Security Won Out Over Workers, Study Says

The Pendleton Act, the 1883 law that took the first step toward ending the spoils system and establishing a merit-based civil service, was in response to a crisis -- the assassination of President James Garfield by a disgruntled job seeker.

The 2002 Homeland Security Act also came about because of a crisis -- the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center that killed nearly 3,000.

With this history as a backdrop, a team of researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School have put together a case study of the 2002 law that led to new personnel management policies for the Department of Homeland Security.

The study views the Sept. 11 attacks as pivotal, creating "a new and different policy environment" that helped the Bush administration override union objections and frame the debate for stronger management control.

"The supporters of reform presented their arguments in terms of national security; their opponents argued in terms of collective bargaining rights. In the post-9/11 policy environment, 'national security' was a political trump card. If the first civil service reform was triggered by a national calamity, so was the most recent," the study says.

The 122-page study, "Legislating Civil Service Reform: The Homeland Security Act of 2002," is the first major analysis of how the administration's ideas became law.

The study's authors are Douglas A. Brook and Cynthia L. King , professors at the Naval Postgraduate School, and Navy Lt. David W. Anderson and Marine Corps Capt. Joshua P. Bahr , who earned masters of business administration at the naval school. (They have posted their study at http://www.nps.navy.mil/gsbpp/CDMR/publications.htm .)

The Homeland Security Act included a 68-word personnel management section that administration officials later translated into a complex regulation that overhauled how Homeland Security employees are paid, promoted and disciplined. The regulation also sought to curb the clout of unions.

The effort to weaken bargaining rights, however, has pitted unions against the Bush administration. Unions have won the first rounds of litigation in federal courts, and, partly as a result, the personnel management changes at Homeland Security are moving slowly and may be in jeopardy of failing.

The study describes the 2002 law as being drafted in secrecy by five White House policy and budget officials -- Richard A. Falkenrath , Mark W. Everson , Joel D. Kaplan , Bruce Lawlor and Brad Berenson -- who were dubbed the G-5.

They reported to senior administration officials Andrew H. Card Jr. , Joshua B. Bolten , Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. , Alberto R. Gonzales and Nicholas E. Calio , the study says.

The G-5 spent little time debating personnel management policy changes, according to the study. "The decision to do it was very easy and not contentious. I don't want to say the decision was made lightly, but I don't think it was ever a debate," Lawlor told the study authors.

When it came time to draft the homeland bill, the G-5 turned to the Office of Personnel Management for help to write the personnel management provision. The agency's working group, the study says, included OPM officials W. Edward Flynn III, Jeff Sumberg , Edward V. Hickey III , John E. Landers and Harry A. Wolf .

The White House bill creating the new department "was drafted in secret," the study said. It adds that "concerns of interested parties were not addressed until the issue was in the public domain where the debates took on a more strident and uncompromising tone."

The law's passage can be largely explained "by the power of the rhetorical framing of the debate," according to the study.

"Ultimately the debate centered on the needs of the 'American people' vs. the needs of the 'federal worker.' It is our contention that audiences identified more directly with the administration's arguments than the union's arguments within the culture of fear following 9/11," the authors write.

The case study stops at the end of 2002, but the authors suggest that the initial secrecy left many details to be fought over three years later. "The price of secrecy and generality in the design and enactment phases," the study notes, "may very well be delay and discord during the implementation phase."

Stephen Barr's e-mail address isbarrs@washpost.com.