The President's Call: Executive Leadership From FDR to George Bush (24 page)

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Authors: Judith E. Michaels

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Congress and the other agencies to promote presidential policy, than it has been seen as a source of independent, neutral budget counsel.
Likewise, another major central agency, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), also experienced increased politicization during the Reagan era. OPM oversees the administration of the civil service system and the SES. According to one critic, it easily fell victim to the reforms of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA), which served to "facilitate presidential political domination of the federal government's personnel management" (ibid., 15).
The OPM director (Donald Devine) was selected on ideological criteria; his personal aides were selected on similar grounds, most initially from associates in Maryland politics. Other key OPM positions, starting with the general counsel and executive personnel management, have been staffed largely on the basis of political considerations, with little evidence of related experience, specialized expertise, or professional interests related to the position filled. . . . [An intensive effort to place political appointees at OPM] means that remaining senior career personnel in OPM's headquarters have felt largely excluded from significant involvement in matters related to policy. By December 1982, only two senior career OPM managers remained in headquarters functions previously performed by them. In short, CSRA has been highly successful in facilitating partisan presidential control of personnel: Ideological politics and politicians now clearly control OPM and effectively dominate the federal government's personnel system. (Ibid., 15-16)
Regardless of perspective on the benefits or deficits of the CSRA, there is no denying the political impact it had on the personnel function. While the number of political appointees in OPM increased from twelve to thirty-four in Reagan's first term, its overall workforce was reduced by nearly 20 percent (followed later by deeper cuts); thus further damaging morale, credibility, and operations (Cigler 1990, 644).
According to many, participation in political campaigns appeared to be the primary qualification of many appointees at OPM in the first Reagan term. In fact, one appointee (OPM's Devine) left his post to manage a Maryland Republican senatorial campaign and then returned to his old position, which had been held for him, in clear violation of the spirit of the Hatch Act, which forbade most partisan political activity by federal employees (Mosher 1985, 409).
Devine eventually placed more than forty political appointees in OPM (Newland 1983, 15). In addition to increasing their number at the
 
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headquarters, he positioned a political "regional watchdog" in each regional office to keep an eye on the career regional director. Considered by many to be "an abusive interlude" in OPM's evolving tradition, congressional hostility to his excesses derailed his nomination to a second term. Since Devine's four-year term had already expired before his second was confirmed by the Senate, he tried to run the agency through his deputy, the acting director, during his confirmation for a second term. In the process he sealed his own fate: Reagan was forced to withdraw his name. He nominated the deputy instead. However, Devine's antics had so enraged the Senate that she, too, had to be withdrawn from consideration as OPM chief.
The placement of partisan appointees with a control agenda in so many key places in OPM's structure meant that little in the way of staff development was done until late in the Reagan era. According to Mosher, "The OPM has done little or nothing to improve development and training programs, to improve labor-management relations, to improve moralenow probably at its lowest point since the era of Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950sor to encourage personnel research" (Mosher 1985, 409).
Things took a turn for the better for OPM with the nomination of Constance Horner as chief in 1986. Having served in political positions at OMB and ACTION prior to her elevation to OPM head, she moved quickly to depoliticize the agency and the personnel function. Horner's reorganization replaced the political appointees with careerists in nearly all the line positions, as well as in the regional offices, and brought in more experienced line managers to "leaven the balance" with the appointees. This included ten to fifteen SESs from other agencies, who, having been on the receiving end of OPM actions, had a better sense of what the agencies could do and how OPM could be useful to them. Stressing the importance of good political-career relations, Horner decreased the number of political SESs from forty to eight; Schedule C appointments also dropped significantly.
Additionally, staff development, training, and personnel planning took on major importance in the revitalized OPM under the succeeding director, Bush appointee Constance Berry Newman. Governmentwide, new personnel policy initiatives and regulations, orientation for new employees, training needs assessments, and executive development became priorities for the agency.
Meanwhile, the career camp of the bureaucracy had undergone major changes of its own, largely along lines of politicization. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 was the primary vehicle for this transformation. The
 
