Civil service in the United States, RIP (1883-2025)

Civil service in the U.S. may not be dead yet, but it's suffering from potentially lethal attacks.

The Pendleton Act of 1883 established the current civil service system, as a market design solution to reduce corruption in government employment, and to protect government employees from political retaliation .

From https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/pendleton-act

"The Pendleton Act provided that federal government jobs be awarded on the basis of merit and that government employees be selected through competitive exams. The act also made it unlawful to fire or demote for political reasons employees who were covered by the law. The law further forbade requiring employees to give political service or contributions. The Civil Service Commission was established to enforce this act."

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From protectdemocracy.org:

The civil service, explained , byAlex Tausanovitc, Michael Angeloni ,William Ford,Erica Newland, June 11, 2024

"For nearly 150 years, federal law has sought to ensure these employees are hired and fired based on merit and are empowered to exercise independent judgment without fear of political retaliation. These legal protections help the government to serve the public as a whole, rather than a president’s personal or political agenda. 

...

"For most of the 1800s, the federal government largely operated under the “spoils system,” wherein new presidents had a free hand to remove and replace federal employees — and they did so “wholesale,” generally to reward political allies. At the time, customs houses and the postal office were among the most important government services, and both were rife with corruption.

The spoils system became synonymous with graft and degraded critical government services.

"Beginning with the enactment of the Pendleton Act in 1883, which instituted a competitive hiring process and protected workers from partisan-based removal, the U.S. government slowly developed a professionalized, public-oriented civil service. The Pendleton Act was followed by a series of statutes and regulations that culminated in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which largely created our current “merit system.” 

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And now (from the NYT):

Education Officials Placed on Leave in Trump’s Sprawling Effort to Curb D.E.I.  By Erica L. Green and Zach Montague, Feb. 1, 2025