The Case for Political Patronage
Lemann, Nicholas
The Case for Political Patronage by Nicholas Lemann Lately The andidate, the Robert Redford movie about a senate race in California, has been turning up on television. It’s usually shown...
...Both senators from the state are Democrats...
...Attorney there, a politically active Republican from the suburbs named Robert Curran, wasn’t doing much about it...
...In 1974 Case appointed Stern to a federal judgeship, and made Goldstein his replacement...
...He’s arrogant and abrasive...
...A few days later, Hilton Kramer, a Times critic, chimed in...
...we felt it looked like a political appointment...
...Del Tufo is probably an example of the best kind of appointee a merit system would produce, and from him the spectrum would likely run even further in the direction of caution...
...They involve legal work that’s consistently more interesting than most of private practice...
...Then there’s the case of the United States Attorneys, the 94 appointed lawyers who prosecute federal cases in the various states...
...When he fired the US...
...People in their twenties find it easy to make the time to work in a campaign, especially if there’s a possibility of a staff job in Washington down the road, but for people in their thirties and forties, with families to support, the incentives are precious few...
...I’d be free to ignore the demands of politicans...
...They have an informal arrangement governing the appointment of judges and prosecutors, which is that they’ll take turns being the.lead man on the appointment...
...This won Goldstein the enmity of Rep...
...People in their twenties find it easy to make the time to work in a campaign, especially if there’s a possibility of a staff job in Washington down the road, but for people in their thirties and forties, with families to support, the incentives are precious few...
...Joshua Eilberg, began to push him hard to replace Marston with Joseph R. Glancey, the chief judge of Philadelphia’s municipal court...
...Case’s father died when he was in his teens, and he was raised by an uncle who was a prosecutor and state senator...
...I suspect the kind of person who’s going to go out and get the crooks as a 16 U.S...
...The congressional delegation had both pro- and anti-Rizzo elements...
...Take the case of Tommy Roberts, a lawyer in his thirties in a Western state who’s at the moment running very hard for a U.S...
...Del Tufo was appointed because the Justice Department had to come up with topquality goods in order to replace Goldstein and save any kind of face...
...Del Tufo was appointed because the Justice Department had to come up with topquality goods in order to replace Goldstein and save any kind of face...
...He explained that he could only say one thing now, and that was something he wanted to make very clear: he had not sought this job-the Justice Department had sounded him out for it, rather than vice versa-and he certainly wasn’t interested in campaigning for it...
...Attorney in New York, is speaking for the legal establishment when he says, “the selection and tenure of U.S...
...Attorneys handle all the federal government’s legal work in their districts, which makes them quite important officials...
...Also, people familiar with the situation say, Williams feels it’s his right to appoint a U.S...
...There was a note of desperation in the speed and urgency of Eilberg’s requests, which continued unabated throughout the spring...
...To Schweiker, Marston’s request was “a bolt out of the blue,” says one person who was close to the situation...
...He had run twice, unsuccessfully, and against long odds, for the state legislature against a member of Mayor Frank Rizzo’s city machine, and those races brought him to Schweiker’s attention...
...How are you going to change that?’ I said I would be the fnst U S. Attorney without political ties...
...But it’s partly the possibility of being rewarded with jobs that exciting when power changes hands that lures the Richardsons into politics in the first place...
...Also, political patronage, maligned as it is, is a way of encouraging high-quality people to get involved in local politics...
...Attorney was to appoint as his numberone and number-two assistants those two federal prosecutors, Herbert Stem and Jonathan Goldstein...
...Merit plans typically sound like this...
...There is almost never a confirmation fight, as there often is for genuine presidential appointees...
...Attorneys...
...A couple of months ago, this friend called Tommy Roberts, and Roberts said he was interested in the job...
...The jobs are high in visibility in a field where public exposure (of great value for anyone thinking of running for office or expanding his practice) is desperately hard to come by...
...He’s very good,” says one source, “but he doesn’t have the same drive as Lacey, Stem, and Goldstein...
...Attorneys would produce...
...The lead man can nominate the person he wants, assuming his colleague doesn’t object...
...Attorney’s workload is dictated by the priorities of the President and the attorney general...
