The Constitution vests decision making authority in the executive branch and the president. The main constitutional provision is Article II, Section 1, which states that “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Every federal executive department employee must take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” The most important effect of that oath is that each employee must recognize that the “executive power” is held by the elected president. Thus, the employee must follow the legal direction of the president. Therefore, attempts to thwart or undermine the decision-making authority vested in the elected President by unelected bureaucrats inside the government is patently unconstitutional.

In our complex, modern government, with some 2.2 million federal employees, national policy makers do not implement their decisions directly but must rely on multiple intermediate layers of administration collectively referred to as ‘the bureaucracy.’ Most models of democracy implicitly assume that the policy chosen at the top, elected level will be implemented efficiently by a non-partisan bureaucracy. In the U.S., numerous laws and personnel policies for executive branch employees codify this requirement. In reality there are myriad problems and constraints at the stage of policy implementation which can threaten the execution of Presidential policies large and small and in so doing, thwart the will of the people.

Near the end of the Trump administration, President Trump, under EO 13957, began a program reclassifying certain officials as Schedule F federal employees. This federal employment classification did not have the same protections as other federal employee classifications and would primarily affect policy-related employees – decisionmakers within the bureaucracy. The new classification would make them more like appointed constitutional officers, who have fewer protections and are more accountable to carrying out the directions of the nation’s chief executive.

Schedule F employees who are not performing well in their official duties could be removed or reassigned under the direct constitutional authority of the President. The idea was to improve their accountability to the taxpayers.

Opponents of President Trump’s directive erroneously claimed that the measure would enforce a kind of loyalty test to the president and would subject objective, well-meaning civil servants and scientists to improper interference. Without support from the new Biden-Harris administration, and after sustained lobbying efforts from special interests, the Office of Personnel Management adopted new regulations barring implementation of EO 13957 provisions and preventing career civil servants from being reclassified.

The result was to limit presidential appointees’ constitutionally provided ability to properly supervise and exercise agency authority.

Our federal government is also in need of broad-scale civil service reform. This could help to foster a government that is efficient, effective, and transparent. This creates a government that works for all Americans, not just special interests. It also ensures that our unelected bureaucrats, who will remain a staple in government, are transparent in their work.

Civil service reform has been a prominent need in America for many, many years. Unfortunately, it is often only major events like the Watergate scandal that tend to spur change in Washington, rather than the adherence to their fiduciary duties of our officials, both elected and unelected. However, we intend to sound the alarm and uncover the activities that highlight the need for civil service reform in our nation.