When the November election happened, I remembered how during the Bush Administration one of my NEPA contacts at EPA seemed to be in a grumpy mood for the entire term. Which caused me to wonder “what partisan inclinations do federal employees have, and how does that affect their ability to work when the opposing party has been voted in?” Do agencies differ in their employees’ political leanings?
I wonder, because I don’t remember talking about it much at work. I suppose this could be a factor of the specific staffs I worked on. I had a vague vibe that we were mostly D’s, and somewhat centrist, but I don’t remember talking about it much.
There was Yates Building hall talk that during the Clinton Administration, political choices of personnel reached down to the GS-15 level for the first time. I don’t have any independent evidence to corroborate that, and as folks have said, there were definitely tensions between politicals and agency folks at that time. I remember attending a Yale Alumni meeting as the new Admin came in in which the new Undersec called FS folks “dinosaurs”. As in “you smart graduates should come to work there, so we can squeeze out the dinosaurs.”
I went to the Smithsonian down the block from our office and bought a dinosaur pin and wore it on my lapel to work after that (probably not the smartest thing). I thought at the time, “but you need those employees to carry out what you want to do, so maybe you shouldn’t malign them.” Sound familiar?
When I read that DOGE people would be imbedded in agencies, I thought that, if I were still working “hey I would volunteer to work with them!” to try to focus their attentions on things I and employees agree with, or at least to encourage them to survey employees and pick off some employee-preferred low-hanging fruit. Because part of the challenge is to try to have good working relationships with politicals, so that they listen to you.
But then I thought that that might show my willingness to work with Rs, which could be a negative on my career in the future when the tide turned. And I think that sometimes it’s not so much actual political retaliation, as gossip by your enemies hoping that politicals will think less of you. I’ve always thought that the power of personal chemistry is downplayed in much of the management literature. Even at the Forest Service, which I found to be mostly genial and cooperative people, there are cliques and resentments festering, a certain amount of backstabbing, certainly peoples’ perceptions (gossip?) affecting selection decisions, and all of that. Will you be in trouble next Admin if you worked on one of this Admin’s favored projects? If you projected an air of too much enthusiasm? Who judges that? You can see that this is more complex than meets the eye, and that’s just in DC.
One more story. Once when I worked in Region 2, there was a certain particular appointee (can’t recall the color of Admin) and I didn’t think she listened to me. I suggested my Regional Forester talk to her instead of me, because we in the Region were more likely to get our way. I think he saw this as upward delegation (bad), but in my view, you want to send in the one who has the best vibes with that person. I kind of guessed there might be female by female bad vibes involved, but that’s another thing we seldom talk about. To my mind, the best outcomes for our team involved taking personal chemistry into account.
There’s the question of how much complaining is OK. When I worked in RPA, our boss was Rhey Solomon. He gave us five minutes to complain about the new requirement of the day, and then we needed to get on with it. And in our case, the irritating tasks were given us by Forest Service higher-ups and not even political appointees.
There’s also the idea of employees not being appreciated. I remember when Reagan was President, and his ranch was threatened by wildfire. I thought then “he doesn’t appreciate us, why are we fighting this fire?” The reason I’m telling these stories is that tensions themselves are nothing new.
I hope that others can share their own stories and impressions.
Next post: what I found in the literature.
How do you distinguish politics from professionalism? Are you making a distinction between line and staff? Staff is typically an advocate for their professional interest – wildlife conservation, for example. You can’t expect them to be real supportive of an administration that frowns on what they do. I think they still have a role advising about effects of decisions, but will we see a mass departure of ologists disillusioned with their employer or purged for their professionalism?
Jon, I think that what you are saying is interesting, because I feel (still) like an advocate for excellence in the science and technology of forest trees. Whether the Admin likes to use my skills for growing forest for conservation, carbon, or wood products, decided upon by voters, I bring my skills to the table. That’s what I signed on for. And I think when we signed on our Oath of Office said we would follow the Constitution, which I interpreted as doing what the duly elected politicals want.
Sure, there is a gray area where we can try to convince our bosses, and our bosses their bosses, so all the way up the line to the politicals of our policy preferences. Again, I think the Oregon Chapter of the American Fisheries Society has it right. https://orafs.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/APPROVED_CODE_OF_ETHICS-2019.pdf
“I recognize that my deeply held, professional convictions may conflict with the interests and convictions of others. I am obligated to be clear and honest in distinguishing between reports of
results from rigorous study and my professional opinions based on observations or intuition. My professional opinions clearly so identified have value, but must not be put forward as fact. In
addition, the temporal, spatial, and contextual limits of my facts and their confidence limits must be clearly acknowledged.
I will distinguish between recommendations based on science and those based on policy, both to avoid confusing the public and to better separate political decisions from aquatic science.
I recognize that my professional convictions may sometimes conflict with the policies of my employers. When such conflict arises, I will provide decision makers with full supporting evidence
and sufficient time for study and action before I publicly disclose my views. But my commitments to the profession and to ecosystems, including their human components, may compel me on
occasion to speak against policies or actions of my employers.”
