What Civil Service Since The Civil Service Reform Act Of 1978.

Former President Jimmy Carter, shown here attending President Trump's inauguration, personally led the effort to overhaul the civil service 40 years ago. The Trump administration is seeking a similar overhaul of its own.

Former President Jimmy Carter, shown here attending President Trump'south inauguration, personally led the endeavor to overhaul the civil service twoscore years ago. The Trump administration is seeking a similar overhaul of its own. Saul Loeb/AP

Imagine, if you will, "a civil service in which federal agencies could hire qualified individuals of their own choice, without first having to cut through fourth dimension-consuming red tape . . . in which agencies could bench or fire incompetent workers without facing years of appeals . . . in which salaries corresponded with performance rather than longevity."

It sounds like the challenges the Trump administration aims to accost in its recent massive proposal for authorities reorganization, its controversial trio of workforce management executive orders, and its stated plan to restructure federal pay and benefits.

In fact, that's a clarification of challenges President Jimmy Carter faced, as described past National Journal reporter Joel Havemann in October 1977.

Ane year later, a month before midterm elections, Carter signed the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, the first overhaul of the government's workforce construction since 1883.

From concept to signature in 18 months, that far-reaching reform abolished the Civil Service Commission and replaced it with the new Office of Personnel Management, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Federal Labor Relations Authority. It created the elite and mobile 9,200-member Senior Executive Service "shielded" from political intimidation, recast federal pay scales and laid the background for whistleblower protections by creating the Role of Special Counsel. It loosened Hatch Act restrictions on 2.viii million federal workers and likewise sought continuous improvement by authorizing personnel demonstration projects.

All were accomplished during that summer forty years agone after intricate horse-trading amid lawmakers of both parties, an ambitious and prescriptive president, long-time ceremonious servants, labor unions and business concern representatives. But the feat came with some drama and cleaved red china. And 4 decades later information technology stands out as an unusual confluence of multiple forces at work.

Stuart Eizenstat, Carter'southward domestic policy adviser, in his 2018 volume President Carter: The White House Years, called it "the most important reform of the federal civil service since its founding."

Dwight Ink, a key designer of the try, wrote in his 2018 book of public management studies Getting Things Washed With Backbone and Conviction (with Kurt Thurmaier), "I practise not recall any other governmentwide management reforms so broad as this civil service reform existence enacted at one fourth dimension or in so short a time."

What follows is a look back at the unlikely passage of that transformation that throws into relief the steep obstacles the Trump administration would likely encounter in pursuing reform.

Defining the Issues

The roots of the 1978 reform go back to the campaign trail for the 1976 presidential election. Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter had boasted, in his 1975 volume Why Non the Best?, of how he had successfully applied "zero-based budgeting" and reduced 278 state agencies to 22. "Naturally," the ex-governor wrote, "in that location was opposition from the bureaucrats who thrived on confusion, from special interests who preferred to work in the dark, and from a few legislators who did not desire to come across their fiefdoms endangered."

Candidate Carter even broached the wonky topic of improving federal direction during a campaign finish in Syracuse, N.Y. He was building on a feeling among many that the government'south ineffectiveness had been one reason for unhappy outcomes of the Vietnam war, the early on 1970s recessions and President Nixon's misuse of agencies during the Watergate scandal.

No sooner had Carter won the presidency than his transition team fix upward a authorities reorganization functioning at the National Academy of Public Administration. Every bit Carter would later recall in his memoir Keeping Faith, the commencement major test of his reorganization plans was "a neb authorizing the president to accost the problem of the federal bureaucracy—its complexity, its remoteness when people needed help, its intrusiveness when they wanted to be left alone, and its excessive regulation of the major industries to the detriment of consumers."

The Georgia Democrat did not win many feds' hearts when he said he wanted to "agree down the number of federal employees, reduce paperwork, and consolidate or eliminate as many of the pocket-sized agencies and advisory groups as possible."

Carter's bulldoze for such potency and his executive committee for agency reform resulted in the April 1977 Reorganization Deed that would help with creation of the Energy Department in 1977 and the Education Department in 1979.

In early 1978, Carter declared that the existing civil service arrangement was "as well ofttimes a bureaucratic maze which stifles the initiative of our dedicated authorities employees while inadequately protecting their rights."

One disease that needed a cure, Carter's Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joe Califano, recently told Government Executive, was that "we needed to attract first-rate people to the federal government and provide them with protections."

Having worked in the Pentagon and as i of President Johnson's domestic policy advisers, Califano said he had seen "how hard civil servants worked" and how committed they were. "Then it was very important that we say to these people at the start that this going to be a great job, a tough job, and I know yous're worth something for doing it." He dismissed equally "nonsense" the notion that federal experts make too much coin. (The dedication of Califano'southward new volume Our Damaged Democracy is a paean to public servants at all levels of government.)

