Chapter 9 – The
Executive Branch and the Federal Bureaucracy
Compiled by Drake and
Underhill
- Issues
- Find
roots and development of exec branch and federal bureaucracy
- Modern
Bureaucracy
- Policy
Making
- Agency
accountability
- Agency
continuity, change, and use of technology
The Roots and
Development of the Executive Branch and the Federal Bureaucracy (317)
- Bureaucracy – complex
hierarchical departments, agencies, commissions, and their staffs that
help CEO
- Federal
judiciary usually defers to specialized bureaucratic decision makers
- Characteristics
of Bureaucracies (by German sociologist Weber)
- A
chain of command in which authority flows from top to bottom
- Work
is divided among specialized workers to increase productivity
- Clear
lines of authorities among workers and superiors
- Goal
orientation that decides structure, authority, and rules
- Impersonality;
all employees treated fairly and clients served equally
- Productivity;
all work evaluated by rules
- Employees
- Exec
branch has 1.78 million civilians
- DoD
has 667,750 more civilians and 2.3 million military
- Quasi-gov
Post Office has 860k employees (2nd only to wal-mart)
Civil War and
Aftermath (318)
- Created
need for new agencies
- Pension
Office established for 127,000 veterans
- Patronage – jobs, grants, or
other special favors given as rewards to friends and political allies for
their support
From Spoils
to Merit (318)
- Spoils System – firing of
office-holders of a defeated party and replacement with loyalists of the
newly elected party
- Started
by
- High-point
at
- By
- As
a result of
- Made
federal employees hired on basis of open, competitive exams
- Created
Civil Service Commission – 3-man council lasting until 1978
- Civil Service System – system by which
appointments to federal bureaucracy are made
- Pendleton
Act covered 10% of positions
- Expanded
with legislation and executive orders to 90%
- Merit System – classifies civil
service jobs into levels; appointments made on basis of performance
National
Efforts to Regulate the Economy (320)
- Interstate
Commerce Committee created by Congress in 1887 to combat unfair business
practices
- Included
price fixing, exorbitant railroad rates, etc; marked a shift from service
to regulation
- Independent Regulatory
Commission
– agency created by Congress; concerned w/ specific aspect of the economy
- Independent
of Pres authority
- Appointed
by Pres but can only be removed if they break their oath of office
- Gave
gov vast power over individual and property rights
- T.
Roosevelt strengthens government regulation in economics; asks Congress to
create Dept of Commerce and Labor
- Specific
subdivisions created for specific issues (Women’s Bureau, 1920 under Dept
Labor)
- FTC
created in 1914 to protect small businesses and against unfair competition
- 16th
Amendment – gave Congress the authority to implement an income tax
What Should
Government Do? (321)
- Laissez-faire (French) – gov
hands-off policy towards business
The New Deal
and Bigger Government (322)
- F.
- Americans
now believed gov should oversee business (formerly had been more
laissez-faire)
- Congress
approved all regulations proposed by
- National
Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) – attempt to regulate industry
- Agricultural
Adjustment Act (AAA) –support farm prices and regulate production to
ensure competitive prices
- Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) – insure bank deposits
- Federal
Securities act – gave FTC auth to regulate the issuance, buying, and
selling of stocks and bonds
- Supreme
Court embraced laissez-faire and overruled many important aspects of new
legislation
- Court-Packing
Plan - FDR proposed to increase the size of the Court but there was a
public outcry and SupCrt changed positions on a number of issues
World War II
and Its Aftermath (322)
- Taxes
increased and so did the federal government
- Tax
rates never fell to prewar levels again
- Extra
money after the war allowed US to provide services to returning Gis
- Civil
Rights Movement and War on Poverty (Johnson) led to expansion of
government
- Equal
Employment
The Modern
Bureaucracy (323)
- Differences
between businesses and government
- Gov
exists for the public good, not to make money
- Businesses
are driven by profit
- Gov
leaders driven by reelection
- Business
gets money from customers, gov from taxpayers
- Reforming
to make gov more efficient and business-like and less costly
- Public
employee risks and rewards very different from businesses (pub emp see
incentive in not making mistakes)
Who Are Bureaucrats? (323) – career gov employees;
Cabinet-level dept and agencies (1.8M workers not inc. military or
- Paid
on the General Schedule (GS) – advance in GS grade and salary as their
career progresses
- Most
selected by Merit tests and criteria
- Lower
level positions done by testing (written)
- Mid
to upper level done by submitting a resume
- 10%
of the fed workforce not covered by the civil service system
1.