...The Philadelphia papers, by 1975, were printing stories that implied Curran was not a man who would walk that last lonely mile to put crooked pols behind bars...
...He explained that he could only say one thing now, and that was something he wanted to make very clear: he had not sought this job-the Justice Department had sounded him out for it, rather than vice versa-and he certainly wasn’t interested in campaigning for it...
...Every day the papers seem to carry some confirmation of that message...
...Finney says that’s okay with him...
...The record shows that political appointees at the federal level have a...
...Whitney North Seymour Jr., a forher U.S...
...I’ve talked to dozens of people, and had dozens of letters written...
...Ever since then, Case has had a passion about cleaning up the government...
...A “political” appointee would be politically stupid for Schweiker...
...Attorney vacancy belongs to the President’s political party, they nominate someone to fill the vacancy...
...But it’s best when-well, the senator might not know these people know me, you see...
...It’s easier for a lawyer to feel proud of what he does, to feel he’s leading a significant life, when he’s prosecuting the government’s cases than when he’s toiling away in the anonymity of private practice, helping corporations save some money on their taxes...
...In other words, the motive to become a U.S...
...He’s tough, articulate, respected,” Marston says...
...I don’t think so...
...Roberts was apprehensive about the meeting because he had supported the senator’s opponent in an election once, but it went well...
...At about the time Marston was maneuvering to get his appointment approved, Jimmy Carter was winning the Pennsylvania primary with no help from Frank Rizzo, who supported Henry Jackson...
...He was then starting out in private law practice in Philadelphia, but he was a little restless...
...They wanted to be able to pick up the phone and call this office about the handling of a case...
...I suspect the kind of person who’s going to go out and get the crooks as a 16 U.S...
...But my performance is respected by the 14 Justice Department...
...Attorney needs...
...Attorney in Boston, perhaps well deserved...
...In February Eilberg sent a letter to Frank Moore, the White House chief of congressional relations, saying all the Phi 1 ad e 1 phia-area Democrats supported Glancey, which was not true...
...The record shows that political appointees at the federal level have a merit selection process for U.S...
...He marched into court and got Addonizio sent right back to jail...
...The President and the attorney general then screen the nominee, and submit his name to the full Senate for confirmation...
...besides his popularity, any appointment that’s seen as either proor anti-Rizzo is likely to alienate a significant portion of the Philadelphia electorate...
...Attorney nominees...
...I want to see an end to harrassment by certain United States Attorneys...
...At its most mundane, the work involves auto thefts (because that’s a federal crime) and bank robberies, and this is most of what lazy U.S...
...Goldstein himself came to us indirectly through the courtesy of the reward system...
...It was time to start campaigning...
...He wasn’t anywhere near Williams’ first choice, and might indeed have been put on the list only to lend it a meritocratic luster...
...Wheri a U.S...
...By all accounts, Glancey is competent and honest and not even that close to Rizzo, but a Marston he clearly wasn’t...
...Attorney’s job is one of them...
...But the courts ruled that he had no right to look into it...
...The implication is that there’s no lower state to which a person of character can sink...
...By far the most visible part of the work is the political cases, but Michael Egan of the Justice Department says that’s misleading...
...Where there had once been such hope, in short, politics again had its shabby way...
...In Baltimore, Carter and Bell are replacing Jervis Finney, the Republican whose chief assistant, Barnet D. Skolnik, prosecuted Marvin Mandel...
...The initial reaction was not very great enthusiasm...
...Peter Kostmayer and Robert Edgar, both anti-Rizzo Democrats, that they switched from neutrality to an actively anti-Glancey position...
...He indicted and convicted Herbert Fineman, the Democratic speaker of the Pennsylvania house...
...Attorneys usually come out of the culture of young, aggressive lawyers who, out of a combination of ambition and public-spiritedness and desire to be where the action is, participate in state and local politics...
...Philadelphia and Newark have both been big deals, one of which the administration handled to its credit and the other not...
...There are two sets of self-interests at work in a U.S...
...Peter Rodino of Newark, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rodino joined Williams in strongly pressuring the Carter Administration on the Goldstein issue...
...Attorneys do...
...Tyler was convinced...
...He deputized a lawyer friend to call around and see who else was qualified and interested...
...It’s been his cause in the Senate for 20 years...
