POLITICS IN HIRING

It is not unusual for presidential administrations to favor people who share their party’s views for government jobs. The extent to which the Bush administration has done this, however, has reached a new high – or low. This is especially troubling at the Justice Department, an agency with a mission of upholding the law, not doing an administration’s political bidding.

A yearlong investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general recently concluded that department officials broke rules and regulations and federal laws for six years in using political and ideological factors in recruiting lawyers and legal interns. It found that many qualified candidates had been rejected “because of their perceived political or ideological affiliations.”

Membership in certain liberal groups and interest in environmental or social justice issues were grounds for rejection, while membership in the conservative Federalist Society was considered a big plus.

Specifically, a 100-page report concluded that two members of a department screening committee “took political or ideological affiliations into account in deselecting candidates in violation of department policy and federal law.” It found that Esther Slater McDonald “wrote disparaging statements about candidates’ liberal and Democratic Party affiliations on the applications she received and that she voted to deselect candidates on that basis.” The report said the committee chairman, Michael Elston, failed to take appropriate action on her misconduct and himself rejected some candidates “on impermissible considerations.”

The report is the first of a series to be issued on a continuing investigation that began with last year’s scandal over the firing of nine United States attorneys. Yet to come are findings as to the precise role of the White House in the politicization of the Justice Department.

Evidence gathered in the investigation shows that the use of political standards in the recruitment process reached its height in 2006 under then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. His successor, Michael Mukasey, has led a reform of the personnel practices and issued a memo on March 10 requiring all political appointees to read the regulations requiring merit-based hiring and forbidding political considerations. The report commends the changes but urges additional precautions against politicization.

Abuses in the Bush Justice Department amount to a partial revival of the old spoils system in which the party that won an election claimed the right to reward its own people by giving them federal jobs. The system was supposed to end with the creation of the bipartisan Civil Service Commission and the institution of the merit system in 1883 to cover most federal employment.

As for Ms. McDonald and Mr. Elston, the report gave them a mere slap on the wrist. It said the department could not discipline them because both had resigned. It added that its findings should be considered if either of them ever applied for another position in the department.

Further reports should help us learn more about how the administration violated regulations, laws and even the Constitution. The next step is to consider whether hiring standards need to be tightened to rein in this practice.