In the government's loftier ranks, "The arrangement discourages full employment of talents of superior career 'super grades' because, to take a not-career policy job, they have to give upwardly their 'tenure rights,' wrote National Journal's Timothy Clark in 1978. "The new system would permit careerists to have non-career jobs with a guarantee that they could return to a high level job in the career service later on completing their assignments."

Just like in 2018, studies of pay comparability betwixt federal workers and the private sector varied, with lower-level workers tending to practice better in public employment, while higher-level professionals in regime were probably backside their corporate counterparts.

Labor groups in item wanted alter. Though public unions were characterized as "the stepchild of the national labor movement" by National Periodical reporter James Singer, "the most important part performed by federal unions is lobbying on Capitol Hill," which has the nearly bear upon on the lives of federal workers, he noted.

Labor's top goal was formalizing a body to referee complaints about unfair labor practices and disciplinary decisions. Nether the arrangement at the time, challenges to adverse personnel actions, "both for functioning and bear, past statute were offset considered by agencies and then could be appealed to the Civil Service Committee," recalled Robert Tobias, so the head of the National Treasury Employees Union and at present on the kinesthesia at American Academy. President Nixon'south Executive Order 11491 prohibited grievances on matters covered past "statutory appeals," and binding arbitration of agin actions was not immune, he said. Many times when the unions invoked informational mediation—which often produced a recommendation for an accused employee to win reinstatement and full back pay—the agency rejected that decision, prompting the marriage to press Congress for reforms that would let binding arbitration.

Laying the Groundwork for Reform

The fledgling Carter squad start had to call in the experts. In a May 27, 1977, declaration, the administration set upward the Personnel Management Project, a set up of job forces led by Civil Service Commission Chairman Alan "Scotty" Campbell, with OMB Acquaintance Director Wayne Granquist every bit his deputy.

Besides instrumental in the planning, as Carter would later recall, were Office of Management and Budget official Jim McIntyre; Stanton Williams of PPG Industries and the Business Roundtable; Ken Blaylock of the American Federation of Regime Employees; Tom Donahue of the AFL-CIO; and David Cohen and John Gardner of Common Crusade.

The project eventually involved 120 members.

"The members believed that the Ceremonious Service Commission had been given a conflicting set of promotional and appellate roles that required a basic reorganization," recalled Ink, who was executive manager and "designer" until he was sidelined past a heart attack and replaced by Thomas Murphy, director of the committee's Federal Executive Institute.

The experts parsed out such problems equally whether GS-12's to 15 should have merit pay while the "super grades" GS-16 to GS-eighteen would become the Senior Executive Service. The business community wanted more flexibility in federal management, and labor wanted codified, formal say-so, Ink recalled. He persuaded the unions to focus on the labor-management human relationship and non on budgets or programs, so that eventually business and labor would lobby Congress together.

Managers should be gratis to manage, but "neither practise they have a right to mismanage public programs by hiring incompetent cronies," Ink wrote.

But as National Journal reported at the time, labor unions were wary: "The options prepared by the chore forces address management'southward concerns, not ours," said Irving Geller, full general counsel of the National Federation of Federal Employees, American Federation of Government Employees. John Mulholland, AFGE'south managing director of labor-management services, said, "More management flexibility—that means they don't want to negotiate."

The "Concluding Staff Report" had 125 recommendations, which were distilled into legislative proposals by OMB'south Granquist.

"Scotty's travels throughout the state generated a surprising amount of public support, something seldom adult for direction reforms," Ink recalled.

In March 1978, Carter, who had personally served as the project's executive chair, sent his proposals to Capitol Loma, recalling, "I said that civil service reform and reorganization would be the centerpiece of my efforts to bring efficiency and accountability to the federal government. It will be the fundamental to improve performance in all federal agencies."

Horse Trading on the Hill

Jimmy Carter'due south first year, though not without accomplishments, would go downwards in history for messy relations with lawmakers and mistrust of the southern Democrats amongst many traditional political party constituencies. Business firm Speaker Tip O'Neill, D-Mass., had told Carter in 1977, "You lot accept proposed so much legislation, we can't handle it all."

Carter, every bit domestic adviser Eizenstat later on wrote, was used to Georgia's "generally pliant" one-party legislature. And the president's relations with the federal workforce were not helped when he chose to limit the autumn pay raise to five.5 per centum instead of an expected 8.4 pct.

"Federal employees are very depressed and worried," Bun Bray, executive director of the National Association of Supervisors, told National Journal. "They expected that Carter would be a Democrat similar Truman, Johnson and Kennedy—pro-government employee—simply as it turns out, Carter is virtually as obstinate and anti-worker as Ford or Nixon."

