principles while modernizing the merit system to include accountability for both mission and principles, and establishing a governance-and-accountability framework that balances these objectives while shifting from a system focused on procedures to one focused on results.
Beneath these general principles, NAPA offered a wide range of recommendations that run the gamut of human-resource challenges within the federal government. But their analysis makes clear that two goals must stand out above the rest: ensuring political and administrative responsiveness, and improving performance management.
A RESPONSIVE BUREAUCRACY
At the heart of many Republican critiques of the federal bureaucracy lies the question of responsiveness to political guidance. At best, Republican reformers view the federal bureaucracy as insular and serving its own interests; at worst, they see it as hostile to and actively colluding against conservatives. Such concerns are the driving force behind many of their current efforts to restructure the federal government.
Expanding the number of political appointees might seem like the obvious solution. Yet with 4,000 positions currently subject to political appointment, the United States already has a vastly higher turnover at the top of the bureaucratic hierarchy than any other advanced industrial democracy, with such appointments reaching four or five levels down in some agencies. By way of contrast, in March 2023, the United Kingdom had around 30 ministers and secretaries of state and 120 special advisors who serve as political appointees — less than 4% of the total in the United States. Put differently, the United States has just over four times the number of civilian civil servants as the United Kingdom and just under 28 times the number of political appointees.
Large numbers of political appointees can pose a host of challenges to effective administration. It takes time to recruit, vet, and onboard such staff, often resulting in a significant number of vacancies and acting assignments early in any administration. Of 714 key positions requiring Senate confirmation in the first Trump administration, nearly a quarter remained unfilled entering the final year of his presidency. Efforts by the Heritage Foundation to recruit 20,000 appointees prior to the election sought to mitigate such delays but also raised questions about outsourcing such a fundamental function to third parties. Meanwhile, the process of Senate confirmation has become more lengthy and politicized over time, increasing from an average of 56 days under Reagan to 115 days under Trump.
While the presence of political appointees may offer a higher probability that the president's agenda will be implemented, this is by no means guaranteed. In September 2018, the New York Times published an op-ed whose anonymous author revealed that he was part of a "quiet resistance" within the ranks of political appointees in the Trump administration dedicated to "working diligently from within to frustrate parts of [Trump's] agenda and his worst inclinations." The first Trump administration was also subject to criticisms from conservatives who believed it was failing to make effective use of the political appointees it had under existing law, arguing that many were not up to the job, had neither support nor a clear agenda, and operated with minimal oversight.
Several scholars have carefully sifted through the empirical evidence to determine whether agencies with substantial numbers of political employees ultimately perform better than those without. The available evidence indicates that, on balance, such departments tend to be less successful in achieving their objectives than those whose senior ranks are staffed by career civil servants. The average tenure of political appointees is around 2.5 years, whereas career managers tend to serve for longer periods, thus providing greater stability and continuity, along with the ability to see through the implementation of major reforms. Career officials often bring greater sectoral expertise and institutional knowledge to their work as well. Agencies led by career officials also tend to have more satisfied employees, while procurement procedures tend to operate more smoothly and efficiently, with fewer exceptions and less favoritism.
Comparative data from other countries back up these findings. A systematic review of the literature on meritocratic principles and government quality in 2023, for example, found that impartiality and professionalism were "consistently related to positive performance outcomes, higher public trust and confidence, and lower levels of corruption."
Ethically, measures like Schedule F raise important questions regarding ultimate loyalty. Civil servants swear an oath to the Constitution. They are tasked with implementing the laws of the United States as enacted by Congress. Their salaries are paid by all Americans. These obligations are every bit as important as their loyalty to the president and his administration.
What's more, part of their job involves speaking truth to power, even when the facts and difficult choices they convey may be politically inconvenient. Civil servants may be less inclined to have such frank conversations if they can be easily replaced, and the quality of the advice they offer may suffer. As a former Republican Office of Management and Budget official put bluntly, Schedule F could produce "an army of suck-ups."
