6 The Executive Branch
© Andrew Gombert/epa/Corbis
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to
• Describe the history and evolution of the federal bureaucracy. • Analyze the differences between political and civil service administration. • Describe the rise of the civil service system. • Describe the essential functions of bureaucracy. • Analyze differences between various types of agencies and departments within the bureaucracy. • Describe how the political branches of government attempt to control the bureaucracy and
ensure accountability. • Evaluate the relationship among bureaucracy, Congress, and interest groups. • Analyze the relationship between the nature and structure of American bureaucracy and Ameri-
can political culture.
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Section 6.1 Components of the Federal Bureaucracy
Upon taking office in January 2009, President Obama appointed several “czars,” White House counselors tasked with particular policy responsibilities, to oversee several policy areas. Crit- ics charged that the president was attempting to circumvent the bureaucratic process by run- ning things from the White House, rather than through the traditional executive branch departments. Critics also charged that by appointing czars who would work in the White House, rather than as assistant secretaries in the various departments, the president was avoiding the appointment process, which requires Senate confirmation. President Obama’s actions were viewed as an attempt to avoid legislative oversight, as these czars could not eas- ily be summoned to testify before Congress, nor could the products of their work be subjected to the Freedom of Information Act.
The roots of the czar concept lie in the 1939 Brownlow Commit- tee report, which brought about a reorganization of the executive branch that included the creation of the Executive Office of the Presi- dent (EOP), which led to a greater concentration of policymaking and oversight of agencies and White House departments.
Presidents with active policy agen- das often believe they can achieve better results if they do not have to rely on a large federal bureaucracy. Although the president is both chief executive and chief operating offi- cer of the executive branch, the fed- eral government is a vast organiza- tion of several million employees,
many of whom are protected by certain rules. A president can control his or her advisors in the White House because they serve at his or her pleasure, but he or she has no such author- ity over the bureaucracy. While the president can remove department and agency appointees, there are often political consequences to doing so. To be successful with Congress, presidents need the bureaucracy to implement their policy agendas.
In this chapter, we look at the bureaucracy. We examine the concept of a bureaucracy, how it developed in the United States, what it does, and how it is held accountable to the public.
6.1 Components of the Federal Bureaucracy
The federal bureaucracy is the structure of administrative agencies and departments in the executive branch that is responsible for delivering public goods and services. For instance, the Social Security Administration delivers retirement funds to older adults. The bureaucracy is also responsible for implementing laws. While Congress and the president establish intent to do something by enacting legislation, the bureaucracy must make it happen. As an example, both houses of Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, and the president enacted
Associated Press
President Obama appointed Carol Browner his energy czar in October 2009. The office was abolished in 2011. Presidents appoint czars for the sake of having more policy control concentrated in the White House.
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Section 6.1 Components of the Federal Bureaucracy
it into law by signing the legislation. Yet the responsibility for implementing the law belongs to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), an executive branch Cabinet-level department through the delegation of authority, which was briefly discussed in Chapter 4. Delegation of authority occurs when Congress grants authority to an executive branch depart- ment or agency for a specific task. (Authority for this particular law is also delegated to state governments, as they are responsible for implementing various features of the law.) The fed- eral bureaucracy is the part of the government responsible for implementing laws passed by the president and Congress, and, as appropriate, executive orders signed by the president and case law as determined by Supreme Court decisions. The nature and magnitude of the execu- tive branch’s implementation authority has resulted in a large and complex bureaucracy that includes Cabinet-level departments (discussed in Chapter 5) and several other agencies and offices responsible for implementing the law. The work of the federal government must be well organized in order to ensure that the will of the people, as reflected by congressional, presidential, and judicial actions, is carried out. Yet the magnitude of the work warrants a complex network of offices and agencies to fulfill their responsibilities.
Defining Bureaucracy
The term bureaucracy comes from the French term bureau, meaning department. Today we use the term to mean the breaking down of administration into departments that have a spe- cific purpose. The federal bureaucracy is structured to carry out the law in a politically neu- tral fashion. A large number of government employees function outside the political realm and are not hired or fired based on election results. The purpose of the bureaucracy is to establish an administrative framework to implement the decisions made through the political process.
