In my stint at a tiny federal agency that had an annual budget that would not fund one day of our occupation of Iraq, I learned that most agencies function in spite of the political appointees – not because of them.
The top jobs at most agencies are simple quid pro quo paybacks for some service performed by the appointee. For instance, the first Chairman at my agency that I worked under was the President’s Oregon state campaign chair. Anyway, I get the feeling that it works the same way on the state level. People who do the work have modest hopes when it comes to the political appointee who shows up after an election. The near universal hope is that this unqualified loser keeps his/her meddling to an absolute minimum.
That’s why it is troubling to hear from a number of disparate sources that Ruth Ann Minner has launched a concerted campaign to get her unqualified cronies who head agencies converted into very highly paid protected government employees. Where she is successful in this undertaking, Delawareans lose.
I wonder if this will become a Markell/Carney campaign issue?