4 ms·

"The administration" is not a monolithic entity. For the last ~150 years, even though it's had political appointees at the top, the vast majority of its employe

by teraflop 10mo ago

"The administration" is not a monolithic entity. For the last ~150 years, even though it's had political appointees at the top, the vast majority of its employees have been selected (at least ostensibly) on the basis of merit, not political loyalty. They're supposed to be somewhat insulated from the changing political winds. The layers of bureaucracy in between were created deliberately, to preserve some degree of decision-making independence. When people talk about "the Trump administration tightening its hold", they mean Trump and his political appointees exerting direct control over things that have a strong precedent for being out of their direct control. Using the word "administration" to conflate the presidency with the layers of organization below it is the main premise of the "unitary executive theory", which is an extremely recent development of the current Supreme Court. Previously, when Congress said "such-and-such a decision is supposed to be made by the staff of agency XYZ, not by the President/Secretary personally", the courts assumed they meant it.

mothballed 10mo ago
Yes "~150 years" ago (sounds right to me, not sure on the exact date), there was civil service reform. Prior to that every administration would fire the prior servants and install their own because every political party then and now wanted their own people to be of influence in civil service. This was replaced with a system where it is very difficult to fire most civil servants but the executive could still select new hires (The Trump administration has tried the firing method via DOGE but with not much luck). There is a common misconception that this reduces political influence and loyalty. This couldn't be further from the truth. What it did was ensure the civil services grew much further, since the only way the next political party in power could regain dominance was to hire even more civil servants until they overpowered the ones already there. This meant it is even more important to get loyal ones, since they will be there for a long time and can't be fired. So now we have a large civil service full of loyal people that seemingly often sabotage each other, fighting one loyal group against another loyal group. It might be even worse than before civil service reform.
- SpicyLemonZest 10mo ago
  > So now we have a large civil service full of loyal people that seemingly often sabotage each other, fighting one loyal group against another loyal group. Can you name even a single time when two groups of civil servants sabotaged each other in this way? If civil servants engage in this kind of sabotage, how has Trump been able to enact things that are both controversial and flagrantly unlawful without being sabotaged?
  - mothballed 10mo ago
    >an you name even a single time when two groups of civil servants sabotaged each other in this way? DOGE vs USAID >If civil servants engage in this kind of sabotage, how has Trump been able to enact things that are both controversial and flagrantly unlawful without being sabotaged? I mean they have, look at all the civil servants who were fired and then sued for their jobs back with the leverage of judges who were prior appointed by Democrat leaning politics. Trump's attempt to eliminate large portions of the civil service has failed pretty spectacularly.
    - SpicyLemonZest 10mo ago
      Yes, it’s true that Trump specifically has instructed civil servants to sabotage each other. You know why this is a dishonest answer, so I don’t see the point of continuing this conversation. The day will come when your heroes face the consequences of pointlessly killing all the children USAID helped, and you beg for everyone to forget you ever supported it; I look forward to rubbing the salt in your wounds, but until then I have no interest in what you have to say.
    - miltonlost 10mo ago
      DOGE were not "civil servants" in the slightest. And USAID tried to sabotage DOGE?? Your entire worldview is backwards. (Looking through your past posts and yiikes yeah)
  - rayiner 10mo ago
    There was massive sabotage of the first Trump administration. We're talking about administration lawyers not reporting case developments to political employees in order to keep the political appointees in the dark.
SoftTalker 10mo ago
This isn't new. My father told me 50 years ago, "never work for the government, because your job exists at the whims of whoever gets elected."
caseysoftware 10mo ago
[flagged]
rayiner 10mo ago
You're conflating two very different things. You're correct that civil service reforms sought to ensure employees would be hired based on merit. But that does not mean they were granted "decision-making independence." The point was to have highly qualified people executing the agenda of the elected President--not to allow them to exercise discretion independent of political forces. In Federalist 70 Hamilton emphasizes that a key feature of the Constitution is "unity" of executive power in the President: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed70.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed70.asp. Hamilton explains that the Constitution expressly rejects a model that had been adopted by several state governments, where the exercise of executive power was subject to the independent check of the executive's subordinates: > The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers. > That unity is conducive to energy will not be disputed. Decision, activity, secrecy, and despatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number; and in proportion as the number is increased, these qualities will be diminished. > This unity may be destroyed in two ways: either by vesting the power in two or more magistrates of equal dignity and authority; or by vesting it ostensibly in one man, subject, in whole or in part, to the control and co-operation of others, in the capacity of counsellors to him. So the view being espoused here is not a "recent development." Hamilton was explaining back in 1788 the problems with a model where the President was "ostensibly" the head of the administration, but was "subject, in whole or in part, to the control and cooperation" of his theoretical subordinates. The constitution was understood this way from Hamilton until Myers v. United States in 1926--which held that the President could fire agency heads without Congressional approval because that was necessary to secure his authority to carry out his will as the executive. The Supreme Court only discarded the traditional view of the executive in the 1930s when FDR created the modern administrative state. And what's now labeled "unitary executive theory" is a legal movement that arose in the 1980s to restore the original view of how the executive worked. The new development wasn't the view of executive power, but instead the idea that we should try to restore how things worked prior to the 1930s.