Successful bureaucracies are often organized accord- ing to principles first articulated by sociologist Max Weber. Weber (1947) suggested that a bureaucracy was the highest form of efficient administrative struc- ture in that it was organized to achieve a set of objec- tives at the least cost. The characteristics that Weber associated with bureaucracy are that it is based on principles of full and official jurisdictional areas and a division of labor. Bureaucracies are also ordered by rules, laws, or administrative regulation, which ensure that it will not operate in an arbitrary manner. The regular activities of the bureaucracy are distributed in the form of official duties, while the bureaucracy has the authority to give commands based on rules. Addi- tionally, a bureaucracy has provisions for the regular and continuous fulfillment of officials’ stated duties, and only those possessing generally regulated qualifi- cations are to be employed.
These principles are found in the modern Ameri- can bureaucracy, especially in the requirement that executive branch functions are based on written
Fine Art Images/SuperStock
Sociologist Max Weber suggested that a bureaucracy is the highest form of efficiency.
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Section 6.1 Components of the Federal Bureaucracy
documents. Positions are legally defined, officials normally hold a form of tenure, and the salaries are based on status, or some type of rank within the organization. The bureaucracy allows the executive branch to divide administrative responsibilities based on specialization, and it allows specialists in particular areas to perform their functions according to objective criteria. Thus, bureaucrats seek to accomplish objectives set forth in legislation enacted by political figures. It is not bureaucrats’ responsibility to get involved with questions of whether those objectives are necessarily good, as those are considerations for elected officials.
Political Appointments Versus Career Civil Service System
The bureaucracy is made up of two distinct components: the political administration and the civil service system. The administration refers to the bureaucracy that supports the president. The civil service system refers to those federal employees who are profession- als hired on the basis of merit. Whereas the civil service system is viewed as the permanent government, the political administration is viewed as a temporary government, because it is mostly replaced when a new president takes office. Each president’s political administration is composed of his or her immediate White House staff, his or her Cabinet, and the political appointees who staff various agencies and departments. As an example, in the State Depart- ment, there is a secretary of state and several assistant secretaries. Each assistant secretary is responsible for a specific policy or programmatic area, such as the assistant secretary for European affairs and the assistant secretary for East Asia. Political appointees in the admin- istration also include the various ambassadors stationed abroad. Each embassy around the world has an ambassador and several counselors who are also political appointees. Below the political appointees are members of the civil service system, and in the case of the State Department, the civil servants are members of the Foreign Service corps.
The key differences between political appointees and civil servants are the method by which they obtain their jobs, the nature of their loyalties, and the tenure of their offices. Political appointees are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Their loyalty is to the president, who can have them removed from office. Civil servants are hired by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and they are chosen on the basis of merit. Individuals going into the civil service often start out in entry-level positions and may work their way up the bureaucratic ladder to more senior-level management positions, which explains why, in part, these persons are often referred to as career civil servants.
Civil servants are supposed to be loyal to their agencies and dedicated to the neutral delivery of public goods and services. Civil servants are governed by the Hatch Act of 1939, which is a law prohibiting federal employees from participating in partisan political activity. The Hatch Act was an outgrowth of a long tradition of civil service reform. Named after Senator Carl Hatch of New Mexico, it was a specific response to allegations that employees of the Work Progress Administration, a New Deal program, were used by Democratic politicians in the 1938 congressional campaign. The Hatch Act specifically prohibits intimidation or bribery of voters and restricts political campaign activities by federal employees. Federal employees below the policymaking level are not permitted to have “any active part” in a political cam- paign and are prohibited from using any public funds for electoral purposes. Additionally, civil servants are prohibited from promising jobs, promotion, financial assistance, contracts, or any other benefit as a way to coerce campaign contributions or political support. In practi- cal terms, this means that a political administrator may attend a fundraiser for members of
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Section 6.2 The Rise of the Civil Service System
the president’s political party, but a civil servant may not. While civil servants are permitted to vote, like any other citizen, they may not campaign for political candidates.
The Hatch Act also prohibits federal employees from being members of “any political organi- zation which advocates the overthrow of our constitutional form of government.” This has been interpreted to preclude membership in the Communist Party.
Politics Versus Public Administration
The federal bureaucracy is structured on the principle that politics should not play a role in the execution of government functions. The reason for the separa- tion is to maintain accountability, transparency, and neutrality. In the 1880s, political scientist Woodrow Wilson, who would later become president, put forth the classical model of public administration. Propos- ing a strong executive who would also be accountable, Wilson argued that public administration should be separate from political and policy concerns. Rather, public administration should be concerned solely with the “detailed and systematic execution of pub- lic law” (Wilson, 1887). Law and policies are made by elected officials, who are held accountable by vot- ers at the ballot box. If the public is unhappy with the policy choices made by elected officials, it can always vote them out of office. The role of the bureaucracy is to implement those policies. Wilson specifically called for a set of principles to guide administrators in the efficient performance of their duties.