...Then, maybe the senator will talk The Washington Monthly/December 1977 to, or have lunch with, a guy who’s interested in seeing me get the job...
...It was taken as a hopeful sign when Jimmy Carter promised during his campaign that as part of a general cleansing of Washington, he would appoint U.S...
...This seemed to Curran not to be fair play, but he saw the handwriting on the wall and, in early 1976, stepped down...
...Pure idealism isn’t enough to entice them to disrupt their lives in order to help someone get elected...
...This so annoyed Reps...
...must be removed from the political arena...
...Auto Thefts and Bank Robberies Once in office, U.S...
...Attorneys who are famous are the ones in older, machine-run cities like Baltimore, Newark, Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago, but their experience, Egan says, isn’t typical...
...Carter had barely settled in when a group of Democratic congressmen from the Philadelphia area, close to Rizzo and led by Rep...
...Attorneys would produce...
...Attorney is likely to be the kind of person who’s going to go out and get the job-the way Marston did, against long odds...
...The junior senator didn’t press the point...
...Right now Marston looks safe...
...Attorney-“it’s the best job in the country for a lawyer,” he says...
...Williams didn’t support Carter in the New Jersey primary, and Carter lost New Jersey in November, but nonetheless, as the story shows, his opinion carries weight with the administration...
...mostly the work is less visible, more bread-and-butter...
...Nicholas Lemann is an editor of The Washington Monthly...
...The reason is that it’s controlled by politicians...
...After law school, Case clerked for the uncle, who was then trying to investigate corruption in Hudson County...
...that has got to end...
...He convicted Theodore Rubino, a state Republican power...
...Jobs as US...
...People in Philadelphia wonder if Rizzo himself will be next...
...The present system does not often produce shrinking violets or timeservers...
...Attorney is a mixture of ambition and altruism...
...Attorneyshe has policies to carry out and he wants them carried out well, partly because they’ll reflect on his department, and, ultimately, on Jimmy Carter’s stature at election time...
...He is universally praised (including by Goldstein) as a man of total integrity and dedication, a hard worker, rich in prosecutorial and administrative experience, only vaguely political...
...So when Carter came into office, the patronage situation in Pennsylvania was unclear...
...One merit name thrown around in Philadelphia as a possible replacement for Marston is Alan J. Davis, a 40-year-old, impeccably credentialed (Penn, Harvard Law School, Harvard Law Review, a circuit court clerkship) member of a big corporate firm...
...The U.S...
...It’s usually shown right after the public affairs shows on Sunday afternoon, which couldn’t be more appropriate, because The Candidate is something of a public affairs show itself...
...You talk to local leaders...
...Pure idealism isn’t enough to entice them to disrupt their lives in order to help someone get elected...
...In office, Marston, an eager beaver The Washington MontNylDecember 1977 above all, moved fast...
...Politics today is widely seen as a senseless roadblock in the way of merit...
...I’ll never forget it...
...New York, ever since President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Henry Stimson U.S...
...After a few weeks, Marston got a call from Harold R. Tyler Jr., the deputy attorney general, asking him to come by for an interview...
...Attorneys need a strong ego, too...
...In practice, the Senate appoints them with the advice and consent of the President...
...Attorney there in 1906, has had an impeccable good-government reputation, and this year Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan asked that the Republican incumbent, Robert B. 12 Fiske, be kept on...
...And David Marston had become a very popular figure...
...Attorney’s job and understandably doesn’t want to see his real name in print...
...But besides being a loyal friend and supporter, the nominee didn’t have much to recommend him...
...This is how Goldstein thinks U.S...
...I talk to people I’ve known ten, fifteen years who I know the senator thinks highly of...
...Goldstein explains his fate this way: “The lawyers, the influence peddlers, the power brokers-they wanted a change in this office...
...But by the time the fall campaign came around, Carter and Rizzo had buried the hatchet...
...What you do is-well, it’s a situation where you let people know you’re interested in the job, and if they see fit they’ll write the senator about it,” says Roberts...
...Jobs That Exciting Back in 1961 John F. Kennedy took a lot of heat for his political removal of Elliott Richardson as the U.S...
...Del Tufo is probably an example of the best kind of appointee a merit system would produce, and from him the spectrum would likely run even further in the direction of caution...