Finally, Schedule F runs far out in front of American public opinion. The non-profit, non-partisan Partnership for Public Service supports a regular survey of the state of public trust in government. The most recent survey, published in 2024, reveals a disturbing lack of confidence overall, with only 23% of the public (and 10% of Republicans) claiming to trust the federal government. Yet attitudes toward civil servants are generally positive. A majority of respondents (55%) agreed with the statement that most civil servants are competent; a similar majority also agreed that most are committed to helping people like them. When the questions turned to the role of politics within the civil service, supermajorities affirmed their support for meritocracy: Around 95% of respondents held that civil servants should be hired and promoted based on merit rather than their political beliefs, and 90% said that civil servants should serve the people more than any individual president. Only 25% of the general public (and 37% of Republicans) held that presidents should be able to fire "any civil servants that they choose for any reason," whereas 72% of the public disagreed with this assertion.
AN EFFECTIVE BUREAUCRACY
Republicans are on firmer ground in arguing for a major overhaul of systems for performance management. Many within and outside of government believe that current federal labor practices are cumbersome and antiquated, with too many avenues for appeal and substantial union protections that make it difficult to fire poor performers.
Such terminations are not unheard of: In 2021, just over 4,000 federal employees were fired, amounting to around one-quarter of 1% of the permanent federal workforce. (Recent labor statistics indicate that around 1% of private-sector employees are let go, although such figures include both layoffs and termination for cause.) Yet few believe that these numbers reflect the magnitude of human-resources challenges confronting government agencies. A 2014 survey of senior federal employees by the Government Business Council noted that nearly 80% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that federal termination procedures discourage the firing of poor performers.
This problem has several dimensions. The first is a government performance-evaluation system that largely fails to adequately reward talent at the high end or to identify and penalize poor performers. A Government Accountability Office study of non-SES employee performance ratings in 2013 noted that 61% of federal workers received a rating of either "outstanding" or "exceeds fully successful." Another 39% were ranked "fully successful," only 0.3% were ranked "minimally successful," while 0.1% were ranked "unacceptable." No one could believe these numbers reflect reality.
A second challenge is that the termination of a federal employee requires numerous steps. A performance-improvement plan needs to be developed. Remedial measures need to be implemented. If termination is necessary, employees must be given a 30-day notice and the right to contest the allegations. They can make use of the government's ample grievance-redress mechanisms, including complaining to the MSPB, the OSC, and (potentially) the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). These processes can play out for over a year or more and require careful documentation at each step along the way.
The MSPB receives around 5,000 cases each year, just under half of which involved adverse personnel action, termination of probation, and performance in 2022. Roughly half of the adverse-action and 94% of the termination-of-probation complaints were dismissed. Of the cases that ultimately went to formal adjudication, the MSPB upheld the agency's position around 80% of the time.
While the prospects for overturning adverse personnel actions through the MSPB are modest, the involvement of public-sector unions (to which roughly 28% of the federal workforce belongs) shifts the equation. Union arbitrators tend to overturn federal-employee dismissals at a significantly higher rate: Around 38% of the time, the dismissal is vacated and the employee is reinstated; in another 20%, termination is reduced to a lower penalty.
When faced with the effort and uncertainty involved in terminating non-performers, many managers ultimately elect to skip the process entirely, or to employ suboptimal workarounds. In the survey of senior public-sector workers cited above, only 11% stated that they would fire an employee who cannot or will not improve after counseling. Around 37% would give the employee fewer responsibilities, 27% would transfer the employee to another organization, and 21% would not take any action.
MODEST WAYS FORWARD
For their part, Democrats and public-sector unions have tenaciously resisted proposed reforms. Two days after his inauguration, President Biden issued Executive Order 14003 on protecting the federal workforce, arguing that Schedule F was not only "unnecessary to the conditions of good administration, but also undermined the foundations of the civil service and its merit-system principles." Several other Trump-era civil-service reforms were also rescinded at that time. (Many have now been reinstated.) In Congress in 2023, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia and more than a dozen other Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation that would ban presidents from unilaterally establishing federal positions outside of the protections of the competitive civil service.
While such efforts may placate key Democratic constituencies, they are counterproductive. As NAPA and others have argued, the status quo is unacceptable and unsustainable. Policymakers need to find a way to navigate between the Scylla of a dysfunctional status quo and the Charybdis of "slit their throats." The United States needs to retain the benefits of technical competence and impartial advice from a meritocratic civil service while ensuring that federal employees are responsive to political oversight and accountability.
