Pendleton Act

"You guys think you're above the law. Well, you ain't above mine."
--Nico Toscani (Above the Law)

In July of 1881, President James Garfield was shot and killed by an attorney who was furious that the president did not give him a job in the new administration. Operating on the theory that it had to eliminate the system of patronage in government if it was to prevent future assassinations, Congress passed the Pendleton Act.

Signed into law by Chester A. Arthur in 1883, the Pendleton Act created a permanent civil service that could not be undone each election cycle. The administrative, or 'deep,' state was born.

The Constitution does not provide for a permanent class of bureaucrats that possess authority outside of the three branches of government. The Pendleton Act created a layer of statist imposition that the democratic process cannot control.

Perhaps the original intent was to make the civil service class apolitical, but it has become anything but. Indeed, any political party worth its salt would endeavor to place operatives inside the administrative state so that agendas could be advanced regardless of who is in office.

We have seen this in the spades over the past few years as partisans installed at the highest levels of agencies such as the CDC, EPA, DOJ, Federal Reserve, FBI, and CIA render decisions that favor particular political agendas.

I don't know whether the constitutionality of the Pendleton Act has ever been challenged in court. If not, then it should be. This week's West Virginia v. EPA SCOTUS ruling moves in that direction.

Meanwhile, people must continue to wake up to the reality that there is currently a fourth branch of the federal government, one that arguably possesses more power than the other three branches, that essentially operates at its own discretion, and that is largely untouchable by the ballot box.