The human face of the bureaucracy 477Why do these requirements exist? Recall that the aim of civil service regulations
was to separate politics from policy. The mechanism for achieving this goal was a
set of rules and requirements that made it hard for elected officials to control the
hiring and firing of government employees to further their own political goals. In
effect, even though civil service regulations have obvious drawbacks, they also
provide this less apparent but very important benefit. For example, without civil
service protections, members of Congress might pressure employees in the Office
of Personnel Management to increase pensions for retiring federal workers in the
representatives’ constituencies.
Although loyalty to the president is a widely accepted criterion for hiring agency
heads and other presidential appointees, professionals with permanent civil service
positions are supposed to be hired on the basis of their qualifications, not their political
beliefs. In fact, it is illegal to bring politics into these hiring decisions. However, there
is no doubt that all presidential administrations worry about the political loyalties of
midlevel bureaucrats because of the problem of control, as we discussed earlier.Limits on Political Activity
Legislation places limits on the political activities that federal employees can
undertake. The Hatch Act, enacted in 1939 and amended in 1940, prohibited federal
employees from engaging in organized political activities.^46 Under the act, employees
could vote and contribute to candidates but could not work for candidates or for
political parties. These restrictions were modified in the 1993 Federal Employees
Political Activities Act, which allows federal employees to participate in a wider range
of political activities, including fund-raising and serving as an officer of a political
party. Senior members of the president’s White House staff and political appointees
are exempt from most of these restrictions, although they cannot use government
resources for political activities.
While the Hatch Act is often invoked when government employees express
controversial views, it technically restricts only activities that directly help a particular
political candidate, such as a public endorsement at a mass rally. For example, during
a television interview in late 2017, Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to President
Trump, endorsed the Republican Senate candidate in an Alabama special election. The
Office of the Special Counsel, a Justice Department agency that enforces the Hatch Act,
later found that Conway’s endorsement violated the Hatch Act. However, Conway was
not penalized. The Hatch Act makes life especially difficult for presidential appointees
whose job duties, such as helping the president they work for get reelected, often mix
government service with politics. In order to comply with Hatch Act restrictions,
these officials need to carry separate cell phones to make calls related to their political
activities and maintain separate e-mail accounts—usually provided by the party or
campaign committee—for their political communications.Political Appointees and the Senior Executive Service
Not every federal employee is a member of the civil service. Over 7,000 senior
positions in the executive branch—such as the leaders of executive departments and
independent agencies like NASA, as well as members of the EOP—are not subject to
civil service regulations. The president appoints individuals to these positions, and, inFederal employees must be careful
that their comments to the media
comply with Hatch Act restrictions.
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to
President Trump, violated the Hatch
Act when she advocated for and
against candidates in the Alabama
Senate special election on CNN and
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