The Administrative State Lacks Accountability 

  • Millions of bureaucrats exercise important political powers while never having to run for election, and voters can only wield democratic accountability over them through presidential elections every four years.
  • On average, the federal bureaucracy’s dismissal process takes 170 to 370 days, and most years, less than 0.2% of the federal bureaucracy is let go from their positions.
  • Since managers cannot easily terminate federal employees for failing to deliver on work targets, the work-from-home arrangement adopted by many agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic further insulates employees from accountability.

Bureaucratic Agencies are Anti-Democratic and Anything but Apolitical 

  • In 2024, zero donations were made to Republicans by Department of Education employees, and at many large and important government agencies, the overwhelming majority of donations went to Democrats such as at the Department of Labor (95%), the Department of Commerce (92%), or the Department of the Interior (98%). 
  • Although the Constitution vests Congress with the power to legislate, executive agencies produce about twenty times the pages of regulations annually.
  • Sheltered from the executive branch’s accountability, the federal bureaucracy operates unconstitutionally, and the Supreme Court will soon need to decide the status of our current administrative governance.

The Government Can Reform and Rein in the Federal Bureaucracy 

  • The Trump administration now requires plans from each top career (SES) employee for performance reviews, with boards managed by appointees rather than other career officials. 
  • Trump also increased accountability through Schedule F reforms, which force mid-tier leadership in agencies to be more responsive to their political appointee bosses, and the “Return to In-Person Work” executive order.
  • Through reinstituting a neutral civil service examination, moving towards at-will employment, and requiring direct accountability to the executive, the three-branch constitutional system can once again operate apart from an illegitimate fourth branch, which currently exercises “expertise” rather than the expression of democratic will.

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