Specifically relating to Chris Krebs, who although a political appointee appears to have been quite good at his job. Is he fired “for cause”, which in the corporate world would generally disqualify him from be re-hired? Does the government have similar rules? Or would they just apply to non-political staff?
There are no formal requirements for a political appointee. That is, if you’ll pardon the pun, the entire point. After noon on January 20, 2021, President Biden can appoint whoever he wants to whatever position he wants.
Getting such an appointment past a Senate confirmation vote is another story…
For political appointments, Biden has wide latitude in whom he can appoint. Certain positions may have statutory requirements regarding qualifications for who can fill them, but as far as I know there’s no bar on previously fired federal employee being appointed. Senior level positions will generally require Senate confirmation, but there are still thousands of political appointments that the President can make on his own.
Plus, we know that senate Republicans are fine with “acting” appointees that don’t need confirmation.
And even in the corporate world, I don’t think it is as strict a “rule” as you think. If my competitor fired someone “for cause” they might still be quite valuable as my employee.
I meant disqualified for rehire by the same company they were fired from.
Sure he can. Biden can hire anyone Trump has fired.
I was reading a bit about Krebs this morning. It turns out that at the time of his firing he was the only Senate-approved leader at DHS. They have been running on “acting” everything for quite some time. He probably should have been the acting director, but Trump screwed up and appointed McAleenan. And you probably heard about the ruling against Wolf’s installment as well.
Basically DHS is a shit-show right now, and they now have ZERO Senate-approved leaders. Biden has a lot of appointments to make and hopefully the Senate will realize that and work with him to get folks like Krebs installed quickly.
Here is an amazing quote from this article that shows just how crazy it is: Firing Christopher Krebs Crosses a Line—Even for Trump | WIRED
Not quite the original question, but Rick Bright has been named by Biden to be on his coronavirus advisory board. Bright, who was a Director within HHS, was demoted by Trump when he filed a whistleblower complaint regarding the administration’s actions (or non-actions) towards the pandemic. Bright resigned from his government post in October of this year.
There’s an important point here that is too often missed.
THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT RUN LIKE A BUSINESS.
That may sometimes be good, and may sometimes be bad, but is always true, every single moment.
As soon as you hear someone say the government should be run more like a business, clutch your wallet in both hands and run.
It would probably depend on how he’s fired, if he was a civil service employee. In my experience, someone has to have done something pretty bad along the lines of something criminal, or otherwise safety or life threatening to get fired for cause and be ineligible for rehire. Most people are just not good at their jobs, or aren’t good fits, and when they’re let go, it’s more along the lines of reorganization, layoffs or some other way of doing it that telegraphs that they’re not necessarily total shit as a worker, but just weren’t right for that particular job.
But as far as I can tell with political appointees like Krebs, they work “at the pleasure of” whoever appointed them, meaning that they can be hired and fired for any reason, or no reason at any time. That’s part of the gig- you might end up with a sweeter job than one that you’d have if you had to work your way into it, but you’re also less secure, in that an incoming regime may well decide to shit-can you simply because you’re associated with the outgoing one.
Not incidentally, that’s why most levels of government have civil service employees. They’re immune to that sort of political hiring and firing, and just go about doing their thing regardless of who’s in power.
That’s why Trump’s executive order of Oct 21 is so scary; it exposes a whole stratum of what was the civil service up to political firing (and hiring presumably).
Unless someone serves “at the pleasure of the President,” it doesn’t seem like the President would have the authority to directly fire them. And then any subsequent President would of course have the authority to re-hire.
Senior scientists at NIH and other areas have a tenure like system which makes them hard to fire like professors with tenure. Trump may have thought about firing Fauci and found out it was not easy to do.
Even in the corporate world, if there was a company policy on rehiring past employees that were terminated with cause, the policy could be changed by the CEO if there was a past employee that the CEO wished to rehire.
It would be interesting to see Biden appoint someone like Krebs, and watch McConnell apply pretzel logic trying to find a reason to block him.
Neither Biden nor the Republicans in the Senate want the fall out from rehiring someone Trump fired. If Biden tried to get Krebs reconfirmed by the Senate, the Republicans would have to push back to keep from angering Trump’s base. This would involve Senators questioning him about every stupid election conspiracy Trump and his followers ascribe to. Both Biden and the Senate want to move on from that crap.
Well, we know they are fine with it now. Come next January very well may be a different story.
My understanding is that Fauci is a civil servant, not a political appointee. Therefore he can’t be fired by Trump without all the long procedures that involves.
Also, there are many positions that don’t require Senate confirmation that Krebs could be named to.
I’m interested in the converse question: How easily can Biden fire all the lackeys that Trump hired?
We know Biden can replace all the cabinet secretaries. That’s routine. But what about all those Inspectors Generals that Trump fired and replaced with his own? Can Biden now fire those?
What about the people at the Fed? What about Judy Shelton, if she gets seated? What about the Post Office Board of Directors, who hired DeJoy to be Postmaster General? What about DeJoy? What about all those Pentagon people he fired and replaced with his own lackeys?
A lot of these people are appointed for fixed terms (often 10 years), but can be fired for sufficiently good cause. Will Biden have sufficiently good cause to drain much of Trump’s swamp?
It really depends on the position. Many of the ones you listed have different requirements, different terms, and different rules to replace.
Basically if Trump fired them unilaterally (without cause) then they likely served “at the pleasure of the President”. In that case Biden can fire them.
Inspector Generals are generally “fireable”, but Congress has pushed back in the past. They obviously didn’t push back against Trump, but they likely will against Biden (because, as we have learned, consistency is not their strong suit).
DeJoy is almost certainly out. In researching that, I discovered that the Postmaster General is second only to the President in federal salary (at least among positions for which that information is public). Amazing…
The Pentagon is a whole different ballgame, and I can’t really speak to who is “fireable” and who isn’t there. We have some experts on the board in that area I believe.