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Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act
Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act
opponent of the patronage system who was later first chairman of the United States Civil Service Commission. The most famous commissioner was Theodore Roosevelt (1889-96). The law only applied to federal government jobs: not to the state and local jobs that were the basis for political machines. At first it covered very few jobs, but there was a ratchet provision whereby outgoing presidents could lock in their own appointees by converting their jobs to civil service. After a series of party reversals at the presidential level (1884, 1888, 1892, 1896), the result was that most federal jobs were under civil service. One result was more expertise and less politics. An unintended result was the shift of the parties to reliance on funding from business, since they could no longer depend on patronage hopefuls. The act also prohibits soliciting campaign donations on Federal government property.
Further reading
George H. Pendleton The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (ch. 27, 22 Stat. 403) of 1883 United States federal law established the United States Civil Service Commission, which placed most federal government employees on the merit system and marked the end of the so-called spoils system. The act provided for some government jobs to be filled on the basis of competitive exams. Drafted during the Chester A. Arthur administration, the Pendleton Act served as a response to President James Garfield’s assassination by Charles Julius Guiteau. The Act was passed into law on January 16, 1883. The Act was sponsored by Senator George H. Pendleton, Democrat of Ohio, and written by Dorman Bridgeman Eaton, a staunch • Ari Hoogenboom, Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform Movement, 1865-1883 (1961) ISBN 0313228213 • Paul P. Van Riper, History of the United States Civil Service (1958). ISBN 0837187559
See also
• Civil Service • Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 • Hatch Act of 1939
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendleton_Civil_Service_Reform_Act" Categories: 1883 in law, 1883 in the United States, Civil service in the United States, Public administration, United States federal government administration legislation, History of the United States (1865–1918)
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act
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