2017 June 10^th

I was thinking about Lena Epstein, the subject of my June 1 blog, Ms. Epstein is the third generation owner of Vasco Automotive products in Detroit and will run as a Republican against Debbie Stabenow, in 2018. Ms. Epstein’s platform, so far as she has affirmed one, is to offer generous 10 percent tax cuts to all voters. Standing outside a polling place with envelopes stuffed with hundred dollar bills and offering one to each entering voter is illegal… but making this promise isn’t. Go figure.

The politics after the Civil War was unbelievably rotten. Those who worked to get politicians elected were assured of good jobs at generous pay whether or not they were competent. Sometime there were more job seekers than there were jobs. Sometimes that led to assassinations. That’s how Teddy Roosevelt became president when President McKinley was shot and the same thing pushed Vice President Chester Alan Arthur to the presidency when James Garfield was assassinated in 1881. (Except for how they attained the office there are very few similarities between Arthur and Roosevelt.)

The need for reform had been apparent for some time. Gorge H. Pendleton, a senator from Ohio, produced a bill that specified that certain federal employees could only be fired for incompetence. Initially this covered only about ten percent of federal employees but outgoing presidents could cover any of their appointees and soon most federal employees were covered. It didn’t help President Arthur however because he had destroyed the use of patronage by the movers and shakers in both parties with the result that he was a one term president.

There are now tests you have to pass to get a civil service job; these tests ae similar to the SAT and ACT tests used by some colleges to screen their applicants. So to work for the government in a secure job you must do well on a civil service test… but to get elected to an office that allows you to appoint someone who will be required to pass such a test requires nothing at all but getting the necessary votes …which can  be bought.