Consider for a moment members of Congress who need to raise money for their reelection. It would not be out of the ordinary for wealthy contributors to have greater access to these elected officials and a greater chance of being listened to than would ordinary voters. But we would not want a civil service system to give preference to rich people or to Republicans over Democrats in the delivery of benefits such as Social Security payments. The point of the sepa- ration is to ensure that delivery of public goods and services will happen on an impartial and equal basis. Civil service, then, requires an intricate set of procedures and rules that must be followed so that the delivery of services will, in fact, be impartial and professional.
6.2 The Rise of the Civil Service System
The modern civil service system is an outgrowth of the Progressive Era (1890s–1920s), when social and government reformers sought to deliver governmental services on the basis of merit. The idea of a neutral, nonpartisan, and impartial civil service system was revolution- ary. Prior to the civil service system, people obtained government employment through polit- ical connections, also known as the spoils system.
Library of Congress
Woodrow Wilson argued that admin- istration should be separate from political and policy concerns.
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Section 6.2 The Rise of the Civil Service System
The Spoils System
Under the spoils system, the political party that won office would be able to staff the govern- ment. Newly elected persons would replace those working for the government with new employees who were loyal to them. This was, quite literally, a system of “to the victor go the spoils.” This meant that no one could be assured of long-term government employment, and workers were subject to being fired when their patron either left office or was defeated in an election. Workers did not necessarily have to be qualified for their jobs; they only needed to be loyal to the person who hired them. It would not be uncommon, for instance, for a local postal worker to be replaced after a presidential election.
President Andrew Jackson first used the spoils system to reward people who voted for him. Following Jack- son’s inauguration as president in 1829, about 20% of the federal workforce, mostly in the Post Office, was replaced. Despite attempts by administration officials to justify personnel changes, it became evident that the sole criterion for employment was loyalty to Jackson.
Ironically, the spoils system reflected Jackson’s revolu- tionary democratic spirit. Government was supposed to belong to the people. By that standard, it should be staffed by ordinary citizens, not technical experts. But the problem with this system was uneven delivery of services. As an example, a mail carrier whose loyalty was to Jackson and his Democratic Party might be less inclined to deliver mail with the same frequency or care to those areas that supported Jackson’s oppo- nents. Subsequent presidents continued to use the spoils system to encourage people to vote for them.
The spoils system was problematic for various other reasons. One of the legacies of the American Revolution was a deep-seated distrust of centralized power, which meant that Americans had a very negative view of gov- ernment. For more than a century after the Constitu- tion was ratified, the most desirable government was the one that governed least. A government staffed by experts or elites might be unaccountable to the public. In Europe, it was considered a matter of prestige to be a civil servant. But in those European societies, one who served the public did not necessarily need to be accountable for the simple reason that civil servants had expertise while the public did not. Jacksonian democ- racy, by contrast, was built on the premise that the common man should govern. Moreover, at the federal level, there was not much for government workers to do. It was only as governmen- tal operations became more complex that there would be a greater need for professionalism.
The Good Government Reform Movement
The Good Government Reform movement sprang from the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There were efforts at the national level to eliminate the spoils system and replace it with a professional civil service system as early as 1865.
© Bettmann/Corbis
This cartoon alludes to the fact that Andrew Jackson was closely associ- ated with the spoils system. He used it to reward people who voted for him.
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Section 6.2 The Rise of the Civil Service System
The reforms that did lead to the modern administrative state actually began at the local level. In cities such as New York around the turn of the 20th century, local party leaders would typi- cally offer patronage to immigrants. They would go to the docks to greet new arrivals with offers of employment and assistance to find housing and other needs. Often, the party leader would own a construction company that held building contracts with the city.
Meanwhile, these party leaders controlled party nominations, and they could help guarantee that their people would be elected by delivering the support and votes of their immigrant employees. In exchange for jobs, these party leaders would request that employees support their candidates. Elected city leaders owed something to these party leaders who put them there, and they paid that debt with construction contracts.
