The Sources of Continuing Conflict between the Constitution and Public Personnel Management
| Author | David H. Rosenbloom |
| DOI | 10.1177/0734371X8100200102 |
| Published date | 01 September 1981 |
| Date | 01 September 1981 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
3
THE
SOURCES
OF
CONTINUING
CONFLICT
BETWEEN
THE
CONSTITUTION
AND
PUBLIC
PERSONNEL
MANAGEMENT
David
H.
Rosenbloom
The
Maxwell
School
of
Citizenship
and
Public
Affairs
Syracuse
University
Introduction
Since
the
1950s,
the
federal
judiciary
has
played
an
increasingly
larger
role
in
public
personnel
management.
Indeed,
by
1980,
the
Supreme
Court
had
rul-
ed
that
&dquo;a
practice
as
old
as
the
Republic,&dquo;
that
of
patronage
dismissals,
was
clearly
unconstitutional
when
applied
to
the
vast
bulk
of
public
service
posi-
tions
(Elrod
v.
Burns,
1980:376).
This
judicial
involvement
has
unfolded
through
the
rejection
of
an
older
doctrine
that
tended
to
preclude
such
activity
and
the
construction
of
newer
ones
that
positively
promote
it.
However,
these
doctrinal
shifts
have
been
discussed
elsewhere
(Rosenbloom,
1977a),
and
need
not
be
reviewed
here.
Instead,
an
effort
will
be
made
to
explain
the
fundamental
political
sources
of
continuing
judicial
intervention
in
public
personnel
ad-
ministration.
It
is
the
contention
of
this
essay
that
the
root
of
the
conflict
be-
tween
public
personnel
management
and
contemporary
constitutional
law
is
a
major
clash
between
administrative
values
and
those
embodied
in
American
constitutional
democracy.
Moreover,
it
will
be
argued
that
judicial
activity
in
the
realm
of
public
personnel
administration
is
but
one
aspect
of
a
more
general
judicial
response
to
the
rise
of
the
American
administrative
state.
&dquo;Depoliticizing&dquo; and
&dquo;Dehumanizing&dquo;
Public
Personnel
Management
To
a
great
extent,
the
fundamental
value-framework
of
contemporary
public
personnel
management
in
the
United
States
originated
with,
or
at
least
was
first
cogently
articulated
by,
the
civil
service
reform
movement
of
the
post-Civil
War
period.
Although
the
reformers
had
clear
and
wide-ranging
political
motives
of
their
own,
these
were
considered
best
served
by
a
thorough
depoliticization
of
the
public
service
(Rosenbloom,
1971).
As
Carl
Schurz,
one
of
their
leaders,
expressed
it,
&dquo;What
civil
service
reform
demands,
is
simply
that
the
business
part
of
the
government
shall
be
carried
on
in
a
sound
businesslike
manner.&dquo;’
1
The
reformers
never
defined
precisely
the
extent
of
the
&dquo;business
part&dquo;
of
the
federal
service,
but
they
firmly
believed
that
of
the
great
number
of
govern-
ment
jobs,
&dquo;very
few
are
political.
Political
offices
are
those
concerned
with
4
devising
and
enforcing a
policy
which
the
people
have
approved
at
the
polls&dquo;
9
(Rosenbloom,
1971 a75).
With
regard
to
the
non-political
component
of
the
public service,
they
claimed
that
&dquo;merit
appointment
and
merit
tenure
com-
prehends the
whole
program
of
Civil
Service
Reform&dquo;
(Rosenbloom,
1971:77).
The
reformers
did
not
present
the
quest
for
depoliticized
public
personnel
management
as
an
end
in
itself.
Rather,
they saw
in
it
the
potential
achieve-
ment
of
two
ultimate
objectives.
First,
was
the
displacement
of
the
professional
politicians
who
rose
to
positions
of
great
political
power
through
the
spoils
system.
The
reformers
were
quite
candid
in
their
efforts
to
impugn
the
legitimacy
of
such
political
authorities.
For
instance,
Dorman
Eaton
wrote
that
under
the
spoils
system,
...we
have
seen a
class
of
politicians
become
powerful
in
high
places,
who
have
not
taken
(and
who
by
nature
are
not
qualified
to
take)
any
large
part
in
the
social
and
educational
life
of
the
people.
Politics
have
tended
more
and
more
to
become a
trade,
or
separate
occupa-
tion.
High
character
and
capacity
have
become
disassociated
for
public
life
in
the
popular
mind
(Rosenbloom.
1971073).
George
William
Curtis,
another
leading
reformer,
similarly
attacked
the
pro-
fessional
politicians
as a
&dquo;mercenary
political
class,
an
oligarchy
of
stipendiaries,
a
bureaucracy
or
the
worst
kind,
which
controls the
parties
with
relentless
despotism&dquo;
(Rosenbloom,
1971072).
Schultz
voiced
the
same
view
in
arguing
that
an
important
task
of
civil
service
reform was
to:
rescue
our
political
parties,
and
in great
measure
the
management
of
our
public
affairs,
from
the
control
of
men
whose
whole
statesmanship
consists
in
the
low
arts
of
office
mongering,
and
many
of
whom
would
never
have
risen
to
power
had
not
the
spoils
system
furnished
them
with
the
means
and
opportunity
for
organizing
gangs
of
political
followers
as
mercenary
as
themselves
(Rosenbloom,
1971073).
Once
the
political
parties
were
&dquo;rescued&dquo;
and
the
spoilsmen
displaced,
the
reformers
thought
it
would
become
possible
for
the
natural
leaders
of
society-
men
like
themselves-to
take
control
of
government.
From
this
perspective,
therefore,
depoliticization
of
the
public service
was a
prerequisite
for a
far-
reaching
change
in
the
character
of
the
nation’s
political
leadership.
Thus,
many
of
the
reformers
may
have
agreed
with Carl
Schurz
that
&dquo;thc
question
whether
the
Departments
at
Washington
are
managed
well
or
badly
is,
in
proportion
to
the
whole
problem,
an
insignificant
question&dquo;
(Rosenbloom,
1971:71).
For
other
reformers,
and
especially
for
the
public
personnelists
whose
pro-
fession
grew
out
of
civil
service
reform,
efficient
management
was
considered
the
highest
objective
of
merit-oriented
public
personnel
administration.
This
outlook
was
most
influentially
articulated
by
Woodrow
Wilson
in
his
seminal
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