Discuss the evolution of the federal bureaucracy, from the spoils system through the creation of the civil service system
What will be an ideal response?
An ideal response will:
1, Explain that the spoils system involved hiring and firing of government employees on the basis of loyalty to the party in power. When new presidents were elected, bureaucrats could be favored and replaced by loyal party members.
2, Discuss problems associated with the spoils system, including high turnover in agency personnel and the fact that the bureaucrats hired under the spoils system often lacked expertise.
3, Identify the catalyst for abolishing the spoils system, which was the assassination of James Garfield in 1881 by a disgruntled office seeker.
4, Note that, in 1883, Congress passed the Pendleton Act into law, which created a federal commission to oversee hiring on the basis of merit rather than partisanship. This meant that the spoils system would be replaced with the civil service system.
5, Explain that the elimination of the spoils system was gradual rather than immediate.
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When lobbyists for a group of corporations, including Dardin Restaurants, which owns the Olive Garden chain, went to legislators that they were friendly with in order to get them to remove a piece of legislation that would have closed a tax loophole that these corporations were using to escape taxes, they engaged in
A) information campaigning. B) cybercrime. C) gerrymandering. D) direct lobbying. E) grassroots lobbying.
In a polling survey, people are asked, "How would you rate the epic movie Titanic?" In this case, which of the following issues associated with a polling survey is most likely to affect the results?
A. The issue offraming misleading questions B. The house effect C. The issue of inadequate information in questions D. The issue of weighting E. The biased sampling error