In DC, “Experience” May Not Mean What You Think It Means
Newsletter 62: Mixed signals but much more to come
Last Wednesday, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo emerged as a frontrunner for Secretary of Health and Human Services, seemingly out of nowhere. By that afternoon, RDP had posted a blog detailing her disqualifying health record and asking, “are you kidding me?” The next day, she indicated that she had taken herself out of the running. Coincidence?
Of course we don’t actually believe our little blog is that powerful. But, as Raimondo’s quick retreat demonstrates, rapid, forceful organizing from a wide swathe of progressive groups can be.
It’s imperative that that pressure not dissipate, even as the number of new names increases and the power of the jobs gradually decreases. That’s because corporate America will be paying attention to every single one of the positions left to come. Wall Street bankers are already predicting that they can achieve their goals with others of the 4000 appointees who will eventually staff a Biden administration.
2020 (and potentially 2021)
Unlike in some of the personnel fights thus far, progressives last week could celebrate more than just blocking the worst option (as for this week’s, you can read some thoughts here and here). On Friday, the transition team announced that California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a vocal supporter of Medicare for All, as their pick for HHS. Of course, Becerra will not be able to implement a single payer healthcare system as HHS Secretary (or, at least, there’s no world in which the Biden administration seizes on the controversial way to make it happen), other portions of his record are also encouraging. As California Attorney General, Becerra has not only defended the Affordable Care Act from the Trump administrations’ attacks but also taken on healthcare monopolies. We could use much more of that sort of approach at HHS.
Some, however, were not thrilled about the announcement. Ross Douthat is horrified that this political appointee might (gasp!) make policy. (Better, he insists, to do nothing but bask in a vague aura of bipartisanship than to actually deliver real results.) Several Senators, meanwhile, are insisting that Becerra doesn’t have the necessary experience to lead the department, unlike -- we’re not kidding -- former pharmaceutical lobbyist and current HHS Secretary Alex Azar. Nevermind that Becerra sat on the Ways & Means subcommittee on Health during his almost three decades in Congress. Or that, through his investigation into Sutter Health, he has dug deep into the details of our barbaric, corporate healthcare system.
That is, quite simply, not the sort of experience that these Senators or many inside-the-beltway types value. (While these present critiques are coming from one side of the aisle, they are of a kind with the sort of pushback that groups advocating for a stronger wall between private sector influence peddling and government service have received from both sides.) Experience is aggressively exploiting your connections to deliver even bigger profits to your pharmaceutical clients. Or it is peddling your intimate knowledge of a particular corner of government to get corporate wrongdoers out from under regulators’ thumbs. Basically, if you’ve spent a bit of time in government, then sold everything you know to the highest bidder, you’re qualified for virtually any job under the sun. If, by contrast, you’ve put in your time at various levels of public service, foregoing a lucrative turn through the revolving door, your prospects for higher office are somehow much slimmer.
An individual’s performance in government prior to revolving out also has little bearing on their claim to incomparable experience and absolute deservingness for higher office. Former Secretary of Agriculture and current dairy lobbyist Tom Vilsack is reportedly to reprise his role at USDA. Does it matter that he punted on a key Obama campaign promise to take on BigAg monopolies? Or that, under his watch, USDA manipulated data on black farmers to make itself look better? Of course not. Similarly, should we care that Sally Yates stood in the way of the Obama administration’s ambitious program to grant clemency to 10,000 wrongly accused people, prompting it to fall far short of its goal and the subordinate in charge of it to resign in protest? According to key operatives, no.
We wouldn’t want to mischaracterize this position so it bears noting that those who espouse it insist that one other type of person is unquestionably qualified for appointment at the government’s highest levels: any businessperson. Did this businessperson do anything related to their proposed government portfolio? Doesn’t matter. Do they have even a passing familiarity with the agency? Who cares? They are businesspeople and, thus, good at everything apparently. Indeed, no matter the sector they worked in or the job they performed, it is simply assumed that these figures are masters of logistics, management, and general good sense. Of course, if it was true that corporate lobbyists and executives were best-suited for governing, the Azar-led COVID-19 response would have been world-leading and the Trump administration the most successful in history.
All of this is to say, the next time you see a DC-insider-type invoking “experience” to elevate or denigrate an appointee, it’s worth digging a little deeper. Does this person have a track record working on these issues? How good a job did they do? On whose behalf were they working? Groups like ours want a federal government filled with people who have relevant expertise and a commitment to the public interest, not those who trade intel from public service for personal gain. Only the most out of touch, inside-the-beltway figures could possibly interpret that as narrowing rather than expanding the pool of public servants.
Governance
The Trump administration continues to move forward with its new Schedule F civil service classification, potentially facilitating many Trump appointees’ efforts to “burrow in” and wreak havoc for the next administration. It remains imperative that Congress implement a fix now and close this loophole so that future administrations cannot make waves of burrowing routine.
Thanks to reporting from ProPublica, we now know that some burrowing through more traditional avenues is already occurring. A handful of appointees have been hired into career positions where they could sabotage the incoming Biden administration. The incoming administration will need to be attentive to that risk and have a plan in place to manage it (up to and including firing those who are found to have improperly burrowed in).
Congressional Oversight
With a new stimulus deal on the horizon, lawmakers are voting on a one week government funding extension so the two efforts can be tied together. (One does wonder why it took House Democrats so long to exercise this bit of leverage). As they put the deals together, Democrats should not forego fights over a handful of small but meaningful measures to minimize the Trump administration’s damage on the way out the door. As our Yevgeny Shrago detailed for the American Prospect last week, excluding funding for implementation of schedule F and new regulations could significantly reduce the destruction with which the Biden administration needs to contend.
It also remains just as essential that next week Democrats not agree to a deal to fund the government through next September. While a new stimulus bill is belated and welcome, the deal that’s on the table is hardly a stunner. Some seem to believe that Biden’s inauguration will make way for another, stronger relief measure in January. That, however, hardly seems guaranteed if Democrats lose in the Georgia runoff and preemptively surrender the leverage that might get Senate Republicans to the table. Sure, deteriorating conditions might force them to pull up a chair at some point, but as the past year has demonstrated, they’re willing to tolerate a great deal of suffering without flinching.
Independent Agencies
Late last week, Trump’s nominee, Christopher Waller, was confirmed to one of the Federal Reserve’s two open seats with little fanfare. The vote was historic in both its timing and its partisan split. It was also exceptionally close. So close, in fact, that if Vice President-elect and Senator Kamala Harris had made time for it, she could have thwarted the last-minute installation. With Mike Pence out of town, there would have been no way to break the tie that would have resulted from Harris adding her vote to the 48-47 split that occurred in her absence.
So why wasn’t she there? A Vice President-elect is, naturally, very busy. But if Harris were worried about her ability to fulfill her responsibilities as both Senator and future Vice President, she could have simply stepped down as Senator, allowing Newsom to name an immediate replacement to take on the role. Having failed to do that, one can only assume that she intends to juggle both jobs and at least appear for the most critical votes. But last week, she missed one such critical vote, leaving the incoming administration with less latitude to shape the Fed at a time when it is more powerful than ever. We hope this is just an isolated oversight.
Want more?Check out less than half of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last week; we’ve been busy!
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