Common Good

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The New Spoils System

Andrew Park

Schoolchildren all learn that the spoils system in the 19th century was evil. No matter how inept, political hacks got and kept government jobs. The currency was campaign support: Public jobs were for sale to the highest bidder. The idea of “good government” was an oxymoron.
 
Fast forward to today. No matter how inept, public employees keep their jobs. Over an 18-year study period in Illinois, two teachers out of 95,000 were terminated annually for poor performance. That’s twice the rate as in California. In federal government, over 99 percent get a “fully successful” rating.
 
A poor teacher can deprive young children of the ability to read. That should be intolerable. The harm of near-zero accountability is not just poor teachers, however, but failed schools. The knowledge that performance doesn’t matter sucks all energy and pride out of a school. A poor school can deprive the children of an entire community of essential life skills. Why is this not a scandal? Chicago has 22 schools where not one student is proficient in reading.
 
What’s happened is in plain sight: Public employee unions have become the new spoils system. In exchange for massive campaign support, unions get collective bargaining agreements that control the operating machinery of government.
 
In the Chicago mayoral election this week, now headed for a runoff, the two top candidates were defined by their public union support. One candidate, Brandon Johnson, was funded almost entirely by the teachers and other unions.
 
This is the state of American democracy: No accountability. No manageability. Good government is an oxymoron.
 
What do we do? The spoils system in the 19th century was finally replaced, after the assassination of President Garfield by a disappointed job seeker, by civil service—a non-political hiring framework in which public employees got and kept their jobs based on merit. That’s why it was called “the merit system.”
 
America needs a new merit system for government. But how do we break free of the public union contractual and political stranglehold? At least the old spoils system had episodic accountability when a new party came to power. The union spoils system is permanent: Government by the public unions, for the public unions.
 
This excerpt from Not Accountable in National Review summarizes how public unions have disempowered voters and should be unconstitutional. Democracy can’t work under union controls.

  • Caroline Banaszak, Deputy Editor of The Ripon Forum, reviewed Not Accountable, writing that it “should be on the reading list of any American who wants a more effective government.”