The Sport of Spoils

But neither of the Bush kids was ever able to get a job. Federal law prohibits the president from appointing his wife or any other close family member to a job in the executive branch. The Postal Revenue and Federal Salary Act of 1967 is also called the Bobby Kennedy law, because it was approved in response to President John F. Kennedy's appointment of his brother as attorney general.

Using very broad language, the 1967 law says that "a public official may not appoint, employ, promote, [or] advance" a relative in an agency "in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control." A "relative" under this law includes not only immediate family but aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, in-laws and stepbrothers, stepsisters, half brothers and half sisters.

The purpose of the law, according to its legislative history, is "to prevent a public official from appointing a relative to a . . . position . . . in the agency in which the public official serves or over which he exercises supervision." The law applies to all agencies in the executive, legislative and judicial branches, and appears to extend any job, not just senior positions.

It appears to rule out boards and commissions and virtually everything else. There's some squishiness when it comes to spouses serving on nonpaying jobs on certain commissions, and President Bush was able to appoint a cousin to an ambassadorship, but the law seems pretty conclusive in ruling out executive branch positions.

After the Sarah Palin and Joe Biden nominations, there was some head-scratching about the possibility that the "first dude" or one of the Biden sons -- one is Delaware's attorney general -- would be able to get a job in the administration.

The vice president, with Cheney having set the precedent, does not appear to be covered. Seems like Congress, as a good government, good management, anti-nepotism measure, might want to do a little expanding of the 1967 law.

In Fossil News . . .

The country is riveted on the presidential election, and the administration is now officially lame and quacking, but the bureaucracy is alive, well and beavering away, filling vacancies and announcing major news.

For example, the Department of Energy yesterday put out a NEWSALERT to the media letting us know that Victor K. Der, a 35-year Energy veteran, has been named principal deputy assistant secretary for fossil energy. He'll be helping to oversee research and development of fossil energy and the U.S. petroleum reserves.