If elected to serve a second term, Donald Trump says he supports a plan that would give him the authority to fire as many as 50,000 civil servants and replace them with members of his political party loyal to him. Under this plan, if he eventually deemed those new employees disloyal, he claims he could fire them too.
The United States has tried such a plan before.
As we write in our book “How Government Built America,” newly elected President Andrew Jackson, after he took office in 1828, fired about half the country’s civil servants and replaced them with loyal members of his political party.
The result was not only an utterly incompetent administration, but widespread corruption.
Swearing allegiance
Jackson’s actions that rewarded political loyalists and punished enemies were a dramatic departure from what the founders had envisioned by establishing an independent civil service whose members were literally pledged to uphold the country’s laws.
In passage of its very first law, on June 1, 1789, Congress required newly appointed federal officials to take the oath of office to uphold the laws of the country and faithfully carry out their duties.
Congress also passed conflict-of-interest legislation at that time to prevent employees from making decisions based on personal financial considerations.
When President George Washington – and the next five U.S. presidents – hired a new employee, reputations mattered. Each of the presidents looked at how an appointee’s neighbors regarded him and whether he had been elected to local office, an indication that the man – and they were all men – was competent and an honest employee.
That’s not what Jackson, the nation’s seventh president, and his system aimed to do; he wanted loyalists in government jobs.
The spoils system
While the first presidents were concerned with the competence and honesty of civil service employees, Jackson quickly set aside those concerns.
Instead of hiring those who wanted to work for the public interest and the good of the nation, Jackson employed members of his political party who pledged to march in lockstep with him and his policies. This became known as the “spoils system.”
Like Trump, Jackson also had a version of the “deep state” that he opposed. He claimed that the appointment process was aristocratic and blocked the appointment of the ordinary people he represented. He also insisted that experience and competence were unnecessary.
If elected to serve a second term, Donald Trump says he supports a plan that would give him the authority to fire as many as 50,000 civil servants and replace them with members of his political party loyal to him. Under this plan, if he eventually deemed those new employees disloyal, he claims he could fire them too.
The United States has tried such a plan before.
As we write in our book “How Government Built America,” newly elected President Andrew Jackson, after he took office in 1828, fired about half the country’s civil servants and replaced them with loyal members of his political party.
The result was not only an utterly incompetent administration, but widespread corruption.