Two Welcome Surprises and One Unwelcome (non)Surpise

We got a couple bits of good news yesterday.

First, we found out that the President issued an Executive Order stating he would not overturn the executive order signed by President Obama affording protections to LGBT employees of federal contractors.

The text reads:

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 31, 2017
President Donald J. Trump Will Continue to Enforce Executive Order Protecting the Rights of the LGBTQ Community in the Workplace President Donald J. Trump is determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community. President Trump continues to be respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights, just as he was throughout the election. The President is proud to have been the first ever GOP nominee to mention the LGBTQ community in his nomination acceptance speech, pledging then to protect the community from violence and oppression. The executive order signed in 2014, which protects employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors, will remain intact at the direction of President Donald J. Trump.

Of course, it does beg the question of why he would need to publically state he is going to continue with a particular policy. Part of the explanation I am sure is that rumors had been swirling that an executive order was forthcoming either rescinding the Obama protections or allowing discrimination based on "sincerely held religious beliefs" (or both). The latter could still be coming. I also suspect it could have something to do with his nomination of a Supreme Court Justice to fill the seat vacated with Anthony Scalia died (you know, the one that has been vacant since February because the Senate refused to have a hearing for Merrick Garland, the Obama nominee). More on that in a bit.

The next nice surprise came in the form of a bit of support from the Democrats on the House Committee for Foreign Affairs. In a letter to the President, they expressed concern about Press Secretary Spicer's comments regarding those who supported the dissent channel message and not the President's policy, saying they should "get with the program or get out." You can read my thoughts on that here. And by the way, apparently more than a thousand people have signed it so far and more wanted to. And that is out of some 7,600 Foreign Service Officers (that number may be higher if it doesn't include FS specialists) and 11,000 civil servants.

In the letter, they said:

Dear Mr. President:

Yesterday, from the White House podium, your spokesperson, Sean Spicer, announced that State Department employees who offer dissent to your executive order on immigration and refugees should “get with the program or they should go.” We are alarmed by Mr. Spicer’s apparent lack of knowledge about the way foreign policy is made in the United States.

We would like you to know that during the Administration of President Nixon, the State Department established a formal mechanism to allow personnel to express dissent from Administration policy. According to the State Department, “the Dissent Channel was created to allow its users the opportunity to bring dissenting or alternative views on substantive foreign policy issues, when such views cannot be communicated in a full and timely manner through regular operating channels or procedures.” For decades, the Dissent Channel has offered our diplomats the ability in critical circumstances to express concerns and warnings contrary to Administration policies. Notable examples have included dissents from policies toward Vietnam and Syria.

So it’s deeply troubling that your Administration isn’t interested in hearing different perspectives, especially those transmitted through the State Department’s revered Dissent Channel. The State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual prohibits reprisal or disciplinary action against anyone who uses the Dissent Channel. We are requesting your assurances that State Department personnel will not be subject to harassment or retribution if they take advantage of the Dissent Channel or offer policy advice that doesn’t align with White House policy decisions.

Please reply as soon as possible confirming that your Administration will respect the law (P.L. 96-465) governing the State Department and the treatment of its personnel.

It was signed by every Democrat on the committee. Thanks y'all!

And for the record, I don't think most of us are going anywhere. We are the last line of defense for the Constitution (and the first line of defense to protect our military).

So then came the unwelcome news, which was actually not much of a surprise (though the reality TV manner of making the announcement kind of was...I was expecting the President to give a rose to the Supreme Court nominee he selected since he invited the top two for the announcement and had clearly already made up his mind...).

The President is nominating Neil Gorsuch to be the next Supreme Court Justice.

This makes keeping the protections in place for LGBT people seem like a ploy to get our guard down (it didn't work, by the way).

According to the Washington Blade, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), called Judge Gorsuch "Justice Scalia on steroids,” Nadler said. “His record demonstrates that, if confirmed, he would rely on his conservative, originalist philosophy to overturn critical precedents and to disregard the rights of everyday Americans while bolstering protections for corporations and special interests.”

Gorsuch is definitely no friend to the LGBT community. In a paper for the National Review, he lamented that "liberals" are addicted to having the courts rather than the ballot box solve society issues including marriage equality. Never mind of course that it was the courts that overturned laws against interracial marriage at a time when 75 percent of the country opposed it. Because in a Republic, the minority is supposed to be protected from the tyranny of the majority, and the courts are generally our best defense for that. And never mind that it was the courts that desegregated schools. We should just let the majority vote on our rights, right?

He is also a supporter of so-called "religious freedom" laws and has already ruled in their favor. Those laws, in case you aren't aware, allow those with sincerely held religious beliefs to discriminate against LGBT people. This includes doctors in some cases...so I guess if you are in the ER and need a doctor with a sincerely held religious belief against you to save your life, you are out of luck. I wonder what Jesus would do...

