Prospects for Government-Wide Action Dim

The court decision involving the national security personnel system, following a similar decision against similar plans at the Department of Homeland Security, has dimmed chances of enacting such changes at other agencies, at least for the time being. While the Bush administration last year proposed a “working for America act” that would apply many of the same principles government-wide, that measure has yet to be introduced in Congress, and Office of Personnel Management director Linda Springer last week told a National Treasury Employees Union gathering that she doesn’t expect action until at least after this fall’s elections. Civil service leaders in Congress have been lukewarm about expanding the DoD/DHS systems, saying they wanted to see final details of those systems–and preferably to see the results of their operation–before trying the same approaches elsewhere. However, the ongoing court disputes promise to keep those policies at least partly unsettled until well into this year, if not beyond.