Fasten your irony belts, ladies and gentleman, we’re going to take a drive down the at-will firing and patronage-hiring highway.

Under Republican Governor Ducey, the number of state workers who have been let go has increased. More important is the increasing number of employees who were ousted without being given a reason. The credit and blame for the growing number of state workers fired without cause goes previous Republican Governor Jan Brewer, who signed a law in 2012 making it all possible.

Why was it harder to fire Arizona state employees without cause before our two most recent Republican governors? Because in 1969, good-government Republicans put a merit protection system for state employees into place. The Arizona legislature was generally under Democratic control before the mid 60s, and Republicans felt the sting of the patronage system, also known as the spoils system, when Democrats would hire and fire state workers at will. Arizona was actually late to the employee merit protection party. The federal government passed the Civil Service Act in the 1880s which said that federal government jobs should be rewarded on the basis of merit, not political affiliation.

Brewer reversed the good work done by her Republican predecessors by signing a law increasing the number of “at will” state workers who can be fired at any time without a stated reason.

Arizona Republicans have been in power for nearly 50 years. I guess they got tired of having to give reasons to get rid of employees, so they made sure that’s no longer a problem. You can fire someone because he or she is too progressive, or complains about problems which should be complained about, or just because you want to cut back on the size annoying state agencies — like, say, cutting the tax auditor staff from 30 to four which, it’s been estimated, will cut $100 million in state tax revenue while it saves a few million dollars in salaries. Another benefit: you can fire older workers and save twice, once by hiring younger, less expensive employees, and again by not having to pay the past-40 workers retirement benefits in a few years.

And let’s not forget, if you can get rid of current workers, it’s easier to find a place in state government for your neice or your nephew, or the sons and daughters of your friends and supporters.

Teddy Roosevelt, that old Republican and “Bull Moose” Progressive, said, “Government jobs belong to the American people, not politicians, and shall be filled only with regard to public service.” He and the Arizona Republicans of 1969 had it right. Our current state Republican leadership have it wrong.

This article appears in Oct 13-19, 2016.

6 replies on “Our Spoiled State Firing and Hiring System”

  1. Unfortunately this is “business as usual” for Douchey and his cronies, “all for one and one for himself!” is their byline. It will be a wonder if Arizona can survive their malfeasance!

  3. If you think this is not also standard operating procedure for the Democratic Party machine in Southern Arizona, you are ill-informed. Or if you think that having the right laws on the books will prevent malfeasance — wrong again.

    Stuck between a rock and several hard places here in Southern Arizona: malfeasant Republicans in the Phoenix legislature cutting funding and dismantling the public sector, malfeasant Democrats in various City and County offices managing local institutions poorly, bad or insufficient laws on the books at the state level, and, where we have good laws that were passed in the hope of protecting citizens from abuse, the enforcement mechanisms are insufficient and ineffective.

    What can help, David, is NON-PARTISAN commentary that calls the problems for what they are and admits that it’s dishonesty and abuse of public office that we need to combat, not THE REPUBLICANS or THE DEMOCRATS. People in both parties are guilty of it and commentary that calls it out in one party but not in the other muddies the water and obscures both the real source of the problem and the bi-partisan mode of operation needed to fix it.

  4. Expecting Safier to be bipartisan is like betting on a manatee to run a four minute mile. It would be amazing but not likely.

  5. You are right, Rick Spanier, Safier is not that kind of animal (the non-partisan kind). However, he often tries to frame his blog posts as though he is. In this one, for example, he pretends the issue is patronage hiring and firing. For the benefit of the occasional new reader who may at first be led to believe that what they see in these blogs is noble discourse produced by a reliable defender of sound practices in the management of public institutions, it’s good when the comment streams call Safier out on his partisan hackery, so thank you for being one of those who has done so repeatedly and effectively. (Nice image of the manatee and the four minute mile.)

    Safier’s real motives are a mystery. It’s clear what he can be expected to do: defend Pima Democratic Party candidates and the lines of argument being used to promote their continuing ability to manage Tucson’s beleaguered public institutions, no matter how grave and obvious their misuse of public office has been. And the flip side: attack Republican office holders for doing the same things he pulls punches on when Democratic office holders do them.

    But why? Commenters joke that he is motivated by getting dinner invitations to the Grijalvas’ or appearances on Anne-Eve Pedersen’s now defunct television program, but what’s the real reason? I suspect it may be something similar to the argument made in a book I came across recently which defended the legacy of the Tammany Hall machine in NYC: “Tammany’s corruption was real, but so was its heretofore forgotten role in protecting marginalized and maligned immigrants in desperate need of a political voice.” (Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics).

    How about it, David? Care to fill us in? Maybe you could do an article on the legitimate role that lies, patronage, and graft can and should play in protecting the oppressed — when it’s people belonging to the right political party who practice them. Or you could write a review of the above-mentioned book saying just where you agree and disagree. At least then what you write in these blogs would be an HONEST representation of what you ACTUALLY believe, which is clearly NOT that lies, patronage and graft and those who practice them have no legitimate role in our public institutions, since you just endorsed two candidates for the Board of a public school district who were involved in this:

    http://tucson.com/thisistucson/schools/tusd-school-board-campaign-contributions-raise-red-flags/article_d402ef0e-7ad2-11e6-8a1a-478099f4aed5.html

    and who work in concert with a fellow Board member who did this:

    http://tucson.com/news/local/education/new-details-emerge-in-grijalva-kin-hiring/article_674695dc-d25c-5912-936a-c6bd531d1bbb.html

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