Apparently one.
The Internal Revenue Service has come under fire in recent weeks for allegedly targeting conservative groups for scrutiny based in part on their ideology. Some have argued that the controversial practices result from an IRS culture that does not reflect an appropriate balance of liberal and conservative viewpoints. Does the public data from political campaign contributions support that hypothesis?
Yes and no. In a prior post I reported evidence that IRS lawyers are indeed heavily slanted toward the Democrats, at least in terms of their contributions to presidential campaigns. A tabulation of records from the Federal Election Commission database revealed that dozens of IRS lawyers made contributions to President Obama large enough to require disclosure ($200 or more), but that only a few IRS lawyers made such contributions to Romney.
The analysis also revealed, however, that the IRS is not unique or even particularly unusual among federal agencies in this regard. During the 2012 presidential campaign, the majority of lawyers’ contributions went to President Obama in every single agency throughout the federal government, and in most agencies more than 90% of the contributions went to Obama. Thus, the partisan imbalance among lawyers is not unique to the IRS, but in fact is present throughout all federal agencies.
To give a fuller picture of the scope and extent of the partisan imbalance among federal government lawyers, I collected additional data to include more agency lawyers in more agencies. The table below sets forth results for all 40-some agencies that had at least 10 lawyers who contributed to either Obama or Romney. I have also included some government-like entities that are not part of the U.S. government, such as FINRA, the PCAOB, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the United Nations, and the World Bank, as well as one entry for lawyers in the judicial branch. Note that the categories overlap because I used the level of generality or specificity contained on the disclosure form (e.g., so that IRS is separate from Treasury if disclosed that way).
AGENCY NAME |
NUMBER OF LAWYERS CONTRIBUTING TO |
OBAMA CONTRIBUTORS AS % OF CONTRIBUTORS TO |
||
OBAMA |
ROMNEY |
OBAMA AND ROMNEY |
ALL PRES. CANDIDATES |
|
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD |
44 |
0 |
100.00 |
100.00 |
DEPT. OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES |
48 |
0 |
100.00 |
97.96 |
FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD |
15 |
0 |
100.00 |
100.00 |
DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE |
19 |
0 |
100.00 |
100.00 |
DEPT. OF EDUCATION |
47 |
0 |
100.00 |
100.00 |
PCAOB |
11 |
0 |
100.00 |
91.67 |
FANNIE MAE |
13 |
0 |
100.00 |
100.00 |
UNITED NATIONS |
23 |
0 |
100.00 |
100.00 |
FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER |
94 |
2 |
97.92 |
97.92 |
FINRA |
26 |
1 |
96.30 |
96.30 |
FERC |
25 |
1 |
96.15 |
96.15 |
DEPT. OF LABOR |
74 |
3 |
96.10 |
96.10 |
FDIC |
43 |
2 |
95.56 |
95.56 |
CFTC |
21 |
1 |
95.45 |
95.45 |
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION |
82 |
4 |
95.35 |
95.35 |
FEDERAL JUDICIARY |
18 |
1 |
94.74 |
94.74 |
DEPT. OF STATE |
35 |
2 |
94.59 |
92.11 |
EPA |
104 |
6 |
94.55 |
92.86 |
WORLD BANK |
16 |
1 |
94.12 |
94.12 |
DEPT. OF VETERANS AFFAIRS |
31 |
2 |
93.94 |
88.57 |
IRS |
46 |
3 |
93.88 |
90.20 |
FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION |
12 |
1 |
92.31 |
85.71 |
DEPT. OF COMMERCE |
22 |
2 |
91.67 |
88.00 |
EEOC |
42 |
4 |
91.30 |
91.30 |
FDA |
10 |
1 |
90.91 |
90.91 |
FREDDIE MAC |
18 |
2 |
90.00 |
85.71 |
DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY |
44 |
5 |
89.80 |
88.00 |
DEPT. OF TREASURY |
43 |
5 |
89.58 |
89.58 |
U.S. DEPT. OF HUD |
24 |
3 |
88.89 |
88.89 |
US POSTAL SERVICE |
15 |
2 |
88.24 |
88.24 |
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMM. |
90 |
13 |
87.38 |
84.11 |
CFPB |
20 |
3 |
86.96 |
86.96 |
PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE |
26 |
4 |
86.67 |
86.67 |
DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION |
19 |
3 |
86.36 |
86.36 |
FCC |
47 |
8 |
85.45 |
85.45 |
DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR |
27 |
5 |
84.38 |
79.41 |
SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION |
57 |
11 |
83.82 |
81.43 |
DEPT. OF JUSTICE |
511 |
105 |
