What’s sad is that it actually was a good idea at the time. A merit-based system. But because ideology poisoned the well, it turned a good idea into an immoveable leftist bureaucracy. Fact is, with the incoming regime, it’s almost impossible (under a spoils system) that the people he’d bring in would be any different than what’s already there now.
Although not a federal example, in Kentucky, which hadn’t elected a Republican administration from 1967 until 2003, it was (no surprise) filled to the brim with Democrat hacks that were not loyal to the new administration and were seeking to undermine it. The new Governor tried to do something about it and fired some of the hacks. When he did, the Attorney-General, a crooked Democrat hack himself, spent the rest of his term trying to bring charges against the Governor for firing Democrats (little better than a coup d’etat). The neverending attacks (fanned by the media) damaged the Governor to the point that he was defeated for reelection. When the new Democrat came in (with yet another new Democrat AG), no doubt he installed his own people, and we’ve heard nary a peep again over the issue.
Similar in Alabama when the GOP elected a Governor in 1986 for the first time since Reconstruction and he was reelected in 1990. The Lieutenant Governor and AG, both sleazy Democrats, conspired to cook up phony charges against the Governor and run him out of office. They found some, and they did. But in this case, it backfired and both the “new” Governor and AG were voted out. That new GOP AG, the first since Reconstruction, was none other than Jeff Sessions, one of our best Senators today.