Back to the Future

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Thomas Barth
January 10, 2025

As civil servants in the federal government face another presidential transition from a Democrat to Republican administration, I am reminded of my experience and lessons learned as a young Presidential Management Fellow in 1981 with the transition from Presidents Carter to Reagan. Similar to President-elect Trump, Reagan brought with him an ideology that was decidedly anti-federal government, saying government is “the problem, not the solution” with an agenda calling for more efficiency, a focus on waste, fraud and abuse and more deregulation wherever possible. With my position as a junior research analyst in the Office of Family Assistance in HHS, which administered the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, there was very much a distinct ideological battleground between new political appointees focused on reducing error rates and decreasing dependency on the program vs. holdover civil servants focused on delivering an anti-poverty program they believed was very much needed. One symbolic example of this different orientation was the change by the administration from calling AFDC families “clients” to “recipients.”

The “teachable moment” during this time were the different ways my fellow civil servants saw their roles during this transition. Indeed, this was a front-row lesson on the role of a responsible civil servant in the federal government working under different presidential administrations and managing the relationship with political appointees in top leadership roles in the agencies. The following is a typology of the various responses I witnessed.

The Resigners: There were the civil servants who disagreed so strongly with the agenda of the new Administration that they could not in good conscience continue working in the agency and be a part of the new policy directions. They essentially resigned in protest.

The Ostriches: These colleagues disagreed with new policies, so chose to do as little as possible to support the Administration. They decided to “hunker down” and wait for a better day with a potentially new leadership in four years. They would do the minimum requested and outlast this new leadership who they didn’t view as deserving of their full commitment.

The Saboteurs: For these individuals, the proper course was to take action and leak to the press any actions they believed were hurting poor families and efforts to reduce the welfare rolls. Under this category is what Dr. Rosemary O’Leary documented in her study of “guerilla government” where civils servants actively worked behind the scenes to counteract policies they found unethical. The hope was that public pressure would reduce the damage.

The Hired Guns: This approach reflected the position of my immediate supervisor, that our job was to represent whatever Administration was elected and put their policies in the best light possible. The “other side” who lost the election has their hired guns and it’s their job to question the Administration’s policies. An example was a report published by the Children’s Defense Fund that showed more children in poverty as a result of the Reagan Administration’s policies.  I was tasked as a research analyst with shooting holes in the report. I immediately asked, “what if the report is true?” I was told to shape up, grow up and understand my job, which was to discredit the methodology and findings where possible without concern for the overall merits of the report.

The Constitutional Officers: This approach was one that I only formally understood as a political theory when I studied under Dr. John Rohr several years later. Practicing the concept of “constitutional subordinate autonomy,” these civil servants recognized their duty as ultimately subordinate to the political appointees appointed by the President, but also accountable to the other branches of government as reflected in legislation and court cases as well as the sovereign people. Therefore, as sworn “constitutional officers” they have the responsibility to exercise their professional expertise and speak truth to power when directives from the Administration are out of kilter with their other branches of power. In the final analysis, you must follow your primary source of subordination, but not silently, unless of course laws are being broken or undermined.

This idea of subordinate autonomy is distinct from merely being a hired gun for the Administration for it suggests the obligation to argue back, but it also recognizes that a civil servant does have accountability to the elected President and his/her political appointees whether or not they find it personally disagreeable. The sovereign people have spoken by placing the new Administration in office.

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Author: Dr. Tom Barth is Professor Emeritus in the Gerald G. Fox MPA program at UNC Charlotte.  [email protected].

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