82.95 |
82.29 |
DEPT. OF ENERGY |
9 |
2 |
81.82 |
75.00 |
FEDERAL LABOR RELATIONS AUTH. |
9 |
2 |
81.82 |
81.82 |
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT |
327 |
82 |
79.95 |
78.04 |
U S ATTORNEYS OFFICE |
81 |
21 |
79.41 |
79.41 |
ARMY |
61 |
18 |
77.22 |
74.39 |
NAVY |
22 |
9 |
70.97 |
70.97 |
AIR FORCE |
9 |
4 |
69.23 |
60.00 |
DEPT. OF DEFENSE |
24 |
13 |
64.86 |
63.16 |
TOTAL |
2404 |
357 |
87.07 |
85.73 |
The scope and extent of the partisan imbalance in the agencies is staggering. The lawyers in every single federal agency leaned heavily toward Obama. Only the armed forces had Obama contribution percentages less than 70%, and even there the not a single branch approached balance. Overall, the majority of the agencies saw over 90% of lawyer contributors giving to Obama. The Department of Education, probably the most egregious example in the whole government, not only had no agency lawyers contribute to Romney, but apparently had a very substantial portion, if not a majority, of its lawyers actually appearing in the database by contributing $200 or more to Obama.
Even the Government Accountability Office—a part of the legislative branch—where one might think partisan balance would be deliberately prioritized, had essentially no political diversity among its lawyer-contributors. Even though the GAO’s mission is to provide “Congress with timely information that is objective, fact-based, nonpartisan, nonideological, fair, and balanced," the analysis turned up nine GAO lawyers who contributed to Obama and none who contributed to Romney. Among all GAO employees, the analysis turned up only one employee who contributed to Romney compared to nearly one hundred who contributed to Obama.
The uniformity is disturbing and not simple to explain. Intuitive explanations, such as President Obama’s tenure in office, are not consistent with the data. For one thing, the same general patterns existed in 2008 after eight years of a Republican president. For another, the same patterns exist in the PCAOB, FINRA, and the GSEs, which are not subject to direct executive control. Thus, the fact that Obama has been presiding over the executive branch for four years does not appear to account for the imbalance.
Interestingly, the data also show that the slant toward the Democrats is not the inevitable result of combining two left-leaning attributes (lawyer status and government employee status) in one person. For example, compare the partisan makeup of employees under civil service systems (presented in the table above) with those working in the House and Senate, where democratic political influences are stronger. Among lawyers working for the House the contributions were approximately 60% for Romney and 40% for Obama, whereas in the Senate they were the reverse. There we see a balance in each case roughly proportionate to each party’s representation in the respective chamber, and balancing out to 50%-50%, a result that reflects America’s own partisan divide. Thus, somewhat ironically, it appears that the insulation from politics enshrined in the civil service system may be the very thing that produces the highly politically charged one-party system in the federal bureaucracy.
How big a problem is this? That depends on how much the partisan imbalance affects concrete decisions made by agency lawyers. What is crystal clear is that the federal bureaucracy is effectively a one-party system, at least among the career lawyers named in public disclosure documents. Although the causes of this imbalance are likely complex, the result is straightforward. The political views of lawyers in government reflect only a thin slice of the full spectrum of mainstream American politics. In the powerful modern administrative state, an almost completely monolithic federal bureaucracy is likely to produce at least the perception—and very possibly the reality—of unfairness to ordinary Americans.
Appendix for wonks and bloggers.
I've spend quite a bit of time over the past month researching the topic of partisanship of both lawyers as well as regulatory agencies; both of which have a sizable influence on the laws that are put in place and how they are enforced.
This has been the most useful post so far on the subject, thanks for posting this!
Posted by: RJ Miller | 08/12/2013 at 06:29 PM