...In February and March he told Bell he wanted to stay on and met with Bell and associate attorney general Michael Egan in Washington, from whom he heard encouraging words...
...Attorney in Boston, perhaps well deserved...
...It’s the executive branch that does the reviewing of the nominee...
...Attorney...
...He started by saying, ‘Philadelphia is a cesspool, always has been...
...Also, political patronage, maligned as it is, is a way of encouraging high-quality people to get involved in local politics...
...Most recently, he got a 1 1 0-count indictment against Henry J. “Buddy” Cianfrani, a powerful Democratic state senator (and the man who bought Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Laura Foreman all those expensive gifts while she was covering him...
...The cancer was manifesting itself, Straight said, in the appointments of the “political” Livingston Biddle to head the arts endowment and the “political” Joseph D. Duffey to head the humanities endowment...
...Earlier this year the senior senator appointed a new judge to the circuit court of appeals, so on the U.S...
...He is universally praised (including by Goldstein) as a man of total integrity and dedication, a hard worker, rich in prosecutorial and administrative experience, only vaguely political...
...He indicted 15 Philadelphia policemen on civil rights charges...
...Furthermore, he said, the coordinator of the White House’s arts policy is Joan Mondale, and “she’s political...
...for instance, in the Nixon Administration drug prosecution was a high priority, and in the Carter Administration it’s not...
...Here and now, this is how the political appointment process functions: The appointment of federal prosecutors and judges is one of those areas of the government’s operations that doesn’t work the way the civics textbooks say it does-in fact, it works exactly opposite from the way it’s supposed to...
...after all, would scream for blood if a hack were appointed...
...Its theme is the evils of politics...
...A specter,” Kramer wrote, “is haunting the arts and humanities today...
...Eventually the department chose-from a list Williams had submitted -Robert Del Tufo, the 44-year-old first assistant attorney general of the state...
...Are political appointments really a bad thing...
...And Goldstein isn’t a saint...
...They also work on matters of federal policy, like civil rights and environmental cases, and on political corruption and white-collar crime...
...At his victory party, the final step in his degradation, his father, an opportunistic ex-governor played by Melvyn Douglas, embraces him and says with a broad leer, “Well, son, you’re a politician now...
...But we quickly said, ‘why penalize the guy?’ We looked askance for 24, 48 hours and then said, ‘it’s pretty unfair to rule the guy out.’ But certainly the appearance in public was not thrilling...
...There are obvious bad reasons for it-a man who has spent the last eight years putting Democratic politicians in jail isn’t likely to be popular among Democratic politicians...
...Attorney’s job is one of them...
...According to the Constitution, the President appoints judges and prosecutors, with the advice and consent of the Senate...
...When I set up, through his secretary, an appointment to see Davis, he quickly called back to cancel it...
...In 1969, after Nixon was inaugurated, a politically active Republican lawyer from Newark named Frederick Lacey approached Case about a federal judgeship...
...In Robert’s town the U.S...
...So when Carter went back on his word, the reaction was suitably bitter...
...After ten or twelve years of practice, he knows a lot of people in town...
...Unsavory Connections As soon as Carter took office, the junior senator started to press for the appointment of a man who had helped manage his last campaign...
...So U.S...
...If one or both of the senators from a state with a U.S...
...On September 1, Rep...
...After he wasn’t appointed Williams could have said to his critics, “How can you say my list wasn’t a merit list when Bob Del Tufo’s name was on it...
...Case said that would be fine, but first he wanted Lacey to put in a little time as U.S...
...Attorney situations he is a genuine merit appointeethat is, he seems to be the kind of person that the widely advocated merit selection process for U.S...
...Goldstein was the third in a series of tough, independent federal prosecutors who have gone quite a way towards cleaning up their legendarily corrupt state...
...The idea of making U.S...
...Roberts teaches at a law school in the city where he lives, helps run a legal clinic, and occasionally handles criminal 10 cases for wealthy clients...
...Are politics and merit wholly separate and opposite...
...When I set up, through his secretary, an appointment to see Davis, he quickly called back to cancel it...
...Maniacal,” one person called him...
...They have convicted some twelve mayors, two congressmen, two state party chairmen (a Republican and a Democrat), the president of the state senate, and the speaker of the state assembly, among others...