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CSRA grew out of a combination of several factors, in part in reaction to Nixon's misuse of the civil service system. "The Act of 1978 was born with a split personality. On the one hand, it was the culmination of several generations of effort by good government types to produce a highlevel role for senior civil servants. On the other hand, the Act was responding to a more recent surge of anti-Washington, governmentis-the-problem sentiment."
4
In any case, the CSRA was political in its original intent. Replacing the old Civil Service Commission, it separated the personnel function into two parts, political and nonpolitical (career), both designed to be responsive to the president. OPM deals with career positions within the civil service merit system; the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Federal Labor Relations Board review and evaluate personnel matters to safeguard against excessive politicization or presidential abuse.
The Senior Executive Service was designed specifically to be both political and responsive to the president. Career executives entering the SES lost the protections of the merit system but gained greater benefits and flexibility. The SES is discussed at some length in chapter 6, but at this point suffice it to say that by the summer of 1992, after a tumultuous infancy, the SES was healthier and in its adolescence enjoyed a higher morale than ever in its previous eleven years of existence, thanks to a long-delayed pay raise and the attitude of President Bush toward the public service. He had made a point of making his first public address as president to the SES and was much more positive and cooperative with it than either Carter or Reagan had been. His OPM chief, Newman, maintained Horner's stance of depoliticization and positive political-career relations. The SES under Bush was considered politically responsive but not overly politicized. Successive OPM chiefs learned from the mistakes of the first Reagan administration: there has not been a pattern of punitive action in the SES since Reagan's second administration.
Until late in his reelection campaign, Bush, the lifelong public servant, was considered a friend of public service. Then, with his standing in the polls slipping, he turned to the well-worn path of bureaucrat bashing and suggested a 5 percent salary cut for the SES. In a very short time he destroyed most of the goodwill and credibility he had so carefully established with the SES. He would not regain it before he left office. Had he been reelected, Bush would have faced a surly and resentful career executive workforce. As one well-placed SES careerist put it,
Bush did long-term damage because the history is so bad regarding executive pay. He took us back to the previous time when salary was so low for so long; people had people working under them who made the same
 
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pay they did. He was turning things backward. These people are angry and they have long memories. They won't forget. While there won't be any sabotage, they will be very wary if there's a second Bush administration.
Conclusion
Centralization, with varying degrees of intention, has been the dominant theme of the past few decades. It is a risky presidential strategy because when lightning strikes, as in the Iran-Contra scandal, the perpetrators are seen to be acting in the interests of the White House. Managed carefully and with moderation, centralization can yield positive results for agenda-oriented presidents. However, that same agenda, if followed too enthusiastically, can lead to overcentralization, abuse of power, loss of credibility, and backlash.
Depoliticization, or PAS movement away from presidential policy, carries risks for any chief of state intent on reshaping the bureaucracy quickly. However, if presidents turn to politicization as a solution they create other problems for themselves. While they may profitably employ politicization in the short run, situations such as those at OMB and OPM lend credence to arguments that politicization "will prove unsatisfying and unworkable in the long run because the complexity of the administrative process requires that the roles of career and political appointees be interwovena partnership must exist between the two cadres to assure sensible policy formulation and effective policy implementation" (Levine 1986, 201).
It is also clear from the above discussion how vulnerable government agencies are to politicization. Clearly, there is nothing save good sense to stop future presidents from repoliticizing OPM again. Recent presidents have shown no inclination to depoliticize OMB, despite its obvious lack of credibility. President Bill Clinton, in his State of the Union economic address, in an off-the-cuff remark, inadvertently underscored the political nature of OMB's numbers: he used the budget projections of the Congressional Budget Office, rather than those of Bush's leftover OMB, to plan his budget. As he pointedly told the chuckling Congress, "Don't laugh, these are your numbers."
Decentralization works to the president's advantage when lightning strikes, as it did in the
Challenger
disaster, when the Bush White House was able to claim innocence and be somewhat believed. With competent, honest, and loyal appointees in charge of the bureaus, decentralization seems the safest course for any president intent on a second term and a securely honorable place in history.

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