What is the optimal balance? Capable, efficient, and effective institutions are difficult to build and easy to degrade and destroy. For some on the right, destruction is the point. But the vast majority of Americans — including many Republicans and Democrats — value the services that the federal government provides and simply want to see them performed more efficiently and responsively. Fortunately, there are measures that would simultaneously improve responsiveness, accountability, and performance while delivering greater benefit at a much lower cost and risk. Four in particular are worth considering.
First, reformers should give departments and agencies much greater flexibility in managing their human resources within frameworks that align with their core mission and values. NAPA's white papers advance a host of important recommendations that would empower agencies to tailor their human-resources practices to their unique business needs while enshrining merit principles in operations, many of which would involve overhauling Title 5 of the U.S. Code.
Second, it is crucial to regularly reassess the allocation of political appointees across the public sector to ensure the optimal balance among different agencies. The Plum Book's current allocation of political appointees should be revisited every four years. In the year prior to a presidential election, a bipartisan commission should review the 4,000 political posts and make recommendations for their streamlining and reallocation. The incoming administration would have the option of pursuing these recommendations.
Third, reformers should overhaul agencies' performance-management practices. Current practices rank less than 0.5% of the federal workforce marginally satisfactory or unsatisfactory, which does not reflect reality. The OPM should require all government agencies to implement a forced distribution curve in evaluating employee performance. Such a curve should be carefully linked to agency performance as measured by Governance Performance and Results Act metrics so that high-performing agencies (or units within agencies) will not be penalized and will have greater flexibility and discretion in applying the curve.
Finally, reformers should streamline the employee grievance-redress process and reform union arbitration practices. The current division of labor between the MSPB, EEOC, FLRA, OSC, and the departments and agencies of the federal government should be revised to reduce complexity. The MSPB should be strengthened and take over the EEOC's role for federal employees. The processes surrounding termination should be simplified, the paperwork reduced, the window for appeals narrowed, and the role of unions in the grievance-redress process for individual employees curtailed.
These recommendations represent a relatively modest set of reforms, yet they also run to the core of our current challenges in how the federal workforce is managed. The slash-and-burn approach that Musk and DOGE are now pursuing is more performative than substantive. Although it is early in its tenure, the second Trump administration has so far shown scant interest in building a more capable and effective administration for the future, and is focusing instead on firing employees, shuttering agencies, going after perceived enemies, and trashing government programs on social media. Yet the risks involved are immense. Our society relies on the federal bureaucracy for more than we are often comfortable admitting. No president wants to be responsible for the public's finding out the hard way just how much Americans need talented and committed federal civil servants.
AVERTING A NEW SPOILS SYSTEM
The GOP faces a fundamental question: Will it relish the chaos of deconstruction as payback for the federal bureaucracy's various sins of omission and commission? Or will it seek to build its brand on a foundation of effective and efficient governance by supporting reforms that will actually lead to a more responsive and capable civil service?
Right now, more radical forces clearly have the upper hand. The temptation to extract near-term political gain by playing to the loudest and most extreme voices within the party will be significant and perhaps irresistible. Yet such drastic measures will render the federal government far less competent and vastly more politicized, ultimately undermining the new administration's ability to deliver on its agenda. Many in the more radical wing of the Republican Party may view Musk's takeover of Twitter as inspiration; more sober analysts, reflecting on the inherent risk of similar disruptions occurring in basic government functions like air-traffic control, food inspection, or the processing of Social Security checks, would see it as a cautionary tale.
In February 1895, as his career as a Civil Service commissioner was coming to an end, Teddy Roosevelt penned a few words for The Atlantic about his experience. He was proud of his accomplishments, not least of which was the spread of public employment beyond the politically well connected. Yet the future 26th president concluded with a stark warning:
The government cannot endure permanently if administered on a spoils basis. If this form of corruption is permitted and encouraged, other forms of corruption will inevitably follow in its train.
One hundred and thirty years later, his words have lost none of their power or relevance.
