No. of Recommendations: 10
Me: But that [following the political leadership] is exactly their job.
Dope: No it isn't.
This isn't something that is debatable. It is fact. Their job is to follow the political leadership within the parameters of the law. Perhaps some definitions would help.
Britannica:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/civil-servicecivil service, the body of government officials who are employed in civil occupations that are neither political nor judicial. In most countries the term refers to employees selected and promoted on the basis of a merit and seniority system, which may include examinations.Institute for Government:
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explaine...Civil servants undertake a wide variety of activities, including analysing policy options, managing government contracts, and providing frontline support to people using public services. For these activities to be done well, they need to be done by people with the appropriate training and expertise, https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-civil-service-de...Civil servants are people employed in the public sector by a government department or agency for public sector undertakings. Civil servants work for central, state, and local governments, and answer to the government, not a political party. Career civil servants are hired based on professional merit rather than being appointed or elected. Their job tenure typically survives changes in political leadership. It might also be helpful to recap what schedule F did (very briefly) to the civil service.
It is at this point that I need to confess to a bit of misunderstanding on terminology - an error I learned by finally doing some reading and researching. My position is consistent, but I have been mis-using terms in some prior posts. I was under the mistaken impression that Schedule F was a protection for higher level civil servants that would keep them in their jobs through changes in Presidential administrations. It is the opposite. Schedule F was created by Trump which effectively converted the highest levels of management in the civil service along with some career professional positions into political appointees.
Let's look at the Executive Order creating it.
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-...After some introductory bits, we start with this:
Section 1. Policy. To effectively carry out the broad array of activities assigned to the executive branch under law, the President and his appointees must rely on men and women in the Federal service employed in positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character. Faithful execution of the law requires that the President have appropriate management oversight regarding this select cadre of professionals.As usual for Trump, there are half-truths and outright lies here. He starts off just fine.
the President and his appointees must rely on men and women in the Federal service ...Exactly right. The President and his political appointees rely on the Federal service to accomplish their policy goals. But then he slips into the problems.
... employed in positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character.Confidential? Yes. There are quite a number of confidential positions in the Federal civil service.
Policy determining? No. The President and appointees determine policy.
Policy making? Absolutely NOT. Again, the President and appointees make policy.
Policy advocating? Perhaps. The upper management levels of the civil service likely have quite a bit of institutional knowledge. They know what things have been tried, what has worked, and what has failed. It is not inconceivable that they might quietly advocate some bits of policy with their appointed superiors. But they should not do so publicly. Most importantly, the highest level of management along with some career professionals are the civil servants with sufficient knowledge to know when they are being asked to break the law.
Faithful execution of the law requires that the President have appropriate management oversight regarding this select cadre of professionals.Yes. And he already has that - his appointees are the management oversight to all of the civil service, not just a few select people.
Everything that follow is based on the mistaken assumption that civil service employees are in policy-determining, policy-making, and policy advocating positions. But they are not. Policy is determined, made, and publicly advocated for by the President and his appointees. Civil servants execute those policies as long as they are within the law.
Getting away from facts and back into opinions, if I were to hazard a guess, the whole concept here of Schedule F is to make it trivially easy to fire anyone who is in a position to raise the question that a request from the President or one of his appointees might be against the law. The overlap between those described in Schedule F and those who might refuse an order is fairly significant. Because a dictator does not want people who might tell him "no".
--Peter
