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With Constitution under assault, we need brave bureaucrats more than ever • Minnesota Reformer [1]

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Date: 2025-02-21

It’s a hard time to be a bureaucrat.

The chaos in Washington is directly impacting the lives of thousands of public servants in the federal government. Less directly, the chaos rolls downhill, and state and local government workers try to figure out the impact of a dizzying swirl of policies and pronouncements.

Having been a state government bureaucrat for almost 40 years, I think I can say with authority that this may be the first time I’ve witnessed public sympathy for the lowly bureaucrat.

“Bureaucrat” is one of those words that immediately engenders a reaction, and it’s often disdain.

Bureaucrat is a French word, but much of the onerous weight it carries derives from the work of Max Weber, a German sociologist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He theorized that bureaucracies were the most efficient way to conduct government business in democratic societies because they were rules-based and treated everyone the same.

Those very same characteristics have made bureaucracies and bureaucrats so easy to ridicule; no one wants to deal with “the bureaucracy” because you are not treated like a person and find yourself caught in a maze of rules no one outside the bureaucracy can possibly understand.

And that’s why federal employees are such an easy target for the Trump administration. The public generally believes that government workers don’t work hard, get paid a lot and never get fired.

Trump and his henchman, Elon Musk, are pursuing an accelerated dismantling of the federal government by leveraging this deep-seated public contempt for the bureaucracy.

I’m not the best person to describe all the problems this creates — my expertise with the federal government is limited.

But I spent 38 years as a bureaucrat with the state, and I know a few things about bureaucrats and bureaucracies.

The core of what drives Trump is his own inability to understand that some people do the right thing for the right reason, even if there is nothing in it for them.

I was told countless times throughout my career that I could make more money in the private sector. A few who had worked in both state government and the private sector also said I wouldn’t have to work as hard.

But I loved what I did, loved trying to improve the lives of Minnesotans who needed help, and never felt like I deserved more money (or not very often, anyway).

And, I was surrounded by colleagues across state government who felt the same way. Whatever area they worked in — education, environment, transportation, economic development — they brought their talents to the public to make our state better.

Few thought of it as a “sacrifice” of some sort — it’s just a way to use our expertise to support the greater good.

The primary driver of Trump’s purge of the federal government is his insistence on loyalty.

Again, nothing could be more foreign to the average bureaucrat. The work of government bureaucrats has nothing to do with loyalty to anyone — it is about faithfully executing the existing laws and rules. If democratically elected leaders change those laws and rules, the bureaucrats adjust to the new laws.

Nor do the personal or political views of employees impact their ability to carry out their duties without regard to which party is running the government.

When I worked in two Republican administrations and one independent administration, I never saw the day-to-day work of agency employees change.

Budget cuts are a great test of the professionalism of public servants. States must balance their budgets, and budget cuts are the norm when the state budget is showing a deficit.

Budget cuts are the hardest thing we do. Staff do not want to cut the budget of the program or service they work in. Most agencies believe services are underfunded. This belief is particularly strong in human services, where budget cuts mean people who need help to live with dignity may lose critical care or services.

But time and time throughout my career I worked with staff who dug deep to find spending reductions, focusing on how to save money in a way that had the least impact on the people who depend on the services. This was even true when the requested cuts were driven by politics rather than deficits.

Bureaucrats tend to be cautious, and that caution can sometimes look like a roadblock to a new leader’s agenda.

But agencies also have institutional knowledge that can be leveraged to find the pathway for what can be done. Agency staff with deep expertise can be barriers to change and innovation, but they can also be the exact people who find ways to accomplish an administration’s new goals.

It takes leadership that understands and respects their professionalism and is willing to work through an issue to find the right path. It requires building trust.

Building trust with civil servants is not part of the Trump-Musk playbook.

Know this: Well-trained, committed bureaucrats will resist if they are asked to break the law or violate their oath to the Constitution.

That obligation to the law — as opposed to an elected official’s whims — is among the many checks and balances built into our system of government to ensure we remain true to our Constitution.

This conflict between overweening executive and lawful civil servants is what we are watching play out in our nation’s capital.

We need federal bureaucrats, but not just because their expertise helps keep air travel safe and national parks beautiful and Social Security checks arriving on time.

We need them for their nonpartisan commitment to following and honoring the law and the Constitution.

When you see courageous bureaucrats standing up and protesting what is happening now in Washington, remember they are not just protecting their jobs.

They are protecting our democracy.

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[1] Url: https://minnesotareformer.com/2025/02/21/with-constitution-under-assault-we-need-brave-bureaucrats-more-than-ever/

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