Saturday, January 16, 2010

A Great Anniversary for Bureaucrats

Today's the anniversary of the signing of the Pendleton Act, which established the Civil Service Commission, and thereby the "civil service".  (This was after the assassination of a President by a job seeker.)

A couple of the lesser-known provisions:
Third, appointments to the public service aforesaid in the departments at Washington shall be apportioned among the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia upon the basis of population as ascertained at the last preceding census. Every application for an examination shall contain, among other things, a statement, under oath, setting forth his or her actual bona fide residence at the time of making the application, as well as how long he or she has been a resident of such place...

SEC. 8. That no person habitually using intoxicating beverages to excess shall be appointed to, or retained in, any office, appointment, or employment to which the provisions of this act are applicable.

SEC. 9. That whenever there are already two or more members of a family in the public service in the grades covered by this act, no other member of such family shall be eligible to appointment to any of said grades.

The first provision was still in effect when I was hired, at least as far as the identification of my state. I think they'd given up on the actual apportionment but it was still technically in place.

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