Backstage in a Bureaucracy: Politics and Public Service

Chapter 4 In the Beginning

13 4 In the Beginning Most people may believe that appointment to a high-level government office is a reward for loyal service to the party or the winning candidate. This could be true, but it is unquestionable that the belief political hacks are running our public agencies does nothing to enhance our view of either the agencies or the people in them. Susan Chandler’s selection as director and cabinet member, though perhaps unusual and refreshing, raises questions about what kind of knowledge is deemed valuable and what constitutes the appropriate balance between knowledge of any kind—organizational, policy, or professional —and loyalty. The selection process for a political appointment varies across states and departments. Most governors want to appoint people whom they know, trust, and, often, have worked with before. Many times these people come from the political campaigns of winning candidates. Over the years, however, the role of a director—particularly in large and complex agencies like the department of health, personnel, or human services—has become specialized. Rather than from the political world, human service directors now are frequently hired from other states,other departments,or the private sector to manage these complex agencies. The Invitation; or,Who Really Gets These Jobs? Newly elected Hawai‘i governor Benjamin Cayetano broke with Island tradition and put job announcements in the local newspapers asking interested (and qualified) people to apply for all of his cabinet posts.To review the applications and conduct interviews, the governor created a ten-member selection committee.The committee that interviewed me included Mazie Hirono, the newly elected lieutenant governor; several of the recently appointed cabinet members, including Margery Bronster, the attorney general (AG), and Earl Anzai, the Budget and Finance (B&F) director; John Radcliffe, an officer of the University of Hawai‘i (UH) faculty union; CharlesToguchi, the governor’s chief of staff; and a few other advisers and friends of Cayetano. So, how was the human services director really appointed? I had not been active in the Cayetano gubernatorial campaign or personally acquainted with the governor. Hindsight suggests I was interviewed because the governor had heard about “this lady with a lot of interest and experience in social welfare issues from the University of Hawai‘i.” Despite the new governor’s often-stated ambivalence about the eggheads who came from the university and did not live in the real world, he ended up appointing two cabinet members who were university professors.The other was Seiji Naya, a respected academic economist and researcher, who like me, had had little government experience.Why did he do this? The governor had spent twelve years in the legislature before becoming the lieutenant governor for eight years and strongly believed that insiders or government bureaucrats often were stuck in their ways. He believed that when he wanted to know how to get things done better and quicker, longtime bureaucrats would eloquently explain why they could not be done better and quicker. Cayetano felt that academics from the university had access to new knowledge and perhaps would be creative assets to his cabinet . In my case, the appointment was not political in the sense that it was not based upon years of service to the Democratic Party, to Democratic Maybe we’ll find SOMEONE! 14 | Backstage in a Bureaucracy candidates, or to the governor. I don’t know whether the governor had sought more partisan and politically loyal people, but if he did, none evidently met with his approval (or was willing to take the job).The frequently heard statement among state administrators that a director must be prepared to take the bullet for the governor is unfamiliar to the new appointee , but is quickly learned. In late December 1993, the governor still had not filled the director’s position for DHS.All of the other cabinet appointments had been made. The Interview; or,What Should I Say or Not Say? While the governor might be the first public servant, on a day-to-day basis he is a person to whom most people, even those with a power base outside of government, are expected to show deference.This presented an interesting problem for Chandler, who comes from an organizational culture (the university) where those norms don’t much apply. It also begs the important question of whether it is a good thing—that is, something in the public’s interest —for the governor not to hear, on...