No. of Recommendations: 10
No it isn't. Everyone in the Executive branch serves at the pleasure of the President.
No, they don't. All the political appointees serve at the pleasure of the President. Nearly all of the rest of the employees are protected by the Civil Service Act, and many of them are also subject to union agreements. All of which limit the President's ability to terminate them except for cause.
One more time. This is not the system we have:
*When democrats win, they get to staff the government and run it as how they see fit.
*When democrats lose, they get to keep the people they have in place and run the government as they see fit.
We're not doing that anymore.
We never did. The system we have is:
*No matter who wins, no one gets to re-staff the government. The overwhelming majority of government workers remain, because the Civil Service Act prevents the spoils system of allocating government jobs just to people who support you.
That's it. When Democrats win, they get to staff only the positions that come vacant. When Republicans win, they get to staff only the positions that come vacant.
The reason you (mistakenly) believe that this isn't true is because federal jobs tend to fill up with people who believe in the mission of their agency, for the most part. So when you look at EPA, you're going to see people who (mostly) support protecting the environment - because if you don't want to protect the environment, why would you pick a job at the EPA? The same is true of more conservative-aligning agencies (the Border Patrol is going to have more "law and order" supporters), but that's not where conservatives direct their ire - so they're getting very upset that the agencies they're mad at a largely filled with people who don't share their views.
Again, this is a function of Congress getting to set the nation's policies - not the President. The agencies are supposed to fulfill Congress' goals in setting them up. So agencies that are created to advance goals like protecting the environment are going to end up being staffed by people who want to protect the environment. Not because Democrats are the only ones who get to staff the government, but because the sort of people who are willing to spend their careers as a government marine biologist protecting the environment (for example) tend to be the sort who believe that government should hire marine biologists to protect the environment.