The spoils system also allowed local party leaders to reward their loyal followers with jobs in the local bureaucracy. Irish immigrants and their descendants, for instance, staffed many police departments. As a result, many elites believed that they were being displaced. The only way they could see to reclaim what they considered to be their lost and rightful positions of employment was to choose employees based on merit. In other words, by changing the rules of the game, more educated elites could displace those whose only qualification was their loyalty. Reformers sought greater efficiency and equity in the delivery of local governmental services by pushing to require workers to take and pass qualifying exams.
At the federal level, the impetus for replacing the spoils system was the 1881 assassination of Presi- dent James Garfield, who was shot by a disgruntled campaign worker whose repeated requests for a job through the spoils system had been rejected. Garfield’s successor, Chester Arthur, had no interest in continuing with a system that he thought resulted in the death of his predecessor, so in 1883 Con- gress passed, and President Arthur signed, the Pendleton Civil Ser- vice Reform Act. Sponsored by Senator George Pendleton of Ohio, this act sought to do away with the spoils system by creating the United States Civil Service Com- mission to run the federal civil ser- vice. Under the new law, applicants for certain jobs would be required to take a civil service exam. Hiring would be based on qualifications and merit, and elected officials and political appointees would no longer be able to fire civil servants. This removed civil servants from the influences of political patronage and partisan behavior.
© Bettmann/Corbis
After President James Garfield was assassinated by a campaign worker seeking a federal job in exchange for his efforts to get Garfield elected, Garfield’s successor, President Chester Arthur, signed a law to eliminate the spoils system.
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Section 6.2 The Rise of the Civil Service System
Efficiency
A civil service system based on meritocracy was supposed to achieve efficiency in the delivery of public goods and services, and with the professionalization of the bureaucracy came the idea that government should be run according to scientific principles of management, which apply business techniques to the public sector and to administrative management. These principles refer to a division of labor and specialization, or the effort to identify the tasks nec- essary to accomplish an objective and the grouping and coordination of those tasks to maxi- mize organizational efficiency (see Figure 6.1 to see how this works in the U.S. government).
Frederick Winslow Taylor is often viewed as the father of scientific management. Taylor was concerned with how management could take otherwise lazy workers and use “carrots and sticks” to turn them into efficient and productive ones. If good management in private indus- try could achieve efficiency in the production and distribution of goods and services in the marketplace, then good management in government could achieve efficiency in the delivery of public goods and services.
Efficiency, in simple terms, means producing goods for less cost. Efficiency in public service delivery could be improved if those responsible for their delivery were not bogged down in politics. Efficiency could also be achieved if public goods were delivered evenly and impar- tially. Yet efficiency would be harder to measure in government than in private industry. As an example, if a major automobile manufacturer introduces a new car model, its cost effective- ness can be measured by tallying up the revenues earned through sales and comparing them with the costs of production. But there would be no way to measure the cost effectiveness of, for example, maintaining national parks. The value of people’s enjoyment of the beauty of national parks may be priceless. Even if there are revenues derived from entrance fees, they might not exceed the costs of maintaining the parks, which would be deemed inefficient in the business world.
A government bureaucracy cannot always apply marketplace efficiency to the public sector. The role of the bureaucracy is to serve the public interest. Still, it is not uncommon to criticize the federal bureaucracy for being inefficient. Because civil servants are immune from poli- tics and almost impossible to fire, elected officials cannot easily control the workings of the government. Similarly, the political appointees who head agencies, unlike managers in the private sector, have no real power to remove workers perceived to be inefficient.
Meritocracy and the Division of Labor
American bureaucracy is built on the twin concepts that individuals should be hired because of their abilities to perform certain tasks, and that the bureaucracy itself is organized accord- ing to function. In the State Department, for instance, there is a division for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs; a division for Political Affairs; and a division for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, just to name a few. The State Department performs many func- tions. If the same individuals had to perform them all, they would spread themselves thin across the department. Division of labor allows individuals to specialize and become expert in something specific, allowing for greater efficiency.
Figure 6.1: The government of the United States
The U.S. government is formally organized to achieve efficiency. Business techniques are applied in managing various departments.
From The United States Government Manual (p. 21), by R. A. Mosley & A. C. Thomas, 2009, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office
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Section 6.2 The Rise of the Civil Service System
Efficiency
A civil service system based on meritocracy was supposed to achieve efficiency in the delivery of public goods and services, and with the professionalization of the bureaucracy came the idea that government should be run according to scientific principles of management, which apply business techniques to the public sector and to administrative management. These principles refer to a division of labor and specialization, or the effort to identify the tasks nec- essary to accomplish an objective and the grouping and coordination of those tasks to maxi- mize organizational efficiency (see Figure 6.1 to see how this works in the U.S. government).