Sharon, The Oath of Office “I, ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
Is there somewhere in the Constitution that civil servants do what duly elected politicals want? If a duly elected political asks a civil servant to do something that conflicts with the Constitution or Constitutional law, the civil servant should disobey the order (I have done that). This system was designed to ensure a President does not become a king. From what I am reading and what I am hearing from various not to be named sources, this system is in the process of getting trashed right now.
What Mike said. I’d also point out that the last paragraph of the Fisheries Society code is what I was thinking of, and right how it appears that professionalism would be rewarded with retribution for “speak(ing) against policies or actions of my employers.” (The FBI personnel that just got fired appear to have been doing their jobs professionally.)
It was a fairly simple and straightforward principle in my experience. As a grunt, I didn’t care; as a Line Officer, oftentimes having over 400 employees under my leadership it was just another taboo to talk politics! I/we didn’t tolerate discrimination, physical or verbal attacks and certainly no discussing politics. I never posted anything political on Facebook until after I retired. I thought I was a good Line Officer, not a long career but a fast one. Going back into the FS at the tender age of 46 probably helped…
I saw the decline in professionalism in the second half of Obama’s Administration, but it coincided with Regional Office duties so I think it may have been more situational than political…
Mike……your comment
“Is there somewhere in the Constitution that civil servants do what duly elected politicals want? If a duly elected political asks a civil servant to do something that conflicts with the Constitution or Constitutional law, the civil servant should disobey the order (I HAVE DONE THAT).”
As a cynical 19 year I took the oath to become a US citizen.
I was prepared to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States of America. Just like Canadians swear an oath to King and Canada, and likewise for the rest of the world.
I was really impressed that I swore and oath to the Constitution of the United States, but not the USA. Even as a 19 year old, I knew this was exceptional.
As I walked down the courthouse steps I floated down the steps as I realized that I JOINED a country dedicated to an IDEA, rather than some nationalistic notion. I felt real good about becoming an American.
So my question is…..what work or job did you turn down on Constitutional basis as a Federal employee.
Vladimir,
First, I just want to say I love this: “As I walked down the courthouse steps I floated down the steps as I realized that I JOINED a country dedicated to an IDEA, rather than some nationalistic notion. I felt real good about becoming an American.”
I’ve been party to challenging the USFS as an employee (one of those times a seasonal) in court twice. I won’t go into those since one was a civil suit and the other would be a stretch to call it tied to constitutional law – the FS settled both lawsuits in favor of the plaintiffs and I somehow kept my job.
In a third situation, one in which I think I have mentioned on TSW before, there was a request for information by a Congressman back in the early 90s. The Congressman requested, and the USFS then instructed everyone to respond, information on every employee who was a member of an ENGO. I had just finished taking an evening graduate class on constitutional law and knew this was an illegal request. I contacted FSEEE (I believe back then they were AFSEEE) by phone and told them about it. They followed up immediately with the WO and the next day the request was dropped. In that particular situation I was able to stay anonymous.
I thought you meant in your professional capacity.
I worked under the Clinton Administration in planning so got to see bad land management up close and personal. Even with all that they did, I never did find a constitutional reason to file suit to stop their “bad management practices”. The Constitution does not address the question of stupidity.
Forest Service personnel and administrative policies, on the other hand as you mentioned, disregarded laws and governmental regulations. I really don’t know where the Forest Service found the AO’s and HR directors, but they could have done better.
Both the BLM and NPS were head and shoulders better than the Forest Service in that arena.
Yay, for Andy and his group’s work. I don’t always agree with them and him, but they play a vital role in our ecosystem functioning.
However, what I found was that I could certainly work on The Smokey Wire’s predecessor in my spare time, but that I could also be removed from my job and shunned for outside of work activities. I was directly told that an employee of mine couldn’t be lateralled to the position she wanted because my boss believed that she was doing the blog. So yes, people have been punished for their outside activities.
Meanwhile people were leaking info from projects to outside groups regularly without anyone trying to figure out who was doing it or stopping it. Point being, it’s pretty complicated.
Another FSEEE success story. A USFS peer on a different forest filed an objection to an EA on his own time with his own computer. He was within his constitutional rights as long as he did not use non-public information. He didn’t. He was admonished by the WO and then they sent two people to intimidate… uh… meet with him. FSEEE provided him with a lawyer and I donated to his defense fund through FSEEE. The WO backed off. He stayed in his job and continued to do his normal excellent work until he retired.
All of that said, one of my all time favorite district rangers and I had a discussion concerning freedom of speech as a government employee and he said, “Yeah, you may legally have the right to speak up, but that doesn’t make it a smart career thing to do.”
Oh, I had an intimidation experience as well. I was in DC for a 2012 Planning Rule meeting and got a call from R-2 public affairs that the Department Person (who had an office in the Chief’s Office) for communications wanted to talk to me. This sounded intimidating, but since I was in town, I decided just to go to the WO. It turned out that the Department Person had deputized Dan Jiron and Joe Walsh to intimidate me.. it didn’t work very well as you can imagine, given their and my personalities.
I guess I should have contacted FSEEE during that period.. live and learn.
I read somewhere (it was a particular type of employment I can’t track down now) that Trump is asking who employees voted for and donated to. Records of the latter wouldn’t be hard to cross-check against federal employees, at least per this: https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/how-to-research-public-records/individual-contributions/