Service..... Service.... 2. Extract from regulations governing the Public Health and Marine-Hospital 16 36 38 The PRESIDENT: METHODS OF APPOINTMENT. DECEMBER 15, 1911. The Commission on Economy and Efficiency has the honor to submit the following report in reference to the methods of appointment now followed in the case of certain officers of the Government: RECOMMENDATIONS. The commission recommends: 1. That it be provided by law that all assistant secretaries of the executive departments, now appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall be appointed by the President alone. 2. That if the foregoing recommendation is adopted one of the assistant secretaries in each department, to whom shall be given the duties of an under secretary or general business manager, shall be placed in the competitive classified service. 3. That it be provided by law that all heads and assistant heads of bureaus and offices in the executive departments, who are now appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall be appointed by the President alone. 4. That if the foregoing recommendation is adopted the positions of heads and assistant heads of bureaus be placed in the competitive classified service and that the President in respect to such bureaus cause to be embodied in regulations the special qualifications that must be possessed by persons in order to be eligible for appointment to such positions. 5. That it be provided by law that all officers in the executive civil service at Washington, who are now appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, excepting assistant secretaries of executive departments and heads of bureaus and offices in the executive departments, shall be appointed by the head of department or other Government establishment to which they are attached. 6. That it be provided by law that all local officers under any of the executive departments (such as customs officers, internal-revenue officers, postmasters, marshals, supervising inspectors in the Steamboat-Inspection Service, commissioners of immigration, registers and receivers of district land offices, surveyors general, pension agents, etc.), who are now appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, be appointed by the President alone. 7. That if the foregoing recommendation is adopted, such positions be placed in the competitive classified service and that the President in respect to each class of such positions cause to be embodied in regulations the special qualifications that must be possessed by persons in order to be eligible for appointment to such positions. 8. That all acts of Congress which prescribe a fixed term of a given number of years for any officers in the executive civil service of the Government at Washington or in the field be repealed. Finally the commission has in this report called attention to the powers possessed by the President, under section 1753 of the Revised Statutes to provide qualifications for entrance into the civil service of the United States and suggests that these powers, which have already been exercised in the case of consuls, be exercised as well in the case of other officers now appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, who are now appointed without any formal examination of their qualifications. INTRODUCTION. 1. SENATE APPOINTMENTS. The methods of appointment to the administrative services of the United States Government are stated in Article II, section 2, of the Constitution, which provides that the President shall nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law; but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. This section is interpreted as providing for appointment by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of all officers where some other one of the constitutional methods of appointment has not been provided by an act of Congress. (13 Opin. Atty. Gen., 98; ibid., 8.) Although there are quite a few special statutory provisions which vest the power to appoint to particular positions in some other than the ordinary appointing authority, there are not at the present time any general acts in force with regard to appointments except acts such as the act affecting fourth-class postmasters (19 Stat. L., 80, sec. 6) and what is now section 169 of the Revised Statutes, vesting an appointing power in the heads of the departments. By the former law fourth-class postmasters are to be appointed by the Postmaster General. By section 169 each head of a department is authorized to employ in his department such number of clerks of the several classes recognized by law and such messengers, assistant messengers, copyists, watchmen, laborers, and other employees as may be appropriated for by Congress from year to year. The Court of Claims has held, however, that Congress may by law. provide some constitutional method of appointment, other than by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for all officers inferior to those in whom the power of appointment may be vested, i. e., the President alone, the courts of law, and the heads of departments. (Collins's case, 14 C. Cls., 569.) Conformable to this construction of the Constitution Congress may vest the power of appointing such officers as heads of bureaus in the President or even in the heads of departments. In fact, Congress has vested in the President alone the power to appoint heads of particular bureaus (the Bureau of Manufactures, the Lighthouse Bureau, and the Bureau of Corporations, in the Department of Commerce and Labor) and in the Secretary of Agriculture the power to appoint the heads of all bureaus in the Department of Agriculture except the Weather Bureau. Furthermore, it is the practice of the Government to regard an act which empowers the head of a department to do specific things when accompanied by a lump-sum appropriation as authorizing such head of department within the limits of the appropriation to employ the persons necessary to enable him to exercise the powers granted. In this way the reclamation act of 1902, which itself makes provision for an available fund, is regarded as authorizing the Secretary of the Interior, upon whom it confers power, to employ the Director of the Reclamation Service and other necessary employees. Congress may also vest in the President or in the head of a department the power to appoint the various local subordinates of the departments, such as collectors, postmasters, registers and receivers of land offices, and district attorneys. But as yet, with the exception of the positions mentioned in the postal law, in section 169 of the Revised Statutes, and certain acts similar to the reclamation act, no such action has been taken. It is often the case, particularly so far as concerns local officers, that Congress has specifically provided in the acts establishing the offices that the incumbents thereof shall be appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. 2. THE CLASSIFIED SERVICE. All positions in the executive civil service of the United States which are not filled by appointment by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and are not occupied by laborers are declared by civil-service Rule II, adopted in 1902, to constitute the "classified service" of the United States. The term "classified service" by itself, and unaccompanied by a history of the administrative service of the Government, gives no hint even of its significance. The civil-service act of 1883 empowered the President to prepare rules, which should provide for open competitive examinations for testing the fitness of applicants for the public service now classified or to be classified hereunder. The classification already in existence to which reference was here made was that made by section 163 of the Revised Statutes, dating from 1853, of department clerks into four classes. Other provisions of law had also recognized such classes as those of chief clerks, disbursing clerks, and chiefs of divisions. The classification in existence prior to 1902, and resulting from the rules adopted in pursuance of the civil-service act, was: The departmental service, including the various classes of clerks mentioned; the customhouse service; the Post Office service; the Government Printing Office service; and Internal-Revenue Service. For each of these services different rules were adopted. In 1902 this classification was abandoned and the present more comprehensive statement of the extent of the classified service was adopted. Inasmuch as the civil-service law and the rules adopted thereunder, which ultimately came to affect removals as well as appointments, apply only to the classified service, the term "classified service" has come to signify that part of the executive civil service of the United States entrance to which and separation from which are regulated |