I admit I am not overly worried, only because he replaces the most far-right judge who was on the court. But I do worry about future appointments (circle of protection around the notorious RBG please).

But I do think it shows we have to stay in, we have to fight to preserve the Constitution and our democracy, and we can't let our guard down for a second.

This IS the Program

Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, referring to a dissent channel cable working its way around the Department opposing the executive order banning immigration or travel to the U.S. from seven particular countries, said that State Department employees should "get with the program or they can go."

The comments represent a profound misunderstanding about the State Department in general, the dissent channel process specifically, and in fact, the nature of a nonpartisan civil service.

To put it succinctly, this IS the program.

Spicer seems to think that federal employees should just agree with everything coming from the White House without questioning. But if that is the case, why have us at all?

Let's have a little history, shall we?

The idea behind the reform of the civil service from what that was simply based on a spoils system (winner of the election gets to put their own people in all jobs) was to replace patronage appointees with nonpartisan employees qualified because of their skills. The idea is pretty old by U.S. standards. President Ulysses S Grant supported civil service reform and rejected demands to suspend it and make patronage appointments. It was his cabinet who implemented a merit system to increase the number of qualified candidates. Those efforts went a step further with the Civil Service Reform Act (also called "the Pendleton Act") of 1883. This act created the United States Civil Service Commission and eventually placed most federal employees on the merit system. It was supposed to mark the end of the so-called "spoils system."

And America is better for it. Do we really want to return to the days when our generals were chosen not for their military skills but for their connections (granted, we still have a degree of that with political Ambassadors, but that is another post)? Do you want the person developing a bridge on an interstate highway to know nothing about engineering? I hope you want those positions to be awarded based on merit and qualifications.

The Foreign Service is a good example of a meritocracy. Each year, some 50-80,000 people take a written exam. The ones who score enough to pass move on, regardless of their background or who they know. Those who pass write essays, and those who pass that get to take the oral examination. That exam is scored on a point system from 1-7, with passing being around 5.5 (it varies by career track). You can get extra points if you pass a language test, because we need people who possess foreign language skills. You can also get extra points if you are a veteran. Then you get all your clearances (security and medical). You are then place on a roll of highest score to lowest, and people are offered slots in the orientation class starting with the highest scorers first. None of it has anything to do with who you know or what political party you support. It is all about how you would do at the job.

And this system gets a lot of really exceptional people, people with real world experiences they can offer to the service of the country. And what you get when you bring in a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds and a variety of experiences is a lot of smart people with good ideas on how to help the country.

Which brings me to our dissent channel.

We communicate through cables (mostly by email now but the name cable harkens back to older times). And we will absolutely support and implement the President's foreign policy, or if we can't, we will quit. But the dissent channel gives us the opportunity to say, without fear of reprisals, that we think a particular policy is a bad idea. It was started back during the Vietnam War and according to the Foreign Affairs Manual (the FAM as we call it): "The State Department has a strong interest in facilitating open, creative, and uncensored dialogue on substantive foreign policy issues within the professional foreign affairs community, and a responsibility to foster an atmosphere supportive of such dialogue, including the opportunity to offer alternative or dissenting opinions without fear of penalty. The Dissent Channel was created to allow its users the opportunity to bring dissenting or alternative views on substantive foreign policy issues, when such views cannot be communicated in a full and timely manner through regular operating channels or procedures, to the attention of the Secretary of State and other senior State Department officials in a manner which protects the author from any penalty, reprisal, or recrimination.

Freedom from reprisal for Dissent Channel users is strictly enforced; officers or employees found to have engaged in retaliation or reprisal against Dissent Channel users, or to have divulged to unauthorized personnel the source or contents of Dissent Channel messages, will be subject to disciplinary action. Dissent Channel messages, including the identity of the authors, are a most sensitive element in the internal deliberative process and are to be protected accordingly."

It is meant to be internal, and I admit I am not happy it was leaked. And so I'll only discuss the contents of the memo generally and I won't mention any of the signatories (since there are already fears of reprisals and we have apparently been instructed not to even discuss it with Congress!). Basically, it says that the undersigned believe that the policy will hinder rather than help our mutual goal of making the United States safer. The drafters believe the executive order will actually serve as a recruiting tool for terrorists (and there is already evidence this is happening,) while actually souring our relations with the countries included in the ban.

So. Mr. Spicer, this IS the program. We are the country's foreign policy experts, hired for our skills and now with decades of experience. It is our obligation as public servants to warn the administration of dangers we see. If you are about to get into a car, and we know there is a bomb in it, I would think you would want us to warn you. And we would want to warn you. Because we love this country and what it stands for just as much as you do and have devoted our lives to serving it.

This IS the program. And I would hope that would be the way you would want it."