THE HUMAN FACE OF THE BUREAUCRACY| 341federal workforce is simply not to replace employees who decide to leave govern-
ment service, or to hire contractors, who lack civil service protections and can be
terminated at will.
Civil service regulations are extraordinarily cumbersome.^51 The hiring criteria
remove a manager’s discretion to hire someone who would do an excellent job but
lacks the education or work experience that the regulations specify as necessary
for the position. The fi ring requirements make it diffi cult to remove poor perform-
ers. The salary and promotion restrictions create problems with rewarding excel-
lent performance or promoting the best employees rather than those with the most
seniority.
Why do civil service requirements exist? Recall that the aim of these regula-
tions was to separate politics from policy. The mechanism for achieving this goal
was a set of rules that made it hard for elected offi cials to control the hiring and
fi ring of government employees to further their own political goals. In eff ect,
even though civil service regulations have drawbacks, they also provide this very
important benefi t. Although loyalty to the president is a widely accepted criterion
for hiring agency heads and other presidential appointees, professionals with per-
manent civil service positions are supposed to be hired on the basis of their quali-
fi cations, not their political beliefs.
POLITICAL APPOINTEES AND THE SENIOR
EXECUTIVE SERVICE
Not every federal employee is a member of the civil service. The president appoints
over 7,000 individuals to senior positions in the executive branch who are not sub-
ject to civil service regulations, such as the leaders of executive departments and
independent agencies, as well as members of the Executive Offi ce of the President.
(In some cases, the Senate must confi rm these nominees.)
The majority of a president’s appointees act as his eyes, ears, and hands
throughout the executive branch. They hold positions of power within govern-
ment agencies, serving as secretaries of executive departments, agency heads, or
senior deputies. Their jobs involve fi nding out what the president wants from their
agency and ordering or persuading their subordinates to implement presidential
directives.
In many agencies, people in the top positions are members of the Senior
Executive Service (SES), who are also exempt from civil service restrictions.^52
As of 2012, there were a few thousand SES members—mostly career government
employees who held relatively high-level agency positions before moving to the
SES. This change of employment status costs them their civil service protec-
tions but allows them to apply for senior leadership positions in the bureaucracy.
Some political appointees are also given SES positions, although most do not
have the experience or expertise held by career bureaucrats who typically move
to the SES.
The president’s ability to appoint bureaucrats in many diff erent agencies helps
him control the bureaucracy. By selecting people who are loyal or like-minded, he
can attempt to control the actions of lower-level bureaucrats and implement his
policy agenda. The SES also gives civil servants an incentive to do their jobs well,
as good performance in an agency position can help build a career that might allow
them to transfer to the SES.