Read Online The President's Call: Executive Leadership From FDR to George Bush by Judith E. Michaels - Free Book Online
Authors: Judith E. Michaels
Tags: test
Ads: Link
cabinet officials who shared Reagan's conservative ideology were the ones most likely to be pressured from office, with Reagan taking some heat for their activities (e.g., James Watt and Anne Burford Gorsuch) (ibid., 131). With subcabinet officials carrying out his orders, however, Reagan and his cabinet lieutenants were able to stay a step away from the action and therefore be insulated from blame. Nothing stuck to him; thus was born, in Representative Patricia Schroeder's memorable phrase, "The Teflon President."
Page 35
Ronald Reagan and the Career Bureaucracy
Reaching below the PAS positions, Reagan also exerted considerable control over the SES noncareer positions. By law, the president is allowed to fill up to 10 percent of all permanent Senior Executive Service positions with noncareer appointees. In any one agency, the noncareer SES can reach 25 percent as long as the overall governmentwide balance of 10 percent holds. Another 5 percent can be noncareer in transition times. However, if significant numbers of career positions are left unfilled (often an appointee's call) and the allocated noncareer positions are filled, the noncareer positions can easily and legally exceed 10 percent of the total SES workforce. This is exactly what happened in the Reagan administration. A passive appointment, or more accurately, nonappointment strategy was utilized. In this variant of the administrative strategy, career positions were left vacant while noncareer positions were aggressively filled.
Additionally, taking his cue from Jimmy Carter, Reagan interpreted the 10 percent limit on noncareer SES appointments to apply to allocated rather than filled positions. Since at any given time, there are generally more than one thousand unfilled positions, that gives the administration one hundred noncareer appointments in the bureaucracy it would not have otherwise. The result was that by September 1983, political appointees constituted over 10 percent of the government's executive population for the first time (Salamon and Abramson 1984, 46).
Table 2.1. Growth in Political Appointments in the Reagan-Bush Era
Selected Agencies
1981
1991
Commerce
146
204
Education
85
137
Agriculture
128
180
Justice
71
122
Treasury
48
97
Energy
99
145
State
88
130
Defense
118
156
General Services Administration
20
51
Labor
74
105
Environmental Protection
30
51
Health and Human Services
139
156
Interior
77
92
Total governmentwide
2,022
2,436
Source: Washington Post, June 1, 1993.
Page 36
The Reagan-Bush era carried on and burnished Nixon's politicization of the bureaucracy 6 as appointees flooded into targeted agencies in what Senator John Glenn called "creeping politicization." From 1981 to 1991 overall political appointments grew by more than 20 percent (see table 2. 1).
The administrative presidency as practiced by Reagan was more subtle than that of Nixon. Using a legislative strategy for cover, battles in the Congress over budget and taxes effectively served as a diversion from the real battle that was taking place in the bureaucracy. There, "an ideologically oriented team of subcabinet officials moved into place and began implementing the Reagan agenda by administrative means, particularly in the regulatory arena" (ibid., 47).
While the Reagan administration was increasing the number of political appointees, it was also enacting severe reductions-in-force in domestic agencies targeted for major alterations in program priorities. And, not coincidentally, the two phenomena occurred at the same agencies and at the same time the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was increasing political leverage over careerists, giving PASs and noncareer SESs more power to relocate careerists or downgrade their responsibilities (Goldenberg 1985, 396). "Under Reagan, most key administrative positions [were] staffed on the basis of partisan and personal loyalties, and career professionals [were] largely excluded from many leadership networks and responsibilities"
Page 35
Ronald Reagan and the Career Bureaucracy
Reaching below the PAS positions, Reagan also exerted considerable control over the SES noncareer positions. By law, the president is allowed to fill up to 10 percent of all permanent Senior Executive Service positions with noncareer appointees. In any one agency, the noncareer SES can reach 25 percent as long as the overall governmentwide balance of 10 percent holds. Another 5 percent can be noncareer in transition times. However, if significant numbers of career positions are left unfilled (often an appointee's call) and the allocated noncareer positions are filled, the noncareer positions can easily and legally exceed 10 percent of the total SES workforce. This is exactly what happened in the Reagan administration. A passive appointment, or more accurately, nonappointment strategy was utilized. In this variant of the administrative strategy, career positions were left vacant while noncareer positions were aggressively filled.
Additionally, taking his cue from Jimmy Carter, Reagan interpreted the 10 percent limit on noncareer SES appointments to apply to allocated rather than filled positions. Since at any given time, there are generally more than one thousand unfilled positions, that gives the administration one hundred noncareer appointments in the bureaucracy it would not have otherwise. The result was that by September 1983, political appointees constituted over 10 percent of the government's executive population for the first time (Salamon and Abramson 1984, 46).
Table 2.1. Growth in Political Appointments in the Reagan-Bush Era
Selected Agencies
1981
1991
Commerce
146
204
Education
85
137
Agriculture
128
180
Justice
71
122
Treasury
48
97
Energy
99
145
State
88
130
Defense
118
156
General Services Administration
20
51
Labor
74
105
Environmental Protection
30
51
Health and Human Services
139
156
Interior
77
92
Total governmentwide
2,022
2,436
Source: Washington Post, June 1, 1993.
Page 36
The Reagan-Bush era carried on and burnished Nixon's politicization of the bureaucracy 6 as appointees flooded into targeted agencies in what Senator John Glenn called "creeping politicization." From 1981 to 1991 overall political appointments grew by more than 20 percent (see table 2. 1).
The administrative presidency as practiced by Reagan was more subtle than that of Nixon. Using a legislative strategy for cover, battles in the Congress over budget and taxes effectively served as a diversion from the real battle that was taking place in the bureaucracy. There, "an ideologically oriented team of subcabinet officials moved into place and began implementing the Reagan agenda by administrative means, particularly in the regulatory arena" (ibid., 47).
While the Reagan administration was increasing the number of political appointees, it was also enacting severe reductions-in-force in domestic agencies targeted for major alterations in program priorities. And, not coincidentally, the two phenomena occurred at the same agencies and at the same time the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was increasing political leverage over careerists, giving PASs and noncareer SESs more power to relocate careerists or downgrade their responsibilities (Goldenberg 1985, 396). "Under Reagan, most key administrative positions [were] staffed on the basis of partisan and personal loyalties, and career professionals [were] largely excluded from many leadership networks and responsibilities"
Similar Books