Frederick Winslow Taylor is often viewed as the father of scientific management. Taylor was concerned with how management could take otherwise lazy workers and use “carrots and sticks” to turn them into efficient and productive ones. If good management in private indus- try could achieve efficiency in the production and distribution of goods and services in the marketplace, then good management in government could achieve efficiency in the delivery of public goods and services.
Efficiency, in simple terms, means producing goods for less cost. Efficiency in public service delivery could be improved if those responsible for their delivery were not bogged down in politics. Efficiency could also be achieved if public goods were delivered evenly and impar- tially. Yet efficiency would be harder to measure in government than in private industry. As an example, if a major automobile manufacturer introduces a new car model, its cost effective- ness can be measured by tallying up the revenues earned through sales and comparing them with the costs of production. But there would be no way to measure the cost effectiveness of, for example, maintaining national parks. The value of people’s enjoyment of the beauty of national parks may be priceless. Even if there are revenues derived from entrance fees, they might not exceed the costs of maintaining the parks, which would be deemed inefficient in the business world.
A government bureaucracy cannot always apply marketplace efficiency to the public sector. The role of the bureaucracy is to serve the public interest. Still, it is not uncommon to criticize the federal bureaucracy for being inefficient. Because civil servants are immune from poli- tics and almost impossible to fire, elected officials cannot easily control the workings of the government. Similarly, the political appointees who head agencies, unlike managers in the private sector, have no real power to remove workers perceived to be inefficient.
Meritocracy and the Division of Labor
American bureaucracy is built on the twin concepts that individuals should be hired because of their abilities to perform certain tasks, and that the bureaucracy itself is organized accord- ing to function. In the State Department, for instance, there is a division for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs; a division for Political Affairs; and a division for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, just to name a few. The State Department performs many func- tions. If the same individuals had to perform them all, they would spread themselves thin across the department. Division of labor allows individuals to specialize and become expert in something specific, allowing for greater efficiency.
Figure 6.1: The government of the United States
The U.S. government is formally organized to achieve efficiency. Business techniques are applied in managing various departments.
From The United States Government Manual (p. 21), by R. A. Mosley & A. C. Thomas, 2009, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office
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Section 6.3 What Do Bureaucrats Do?
Along with this division of labor go two principles that underpin bureaucracy generally, and American bureaucracy in particular: chain of command and span of control. Chain of com- mand refers to the hierarchical nature of the bureaucracy. A department secretary oversees undersecretaries, who oversee assistant secretaries, who oversee division supervisors, who oversee assistant supervisors, who oversee mid-level managers, who oversee subordinates beneath them, and all the way down to the lowest level in the organization. The span of con- trol refers to authority that a particular supervisor might have over subordinates in several units. When the chain of command and span of control are put together, the structure of the bureaucracy resembles a pyramid with the head of a department at the top and line work- ers at the bottom. The line workers are those, like caseworkers in a welfare office or cus- tomer service staff in a Social Security office, who are essentially the public face of the federal bureaucracy for those who need their services.
6.3 What Do Bureaucrats Do?
In simple terms, bureaucrats take orders from those above them and give orders to those below in order to administer programs and deliver public goods and services. In the spirit of separating public administration from politics, bureaucrats implement policies and adminis- ter programs created by elected public officials.
Implement Laws, Policies, and Programs
The bureaucracy, as the organiza- tional form of the executive branch, “executes” laws and policies passed by the legislative branch. As such, much of the bureaucracy is devoted to regulating individual and group behavior. If Congress passes and the president signs a new tax on millionaires, the agency or depart- ment responsible for collecting those taxes is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which is part of the U.S. Treasury Department. The IRS monitors individuals’ incomes and the taxes they pay through report- ing requirements. Because the IRS has the authority to enforce the existing federal tax code, individuals are required to file annual tax returns, and the IRS can audit those suspected of cheating. If individuals do not submit the taxes they owe at the end of the year, the IRS can collect them by putting a lien on an individual’s wages. It can also enforce collections by initiating judicial proceedings against those suspected of tax evasion.
© Seth Perlman/AP/Corbis
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees sift through tax returns at an IRS tax form processing center. As part of the bureaucracy of the executive branch, the IRS enforces policy that has been passed by Congress and signed by the president.