But Carter pressed ahead. "The president seems determined to use civil service reform to reverse his epitome as a president who can't get what he wants from Congress, at least on domestic bug," wrote National Journal correspondent Harlan Lebo in May 1978.

Lebo chronicled how how the administration pushed reform forward. Carter met personally with House commission members, twice with Democrats, in one case with Republicans. The president too met with the American Federation of Government Employees, and assigned all Chiffonier members to practise lobbying. That irked Rep. Edward Derwinski, R-Ill., who said, "I thought information technology was a instance of overkill. Their timing was style off; they should be calling when the legislation is on the floor for a vote."

But projection leader Campbell told National Journal, "civil service is non a sexy event, and we know we wouldn't accept gotten nearly this far without presidential involvement."

On May 22, the Senate Governmental Affairs Commission began what would be a one-month markup. The Firm Mail service Office and Civil Service Commission, chaired by Rep. Robert Nix, D-Pa., postponed consideration until after the Memorial Day recess. Leading the accuse in the Business firm was committee vice chair Rep. Morris Udall, D-Ariz., and Jack Brooks, D-Texas. Republicans in favor included Jim Leach of Iowa.

Carter'southward team learned how to lobby lawmakers such every bit Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-Colo., past horse-trading with her on women's and Vietnam veterans bug. "We had the full general problem of getting the bill out of committee and getting the committee to act," recalled Richard Pettigrew, the president's assistant for reorganization, in an oral history for the Carter Center. The Post Part and Civil Service panel was "very hostile to the civil service reform program and its pro-direction tilt. It was a pro-matrimony committee, pro-employee committee and this reorganization was designed to requite managers greater flexibility in firing, two sets of incentive pay systems for systems with automated pay increases."

Co-ordinate to Congressional Quarterly'southward Ann Cooper, "the widely divided [Firm] committee gutted a fundamental section of Carter's proposal and tacked on "Christmas tree amendments that include one bill vetoed by the president and another beak likely to prompt a Senate filibuster . . . The commission as well voted to aggrandize the power of federal labor unions beyond the indicate administration officials called acceptable," she wrote.

Chief among labor's supporters were Reps. William Ford, D-Mich., and William Dirt, D-Mo., whose separate bill would have written collective bargaining into law and required talks on wages with seven unions.

Though consensus often proved elusive—journalists declared the bill on life-support—Republican support was strong in the Senate, under console chairman Abraham Ribicoff, D-Conn., and subcommittee chaired by freshman James Sasser, D-Tenn.

Some, however, promised a filibuster if provisions loosening the Hatch Act were not removed, due to a mutual perception amid Republicans that federal employees leaned Democratic.

Also controversial was the proposed Senior Executive Service, which Rep. Herb Harris, D-Va., warned "volition open the door to politicization," Congressional Quarterly reported. An amendment to brand the SES a two-year experiment at three agencies called by the president was defeated.

Senators such as John Glenn, D-Ohio, and Charles Percy, R-Sick., successfully sought to curb the preference for veterans in hiring.

But the package was approved by the Senate console on July 10 by an 8-two vote, and by the Firm panel on July nineteen by a vote of eighteen-7. Some Republicans were unhappy. "What started out every bit a bipartisan effort to write constructive legislation degenerated into a blatant gutting of the bill" by Democrats, Derwinski said. Countered ane Carter official, "Nosotros'd rather have a Christmas tree than a dead bush," Cooper reported.

On Aug. 10, the bill was taken up for debate on the Business firm floor. The Senate rapidly passed its version on Aug. 24, by a vote of 87-1. Following a Labor Day recess and mid-term election campaigning, a House vote was chosen on Sept.14. Its version passed 385-10, a margin that encouraged Dwight Ink, who knew information technology would make things easier in briefing with the Senate. Final passage came on Oct. vi, in time for Carter to hold what he recalled in his diary as a "delightful" signing ceremony on Oct.13.

A 'Glow' in the Finish

Carter was told past Senate Bulk Leader Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., "I've been in the Congress 27 years, and take never seen such a tremendous legislative achievement." Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker, R-Tenn., was equally praiseful. "We've got a Democratic president singing a Republican song," the Republican said.

"Everybody was proud of this achievement, which I recall is momentous," Carter wrote in Keeping Religion. He noted it all happened inside seven months—in a year that as well brought passage of the Inspector General Act and the Ethics in Regime Act. "During the concluding days of 1978, we deregulated the airlines, reformed the ceremonious service system and raised the mandatory retirement age to seventy," he wrote. "All the strain, frustration and hard feelings of the yr were quickly forgotten in the glow of adjournment."

In June 2018, when the Trump administration unveiled its most detailed regime reorganization plan, Upkeep Director Mick Mulvaney said, "It's been nearly 100 years since everyone really reorganized the government at this type of scale."

Not quite. But that could have been said in 1978.