Appointive
policy-making positions (600 people) – inc. Cabinet secretaries; appoint top of
bureaucratic auth
2.
Independent
regulatory commissioners (up to 100)
3.
Low-level
nonpolicy patronage positions – sec asst to policy makers
- Characterized
as “paper pushers” but fedgov has over 15k job skills, avg age 46.3, and
term of service avg 17.1 years
- Include
forest rangers, FBI agents, foreign service officers, computer
programmers, security guards, …
- By
2005, over two-thirds of those in Senior Executive Service and many
mid-level managers will be able to retire
- Pres
Management Intern (PMI) Program – began 20 years ago to hire and train future
managers
- Good
People, Good Gov Act proposed to improve training and recruiting
- 325k
bureaucrats work in DC; the rest in regional, state, and local offices
- Decentralized
bureaucracy facilitates public accessibility
- Growth
of bureaucracy mostly at state and local levels
Formal
Organization (326)
- 1,149+
civilian agencies
- Types
of Agencies
1.
Cabinet
departments
2.
Gov
corporations
3.
Independent
executive agencies
4.
Independent
regulatory commissions
Cabinet
Departments (328)
- 15
Cabinet departments – major
admin units with responsibility for area of gov ops; work on a permanent
natl interest
- 60%
of federal workforce
- Cabinet
composed of VP, heads of depts, and head of EPA, OMB, Office of Natl Drug
Control Policy, US Trade Rep, and Pres Chief of Staff
- Cabinet
sec tied to Pres, those affected by their dept, and Congress (who
appropriates money to them)
- Deputies
and undersecretaries help relive admin burden from Sec
- Help
with planning, budget, personnel, legal services, pub relations
- Asst.
Sec head major programs w/in dept
- Dept
subdivided into bureaus, divisions, sections, etc – real work done at
these levels
- Most
divisions along functional lines; also for geography, work processes, or
clientele
- Clientele Agencies – promote interests
of a specific group in US (like Dept of Education, Agri, Energy, Labor,
Vet Affairs, Interior, and Bureau of Indian Affairs)
Government
Corporations (328)
– businesses est. by Congress that perform functions that could be provided by
private business
- Ex:
Post Office, Amtrak, FDIC
- Charge
for their services
- Exist
to keep price at a certain level (post office) or where financial
incentives are small (provide electricity to low income area, etc)
Independent Executive Agencies (330) – governmental
units that closely resemble a Cabinet department but have a narrower area of
responsibility (such as the CIA) and are not part if any Cabinet department
- Perform service rather
than regulatory functions
- Heads appointed by
president, may serve like Cabinet secretaries
- NASA (could have been
DoD), EPA (head is a member of Cabinet, many want it to have Cabinet-level
status)
- Independent regulatory
commission
- Agencies created by
Congress to exist outside of major dept.’s to regulate a specific economic
activity or interest
- Agencies can provide
continuity of policy with respect to econ. issues (Congress, courts cannot)
- Natl Labor Relations
Board, Federal Reserve Board, Fed Comm Commission, Security Exchange
Commission (SEC)
- First one created in
1887
- Those created before
1960s
- Oversee certain
industries (SEC, Fed. Res. Board)
- Were created to be
(relatively) free from immediate (partisan) political pressure
- Headed by a board
composed of 5 or 7 members who are selected by the pres and confirmed by
the Senate for fixed staggered times (so they are bipartisan); not easily
removed by the pres
- In 1935
- Those created since
the 1960s
- More concerned with
how the business sector related to public health and safety
(Occupational Health and Safety Administration)
- Lack autonomy and
freed from political pressures
- Generally headed by
a single administrator who can be removed by the president
- Equal Employment
- Susceptible to
political pressure, political wishes of pres who appoints them
Politics and Government
Workers (331)
- Hatch Act – Law enacted in 1939 to prohibit
civil servants from taking activist roles in partisan campaigns. This act prohibits federal employees
from making political contribution, working for a particular party, or
campaigning for a particular candidate
- So fed. employees do
not play major rolls in implementing public policy or in electing members
of Congress and the pres
- Prohibit fed.
