Friday, September 30, 2005
BN: Bush Tops Clinton in Rewarding Allies With Government Posts
Bush Tops Clinton in Rewarding Allies With Government Posts
2005-09-30 00:03 (New York)
By Michael Forsythe
Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- The ranks of political appointees in
the U.S. government have surged under President George W. Bush
after falling during the Clinton administration, sparking concern
-- especially since Hurricane Katrina -- that career professionals
are being crowded out of key jobs.
Federal jobs available to political appointees rose 15
percent to 4,496 last year from 2000, according to the 2004
edition of the ``Plum Book,'' which is published by Congress after
each presidential election to list positions up for grabs. Those
jobs declined 5 percent during President Bill Clinton's second
term, a comparison of the 2000 and 1996 Plum Books shows.
As the Bush administration draws increased scrutiny over the
credentials of top-level employees after the hurricane, a review
of the record shows the issue goes far beyond the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, which has borne the brunt of
criticism for its fumbling response to the disaster.
``The larger that number becomes, the more likely you're
going to have someone come up with a problem,'' said Terry
Sullivan, a political science professor at the University of North
Carolina in Chapel Hill, who studies how the White House works.
``It is quite surprising that Bush turned out to be more
politicizing than Clinton,'' Sullivan said. ``The Bush campaign
was built around how they were the governors, not the
politicians.''
Under Bush, political appointees have penetrated deeper into
agencies, creating more levels of bureaucracy. The biggest growth
has been in jobs that don't require Senate confirmation, which
rose by almost one-quarter between 2000 and 2004.
Focus on FEMA
Michael Brown, 50, a former commissioner of an Arabian horse
association, stepped down this month as director of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency under pressure from lawmakers who
criticized his lack of emergency-management credentials.
Under Bush, the job of heading FEMA's recovery division went
to a former lobbyist, after previously being reserved for career
employees. The chief of staff position was given to a presidential
advance man, Patrick Rhode; his Clinton-era counterpart was a
career official with more than two decades of experience.
From the Food and Drug Administration to the Energy
Department, positions for career officials at top levels have been
eliminated. The FDA's top lawyer until the Bush administration had
been a career official. In 2001, that job went to an appointee,
who wasn't subject to Senate confirmation. Daniel Troy, who got
the job, once represented drug and tobacco companies. He left the
FDA in 2004 and is now a partner at a Washington law firm.
`Calling the Shots'
``Normally, the chief counsel of the FDA is someone who comes
up through the ranks,'' said Representative Maurice Hinchey, a New
York Democrat, who pushed to have Troy removed. ``He has a
background of interests that are contrary to the interests he's
supposed to have as the chief counsel of the FDA. Essentially, the
pharmaceutical industry was calling the shots.''
Troy said his post was traditionally a political position
that was switched to a career job in the administration of
President George H.W. Bush.
``General counsels of major agencies are generally political
appointees, which promotes accountability,'' Troy said. ``I know
of no one responsible who has ever questioned my qualifications.''
Under Clinton, the senior policy adviser for science and
technology at the Energy Department was a career official who
reported directly to the secretary. Under Bush, the 2004 Plum Book
shows the secretary's office entirely made up of political
appointees.
Abramoff Link
The Bush administration has also come under fire for its
appointments of David Safavian as the White House's top
procurement official and Julie Myers to head the Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agency.
Safavian, 38, quit his White House post on Sept. 16 and was
arrested three days later in connection with a land deal involving
Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist under indictment who continues to be
investigated by a Justice Department task force. Safavian's
procurement experience consisted of a 20-month stint as chief of
staff of the General Services Administration, which maintains
federal property and buys supplies.
The last Clinton-era appointee to the Office of Federal
Procurement Policy, Deidre Lee, was previously top procurement
official at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and
had two decades of experience in the field.
Replacing a Veteran
Myers, 36, the niece of General Richard Myers, the retiring
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is married to the chief of
staff of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, to whom she
would report, the Washington Post reported. She would replace
acting agency head John Clark, a 25-year veteran of the field.
Myers has served as assistant commerce secretary and chief of
staff to an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department,
among other positions. From 1999 to 2001, she was a federal
prosecutor in New York. In an interview with CBS News, Chertoff
said Myers was a ``superbly qualified former prosecutor.''
The White House doesn't plan to review the way it fills jobs,
said Clay Johnson III, who oversaw presidential appointments when
Brown, who then held FEMA's No. 2 job, was named director in 2003.
``The appointments work done by this president is as fine as
has ever been done,'' said Johnson, who was Bush's roommate at
Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and is now deputy
director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. ``And
I believe that Mike Brown was properly selected to be the head of
FEMA. He had served really well as the general counsel of FEMA. He
served unbelievably well for two years as the head of FEMA.''
`Most Qualified'
Johnson, who hired Safavian, said he was the ``most qualified
person'' he interviewed for the procurement job.
U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, who heads the
Government Accountability Office, Congress's investigative arm,
said ``there needs to be more emphasis on the qualifications of
individuals that have key positions.''
A 2003 commission led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul
Volcker recommended the president cut the number of jobs available
in the Plum Book, which was first published in 1952 to help people
find ``plum'' jobs in the incoming administration of President
Dwight Eisenhower.
``Talented and experienced senior career managers find
themselves forced further and further away from the centers of
decision-making,'' the commission, a project of the Washington-
based Brookings Institution, wrote in its report.
Drilling Down
That's because the Bush administration increasingly tends to
``drill down into government,'' making ever-lower-ranking
officials political appointees, said Paul Light, a commission
adviser and professor of organizational studies at New York
University.
That layering ``slows information coming up from the bottom,
creates vacancies in the chain of command at key points in time
and, contrary to their hopes, actually weakens the president's
control of government,'' Light said.
Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a
Washington-based group that seeks to bring talented people into
government, commended Bush for working to build a government-wide
evaluation system for senior executives.
Still, Stier said, ``The political positions are infiltrating
deep into the system.'' Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior
Executives Association, a professional group that represents top
government executives, calls it ``political creep.''
The universe of federal political appointees goes beyond
Cabinet secretaries and their deputies and principal assistants.
Lower-level ``Schedule C'' and other appointed jobs pay at the
civil service scale and don't need to be confirmed by the Senate.
Their numbers grew 24 percent from 2000 to 2004 and are included
in the Plum Book, which is formally known as ``United States
Government Policy and Supporting Positions.''
``We could do twice as good a job with half as many
appointees,'' Light said.
--With reporting by Kristin Jensen in Washington. Editors:
McQuillan, Chan.
Story Illustration: To view the 2004 Plum Book, click
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/plumbook/2004/index.html
To contact the reporter on this story:
Michael Forsythe in Washington at (1)(202) 624-1940 or
mforsythe@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Ken Fireman at (1)(202) 624-1978 or kfireman1@bloomberg.net
[TAGINFO]
NI CNG
NI EXE
NI FEMA
NI WIN
NI US
NI GEN
NI GOV
NI POL
NI DCAA
NI EPA
NI DOE
#<545561.500134>#
-0- Sep/30/2005 4:03 GMT
