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Posted on 07/16/2025 1:00:27 PM PDT by EnderWiggin1970
In 1883, when the Pendleton Act was passed, creating the US civil service, it must have seemed like no big deal. The forgotten Chester A. Arthur was the president. The fear of being assassinated like his predecessor James Garfield convinced him to back the legislation. The case for passage: government needs professionals with institutional knowledge. Technicians were changing the world, so why not government too?
Science and engineering were the rage – electricity, steel bridges, telegraphic communications, internal combustion, photography – so surely public affairs needed the same level of expertise. Who could deny that civil service could do a better job than the cousins and business partners of professional politicians?
That’s how it started. What was once called government of, by, and for the people was derided as the hopelessly corrupt “spoils system,” a phrase that reflected genius marketing. So it was overthrown in favor of “merit-based” hiring in the executive, a staff not yet permanent or huge, but the proverbial camel now had its nose under the tent.
Through two world wars and the Great Depression, and then the Cold War, what landed on the other side was something the Constitution’s Framers never imagined. We had huge governing systems in giant bureaucracies staffed by employees who could not be fired. It was left to them to implement, but really create the operational framework for the whole of civil society.
It was a state within a state, one with many layers, including that which was and is classified.
(Excerpt) Read more at brownstone.org ...
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A return to the “spoils system” of government employment will undermine our institutions and introduce far more corruption than our nation has seen in the last 100 years.
It’s a foolish plan for anyone who cares about the long-term health of the US.
bttt
Given a choice between the elite and untouchable Deep State rule we've had and a return to political appointees, I will gladly take the latter and then deal with the occasional issue. Because right now it's not an occasional issue, it's the entire system that is corrupt.
Gut the government.
The feds do too many things the federal government has zero business funding.
Kids will go without school lunches. What business of that is the federal government. Local issue which should be handled through local people. Bring in charities etc. Not the federal bureaucracy....with all the inefficiencies and bloat.
The Pendleton Act is a minor factor
The bloated US prog-woke administrative state was started with the rise of "fake" money, and the debt it enables, courtesy of the 1913 Federal Reserve Act.
Spoken like a good pro-gov't, anti-constitutional Leftist.
The so-called spoils system AKA "patronage" is constitutional while the basically totalitarian federal gov't with its massive unaccountable Regulatory State AKA Administrative State is patently unconstitutional.
The Constitution is there to both protect the American people from invasion from enemy nations AND enforce individual freedom from gov't tyranny.
The only ones who don't like the spoils system are gov't workers. The rest of us don't have a problem with it. What we DO have a problem with is this the massive 80%+, $3+ trillion unconstitutional portion of the feds much of which is this unconstitutional Administrative State.
NUKE THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE STATE!!!
“We’ve wondered for many years what the revolution would look like when it came home. We got a glimpse of this last week, when iPhone cameras recorded thousands of State Department employees carrying their belongings out in bankers’ boxes out the front doors of the palace that had long been their home. Live by administrative edicts; die by them. “
Supreme Court 9, Administrative State 0
On April 14, 2023, the Supreme Court struck a blow supporting our Constitution and individual liberties. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, our citizens began losing many freedoms through administrative edicts. Appeals of regulations had to be submitted to courts within the agency which has already found the person guilty. Such power harks back to discretions of English kings, unrestrained by Parliament, found in such places as King’s Council and the Star Chamber.
The Supreme Court acted to reassert the jurisdiction of district and circuit courts and the legislature as established by the Constitution. All power was to reside there, so Americans could avoid the sad experience of English citizens. Justice Kagan delivered the unanimous opinion of the court saying, “One respondent attacks as well the combination of prosecutorial and adjudicatory functions in a single agency….They maintain in essence that the agencies as currently structured, are unconstitutional in much of their work”.
You and I could relate too many examples of frustrating experiences facing government bureaucrats. Their sufferings cause me to reflect on a passage where Fredrick Douglass describes overseer duties. I only substituted for the words slave, overseer, and master.
“No matter how innocent a citizen might be it availed him nothing when accused by the bureaucrat of any violation of a regulation. To be accused was to be convicted and to be convicted was to be punished….To escape punishment one was to escape accusation….few citizens had the fortune to do either under the overseership of the agency.”
Supreme Court 9, Administrative State 0
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4145682/posts
The History and Danger of Administrative Law
https://constitutionclub.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/the-history-and-danger-of-administrative-law/
Not if we also return to the limited enumeration of powers granted to Congress by the Constitution.
I paid for my own kids college educations. No loans, grants, or FAFSA. No new cars. No vacations. No spring break trips. No dining out. Fix what breaks. Repurpose what can't be fixed.
National Borders, Interstate Commerce, a National Defense, and a Treasury.
That's it folks. That's all the constitution demands of a federal government.
Abolish ATF
Every state already regulates and polices alcohol.
Every state already regulates and polices firearms.
Every state already regulates and polices Tobacco.
The ATF is redundant and unnecessary.
Merge some ATF employees into the many other Federal law enforcement agencies. Merge some ATF employees into the state police forces. Merge some into the private sector.
Go down the list of the thousands of Federal agencies that exist. Some have a reason to exist. Many do not. Some are focused on an 18th century issue, or 19th century problem that no longer exists. Many are redundant of both other Federal agencies and of State agencies. Eliminate the redundancy.
THIS is the true deep state, and I am extremely glad to see Trump take it on the way he has.
Eh, whatever concern you have about corruption can already exist just fine within the literally thousands of appointments the President already gets. Those are the true "spoils".
The real problem are psuedo-independent agencies and technocrats below the level of political appointees but with significant power, who resist the directions of the President and political appointees to pursue their own agenda. Huge problem in the State Department and elsewhere. Fauci was one of those.
That needs to end. It was okay to eliminate the so-called spoils system when the role of the government was so limited that none of those career civil servants had power anyway. But in modern times, nobody who has power should be beyond the power of the people or their elected representatives. That entire system see
People are seeing it, they get the danger!
Good.
We have a mixed system — some political appointees are in charge, civil service employees are below them. Most countries do.
It would be difficult to return to a pure version of the “spoils system.” That’s not going to happen. There’s always going to be a need for specialists, or at least people who understand the existing procedures.
Was it really the case that presidents appointed the best people or had an incentive to do so? Too often they appointed cronies or party men. When we talk about “market forces” in presidential decisions and appointments, understand that the party machine is more of an influence than the voter-consumer-taxpayer-citizen.
So your solution is?
Bob Wills is still the king wrote: “A return to the “spoils system” of government employment will undermine our institutions and introduce far more corruption than our nation has seen in the last 100 years.”
Correct. Tales of coerced political contributions. 100% turnover of staffing following an election.
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