One question that has arisen, is whether, assuming Obama wins, we can get rid of the packing of government positions with Reopublican idealogues. It is important to remember that far more then any administration in the past, the Bushies have been hiring at all levels, not just legitimately politcal appointments, with prescreened right wing Repuglican idealogues.
As has been widely reported, anybody deemed too liberal or with possible Democratic ties or leanings was illegally screened out from positions in DoJ by Monica Goodling and others.
At the most simple level, the folks who did get those jobs got them on the basis of an illegal premptorary exclusion of others. Having benefited from the illegal process, can they be fired just on the basis of being the beneficiary of the tainted process? Is that enough to fire them under a new administration? Or would that be some sort of illegal witch-hunt?
Well, today's New York Times has an article by the great Charlie Savage that suggests there may be additional legal justification to fire many of them
On May 17, 2005, the White House’s political affairs office sent an e-mail message to agencies throughout the executive branch directing them to find jobs for 108 people on a list of "priority candidates" who had "loyally served the president."
"We simply want to place as many of our Bush loyalists as possible," the White House emphasized in a follow-up message, according to a little-noticed passage of a Justice Department report released Monday about politicization in the department’s hiring of civil-service prosecutors and immigration officials.
To me that reads as a pre-meditated conspiracy involving not only the political appointees asking for it to be done and those responsble for doing the hiring, but also involving those specific 108 individuals named to be hired. Indeed perhaps rising even to RICO standards?
"We pledge 7 slots within 40 days and 40 nights. Let the games begin!" Jan Williams, then the White House’s liaison to the Justice Department, said in an e-mail message two days later.
Within a week, messages between Ms. Williams and the White House showed, she began trying to match the White House-vetted names of people who had been "helpful to the president" — like campaign volunteers — with openings for immigration judges, positions that are supposed to be filled using politically neutral, merit-based criteria.
Under the circumstances, I would assume that anybody on those lists had actively asked to be given a job in return for their service. But they could always be asked under oath.
And I can tell you that it is complete B.S. that there is any confusion, by employer or employee, which slots are civil service and which are political.
In 2005, the White House, in seminars to agency liaisons, recommended that they use Internet searches when vetting certain applicants to determine their views on Mr. Bush, abortion and other matters, the Justice Department report said.
But at the Justice Department, Ms. Williams’s successor, Monica M. Goodling, began using an expanded version of the search to screen the views of candidates for career positions on matters as far-ranging as homosexuality, gun rights and the Iran-contra scandal. The report also accuses Ms. Goodling of asking candidates for Civil Service jobs to fill out a form disclosing their political activities.
And DoJ are just the ones we know of publicly. How many other Departments and Agencies have had civil service hiring skewed by active exclusion of anybody with the wrong internet profile or resume, and by the selective hiring of partisans and extremists off of lists supplied by political operatives?
For example, it was common knowledge around Health & Human Services that the central offices were being packed with Christianist rightwingers. For political appointments that was there perogative. But given what we have seen elsewhere, notably DoJ, we have to assume that such premeditated conspiracy to pack the civil service
Also, in addition to regular hiring, there are a whole host of "internships" and "scholars" that take people directly out of college or graduate school and expose them to public service jobs. They are meant to be feeders into mid-level non-partisan civil service positions. Again, they are likely to be have been selectively recruited.
And remember, for every person illegally hired, there is a victim... the non-partisan and probably better qualified, person who did not get the job.
And there can be no doubt that the goal, of the Bushies who hired and of the partisans who knowingly took these jobs under these circumstances mean to undermine any future Democratic administration. Indeed, they will work to undermine any legislation passed by a Democratic congress regardless of who is president. That is of course the goal of this conspiracy, documented by the list of 108 (the one we know of), to illegally pack the career civil service jobs with partisans.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the Justice Department reports had made clear that "the problems of injecting politics" into decisions that are supposed to be nonpartisan "are rooted deeper than just the actions of a handful of individuals."
A non-partisan career civil service is an important safeguard to good government, and part of the civil society of a true democracy.
So I would argue that yes, it is appropriate and legal, to find all such hiring lists, such as the 108 mentioned, for all years and all Departments and Agencies. And to fire those who participated in this criminal conspiracy. It is not enough to just tut-tut about Monica Goodling. She is gone but hundreds, probably thousands of others are not. The partisan entrenchment needs to be undone, or else it (Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, et al) wins.
And then, yes, to go back and hire folks, truly regardless of party affiliation, in the appropriate non-partisan and merit based system.