Employees from becoming directly involved in working for political
candidates
- Federal Employees Political Activist Act – 1993 liberalization
of the Hatch Act. Federal employees
are now allowed to run for office in nonpartisan elections and to
contribute money to campaigns in partisan elections.
o
*and
to campaign for or against candidates in partisan elections
o
Still
prohibiting from engaging in political activity while on duty, soliciting
contributions from the general public, or running for office in partisan
elections
Policy Making (332)
- Congress sets general
guidance for agency action, allowing the agency to work out the details
- Implementation – the process by
which a law or policy is put into operation by the bureaucracy
Iron Triangles and Issue
Networks (332)
- Iron Triangles – the relatively
stable relationships and patterns of interaction that occur among an
agency, interest groups, and congressional committees or subcommittees
- “iron” because
virtually impenetrable to outsiders and largely autonomous
- i.e. Amer. Assoc. of
Retired Persons, Social Sec. Admin., House Subcommittee on Aging; Dept.
of Veterans Affairs, House Com. on Veterans Affairs, Amer. Legion and
Veterans of Foreign Wars
- Policy decisions
often foster interests of a clientele group, have little to do
w/advancement of natl policy goals
- Decentralize policy
making and make policy making difficult to control
- Iron triangles no
longer dominate most political processes
- Problems are
increasing complex
- Issues cut across
several policy areas
- There has been a
phenomenal increase in the number of
- Issue Networks – the loose and
informal relationships that exist among a large number of actors who work
in broad policy arenas
- Made of agency
officials, members of Congress (and com. staffers), and interest group
lobbyists, and often lawyers, consultants, academics, public relation
specialists, and courts (constantly changing)
- Reflect complexity of
problems and issues that lawmakers and policy makers try to solve
- Interagency Councils – working groups created
to facilitate coordination of policy making and implementation across a
host of governmental agencies.
- i.e. U.S. Interagency
Council on the Homeless, Interagency Council on Community Living
- Policy making and
implementation often take place on formal and informal levels
Administrative Discretion
(336) – ability of bureaucrats to
make choices concerning the best way to implement congress intentions
Rule making (336) – a
quasi-legislative administrative process that has the characteristics of a
legislative act
- Regulations – rules that govern the operation of a
particular government program that have the force of law
- Chart pg 336 How a
Regulation is made (see bottom of notes)
- 1946 Administrative
Procedures Act established rule-making procedures; process requires:
- Public notice of
time, place, and nature of the rule-making proceedings to provided in Federal Register
- Interested parties
be given the opportunity to submit written arguments and facts relevant
to the rule
- The statutory
purpose and basis of the rule be stated
- Hearing sometimes
required
Administrative adjudication (337) – a quasi-judicial process
in which a bureaucratic agency settles disputes between two parties in a manner
similar to the way courts resolve disputes
- Used to force
compliance on businesses or persons violating a rule or regulation
- Fed. Trade Commission
(FTC) findings and EEOC judges’ findings are reviewable in federal courts
Making Agencies Accountable
(337) – to
public interest, president, Congress, federal judiciary?
Executive Control (338)
- Exercising control
over bureaucracy is difficult
- Appointments help
their influence over the bureaucracy
- Can reorganize the
bureaucracy w/Congressional approval
- Can change budget,
ignore legislative initiative originating w/in the bureaucracy (?)
- Executive Orders – Rules or regulations
issued by the president that have the effect of law. All executive orders must be published
in the Federal Register.
Congressional Control (338)
- Can expand or contract
bureaucratic discretion and confirm or reject presidential appointments
- Two Forms of oversight
- Police Patrol –
proactive, allows Congress to set its own agenda for programs or agencies
to review
- Fire Alarm Oversight –
reactive, a congressional response to a complains issued by a constituent
or politically significant actor
- Simple inquiries to
full blown hearings (i.e. w/IRS)
- Other oversight
- Effective
communication between house staffers and agency personnel, various
- Program evaluations
- Constitutional Powers
- Investigatory
- Power of purse
(House Appropriations Com., Com.’s set limits, annual authorizations)
- General Accounting
Office (GAO), Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
- Congressional Review
Judicial Control (342)
- Less direct than
Congress, pres
- Can directly issue
injunction or orders to an exec. agency even before a rule is promulgated
- Agencies must give all
affected individuals due process rights according to the Constitution
- Litigation/threat of
lit. exerts strong influence on bureaucrats
- Degree to which
agencies appear to respond to Supreme Court decisions is based on the
“specificity of Supreme Court Opinions, agency policy preferences, agency
age, and amicus curiae support”
- Specialized courts
alter relationship of agencies with federal courts
- Causes less judicial
deference to agency rulings
P.336