mothballed 10mo ago

Yes "~150 years" ago (sounds right to me, not sure on the exact date), there was civil service reform. Prior to that every administration would fire the prior servants and install their own because every political party then and now wanted their own people to be of influence in civil service. This was replaced with a system where it is very difficult to fire most civil servants but the executive could still select new hires (The Trump administration has tried the firing method via DOGE but with not much luck). There is a common misconception that this reduces political influence and loyalty. This couldn't be further from the truth. What it did was ensure the civil services grew much further, since the only way the next political party in power could regain dominance was to hire even more civil servants until they overpowered the ones already there. This meant it is even more important to get loyal ones, since they will be there for a long time and can't be fired. So now we have a large civil service full of loyal people that seemingly often sabotage each other, fighting one loyal group against another loyal group. It might be even worse than before civil service reform.

SpicyLemonZest 10mo ago
> So now we have a large civil service full of loyal people that seemingly often sabotage each other, fighting one loyal group against another loyal group. Can you name even a single time when two groups of civil servants sabotaged each other in this way? If civil servants engage in this kind of sabotage, how has Trump been able to enact things that are both controversial and flagrantly unlawful without being sabotaged?
- mothballed 10mo ago
  >an you name even a single time when two groups of civil servants sabotaged each other in this way? DOGE vs USAID >If civil servants engage in this kind of sabotage, how has Trump been able to enact things that are both controversial and flagrantly unlawful without being sabotaged? I mean they have, look at all the civil servants who were fired and then sued for their jobs back with the leverage of judges who were prior appointed by Democrat leaning politics. Trump's attempt to eliminate large portions of the civil service has failed pretty spectacularly.
  - SpicyLemonZest 10mo ago
    Yes, it’s true that Trump specifically has instructed civil servants to sabotage each other. You know why this is a dishonest answer, so I don’t see the point of continuing this conversation. The day will come when your heroes face the consequences of pointlessly killing all the children USAID helped, and you beg for everyone to forget you ever supported it; I look forward to rubbing the salt in your wounds, but until then I have no interest in what you have to say.
  - miltonlost 10mo ago
    DOGE were not "civil servants" in the slightest. And USAID tried to sabotage DOGE?? Your entire worldview is backwards. (Looking through your past posts and yiikes yeah)
- rayiner 10mo ago
  There was massive sabotage of the first Trump administration. We're talking about administration lawyers not reporting case developments to political employees in order to keep the political appointees in the dark.

SoftTalker 10mo ago

This isn't new. My father told me 50 years ago, "never work for the government, because your job exists at the whims of whoever gets elected."

caseysoftware 10mo ago

[flagged]

rayiner 10mo ago

You're conflating two very different things. You're correct that civil service reforms sought to ensure employees would be hired based on merit. But that does not mean they were granted "decision-making independence." The point was to have highly qualified people executing the agenda of the elected President--not to allow them to exercise discretion independent of political forces. In Federalist 70 Hamilton emphasizes that a key feature of the Constitution is "unity" of executive power in the President: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed70.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed70.asp. Hamilton explains that the Constitution expressly rejects a model that had been adopted by several state governments, where the exercise of executive power was subject to the independent check of the executive's subordinates: > The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers. > That unity is conducive to energy will not be disputed. Decision, activity, secrecy, and despatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number; and in proportion as the number is increased, these qualities will be diminished. > This unity may be destroyed in two ways: either by vesting the power in two or more magistrates of equal dignity and authority; or by vesting it ostensibly in one man, subject, in whole or in part, to the control and co-operation of others, in the capacity of counsellors to him. So the view being espoused here is not a "recent development." Hamilton was explaining back in 1788 the problems with a model where the President was "ostensibly" the head of the administration, but was "subject, in whole or in part, to the control and cooperation" of his theoretical subordinates. The constitution was understood this way from Hamilton until Myers v. United States in 1926--which held that the President could fire agency heads without Congressional approval because that was necessary to secure his authority to carry out his will as the executive. The Supreme Court only discarded the traditional view of the executive in the 1930s when FDR created the modern administrative state. And what's now labeled "unitary executive theory" is a legal movement that arose in the 1980s to restore the original view of how the executive worked. The new development wasn't the view of executive power, but instead the idea that we should try to restore how things worked prior to the 1930s.