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26 Wayne L. Rev. 97 (1979-1980)
Federal Employment - The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 - Removing Incompetents and Protecting Whistle Blowers

handle is hein.journals/waynlr26 and id is 99 raw text is: FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT-THE CIVIL SERVICE REFORM ACT OF 1978-REMOVING INCOMPETENTS AND PROTECTING WHISTLE BLOWERS Criticism of the performance of federal employees and of the civil service system under which they operate is hardly a new development, but in recent years such criticism has increased steadily.1 Indeed, the belief that government workers are inefficient and often incompetent, yet almost impossible to remove, is, by now, firmly imbedded in the minds of most Americans.2 Therefore, it should be no surprise that pressures for reform would arise. Perhaps somewhat more surprising, in light of past history,3 is the fact that wide-ranging legislation deal- ing with the civil service system, the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978,4 was actually passed last year. Two somewhat interrelated subjects have attracted considerable attention both in and out of Congress and were to be dealt with by the bill. As already mentioned, the common conception of the civil service system is that the procedure for removing even the most incompetent federal employee is so unwieldy and time-consuming that it is almost never used, and even then is rarely successful. On the other hand, whenever a bureaucrat becomes a whistle blower, a government employee who discloses information pertaining to some illegality or some embarrassing and otherwise undisclosed fact concerning the government, many methods are available to get rid of or somehow silence the employee.s One of the proclaimed goals of the Carter ad- 1. E.g., Campbell, Running Out of Esteem? CIV. SERViCEJ., Jan./Mar. 1978, at 4; Ognibene, Is Civil Service Strangling the Government? SATURDAY REV., Nov. 11, 1978, at 22; Sturm, Can Carter Get the Civil Service to Shape Up? FORBES, Feb. 6, 1978, at 41. 2. See What's Wrong with the Civil Service, WASH. MONTHLY, Apr. 1977, at 50; Methvin, Why Can't Do-Nothing Bureaucrats Be Fired? READER's DIG., Nov. 1977, at 119. 3. President Carter was by no means the first president in recent history to at- tempt a serious reform of the civil service system. Presidents throughout the twentieth century have made similar efforts. Herbert Hoover tried to reorganize the civil service in 1932, but congressional hostility prevented any changes. Even with a heavily Democratic Congress, Franklin Roosevelt could not make the changes he desired. Because FDR sought to make the bureaucracy more responsive to the President, he aroused congressional fears of expanding executive power. Political wrangling unrelated to civil service itself was a factor in these disputes, as it was in Richard Nixon's futile attempts to reorganize the Cabinet system. Congressional fears about expanding executive and bureaucratic power, opposition by federal employees to changes in their status, and desires of agency heads and congressional committees to preserve their position and authority generally combined to cripple or defeat past presidential in- itiatives. See, e.g., D. ROSENBLOOM, FEDERAL SERVICE AND THE CONSTITUTION (1971); Jones & Woll, The Interest Vested in Chaos, 224 THE NATION 402 (1977). 4. 5 U.S.C.A. §§ 1110-8913 (West Supp. 1979). 5. See Dudar, The Price of Blowing the Whistle, N.Y. Times, Oct. 30, 1977, § 6 (Magazine) at 41; Isbell, Dissidents in the Federal Government, Civ. LIB. REV., Sept./Oct. 1977, at 72. See notes 72-73 & accompanying text infra.

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