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Section 6.3 What Do Bureaucrats Do?
All these activities are examples of an agency implementing laws that Congress passed and that, by extension, reflect the will of the people. The bureaucracy also includes FBI agents who inves- tigate crimes and federal prosecutors who suspect criminals on behalf of the FBI, workers who deliver the mail, physicians in veterans hospitals, caseworkers who process applications for public assistance, analysts in the Department of Labor who report on monthly unemployment figures, and scientists in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) who look for cures for cancer or in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) who manage space exploration.
Make Laws Through Rule-Making
In theory, the bureaucracy does not make laws, as only Congress has the authority to do so. In reality, though, the bureaucracy makes law through its rule-making function. Once Congress passes a law, the bureaucracy sets the rules for how that law will be implemented, in essence filling in the details. These rules are usually published in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and may also appear in the Federal Register. Published rules are considered by the courts to be as legally binding as statutory law—law made by Congress—provided that they are a reasonable interpretation of the underlying statute. The bureaucracy thus establishes a written record of what it does and makes it publicly available.
Adjudicate Decisions and Disputes
The bureaucracy also exercises a degree of judicial authority through its administrative adju- dication function. When an agency writes rules for how people can receive benefits, it also establishes procedures for how benefits can be terminated. The Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 has adjudicatory requirements that apply when an agency’s statutes require that an order—not an agency rule—be issued. The order is “to be determined on the record after opportunity for an agency hearing.” The result is that such proceedings are to be conducted in a fashion similar to a court.
Proceedings are presided over by impartial administrative law judges who are appointed by the agency with the approval of the Office of Personnel Management. Administrative law pro- ceedings include oral hearings and cross-examination of witnesses and are fully recorded along with documentary evidence. An administrative law judge makes an “initial decision” that is final unless it is appealed to the head of the agency. An agency head can also make a decision after receiving a recommendation from the administrative law judge. Still, courts can review the decisions of agencies, but they are likely to overturn decisions only if they do not conform with the procedural requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act and other statutes. Or they may overturn a decision if they find that an agency’s “action, findings, and conclusions” are not supported by substantial evidence.
The bureaucracy in effect acts like a court, and what occurs is an administrative hearing. Sup- pose, for example, that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) decides to ter- minate a recipient’s benefits because that person failed to abide by the rules. Suppose the specific rule required that the person report to a work site for a minimum of 20 hours a week, and he failed to do this. HHS, of course, justifies its actions by pointing to the rules in the Federal Register. Still, the recipient is a citizen and has rights, so he appeals the termination
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Section 6.4 Types of Bureaucratic Departments
of benefits decision. He presents his case to a panel in HHS that will hear and adjudicate the appeal. The judicial power of the bureaucracy is referred to as agency adjudication, and it occurs when someone has violated agency rules. If the recipient who loses benefits is not satisfied with the result of the hearing, he can always appeal the results to an actual court.
6.4 Types of Bureaucratic Departments
The federal bureaucracy is made up of several types of organizations, and the president, at least at the political level, makes different types of appointments to each organization. Most Americans are familiar with the traditional Cabinet departments such as Justice, Treasury, and State. But there are also independent agencies, independent regulatory commissions, and government corporations. Each of these types of organizations has layers of political appoin- tees and civil servants.
The Cabinet
The 15 Cabinet departments, listed in Table 6.1, comprise about 60% of the federal workforce. These departments generally fall into three categories, although some departments could be classified in more than one category. These categories include functional, clientele, and geo- graphic. Regardless of type, each Cabinet department is further divided into various smaller units, such as bureaus, divisions, or offices. Much of the work gets done in these smaller units.
Independent Agencies
An independent agency is a federal body that is independent of both the president and Con- gress. Congress creates the agency and the president appoints people to it, but after that nei- ther Congress nor the president has much control. That is the idea: to have an agency that can oversee a specific policy or program function without being subject to political pressures. At the same time, independent agencies are subject to oversight, as they can be called to testify at congressional hearings.
The Federal Reserve Board, or “the Fed,” which regulates banks and the money sup- ply, is an example of an independent agency. The president appoints a chair for a period of 4 years, and people who are known as “governors” (not actual elected state gov- ernors) for 14-year terms. Once they are in place, governors may be removed by the president for cause. Although Congress regularly calls the Fed chair to testify, it has no authority over the agency short of rewriting the legislation that created it in the first place.