...Attorneys “without any consideration of political aspects or influence,” and on “a strict basis of merit...
...Attorney in New Jersey, for the same reason, Goldstein said that evidently “my record of accomplishment on behalf of the United States must give way to the dictates of politics...
...In August, following some hectic political maneuvering, Egan asked Goldstein to resign...
...It traces Redford’s progress from idealistic young legal aid lawyer to photogenic young senator-elect...
...Attorneyships should be handled: In every state there should be a panel made up of non-political leaders of the bar, law school deans, judges, and maybe even laymen...
...This attitude is nothing new, of course...
...During the last century more than 99 per cent of the federal govemment has moved from the realm of politics to the realm of merit, a development roundly applauded at every step of the way...
...A U.S...
...In person he is friendly and very cautious, the kind of person who insists on going “way, way off the record” in order to say bland things about merit selection...
...Attorney,” says Marston...
...On September 22, Egan announced that Glancey was out of the running...
...After he wasn’t appointed Williams could have said to his critics, “How can you say my list wasn’t a merit list when Bob Del Tufo’s name was on it...
...Both senators were Republicans...
...A U.S...
...Even sources unsympathetic to Rizzo say Eilberg was acting partly out of a sincere belief that to the victor belong the spoils, but there was also speculation that Eilberg was afraid he’d be Marston’s next scalp...
...Raymond F. Lederer, an ally of Eilberg’s, wrote Michael Egan a pro-Glancey letter that contained this unbelievably inept statement: “For far too long we have seen persecutors rather than prosecutors in the U.S...
...Attorneyships for a mixture of reasons...
...Attorney was very important to him...
...Still, the political districts are the ones where the political appointment system is most under fire, so it’s worth taking a closer look at how the system works there...
...He wasn’t anywhere near Williams’ first choice, and might indeed have been put on the list only to lend it a meritocratic luster...
...But it’s partly the possibility of being rewarded with jobs that exciting when power changes hands that lures the Richardsons into politics in the first place...
...So appointing an aggressive U.S...
...The friend set up a meeting between Roberts and the junior senator when the junior senator was next in town...
...A Democratic Senator In New Jersey, there was one important difference : one senator, Clifford Case, is a Republican, but the other, Harrison Williams, is an important Democrat...
...Asked to explain the firings, all Griffin Bell could say was that “we had an election last year and the Democrats won...
...Philadelphia is a Cesspool’ Schweiker finally decided Marston was the best person for the job and sent his name to the Justice Departmentbut he made it clear, Marston says, that he wasn’t going to push it hard: “ ‘I’m not going to die for you on this,’ he told me...
...The idea is to have appointed officials-or people appointed by appointed officials-as the sole source of U.S...
...Somebody-the Justice Department, some think-started leaking stories saying Curran was thinking of resigning...
...They wanted to be able to place assistants in this office...
...And a questionable appointment can be ~~ ~ ~~ ~ very messy-the press raises a fuss, the public becomes aroused, and, again, it reflects badly in the end on Carter...
...Attorneys are among the few political ones left...
...Attorney’s office...
...One person who knows Nolan calls him an “unreliable pressure artist,” and the Justice Department apparently agreed-it refused to okay Nolan’s appointment...
...A Merit Appointee There’s an irony to the Del Tufo appointment, which is that in this most political of U.S...
...Right now it looks pretty good...
...Further Toward Caution The merit appointee is a hard person to judge, since he doesn’t exist yet...
...Attorneys who use their jobs most obviously for personal political gain-like Governor James Thompson of Illinois, who got his start as a tough federal prosecutor-are also the best...
...So I’ll call a guy on the phone, I’ll say if he sees fit to recommend me to the senator I’d appreciate it...
...Marston had joined Schweiker‘s staff three years earlier...
...It takes a strong ego to do all this, but Roberts has one-and U.S...
...Goldstein himself came to us indirectly through the courtesy of the reward system...
...A typical Goldstein performance came in late April, when a federal judge let former Newark Mayor Hugh Addonizio out of jail after serving five years of his ten-year sentence...
...The Handwriting on the Wall In the early seventies, Philadelphia was arguably the most corrupt jurisdiction in the country, and Nixon’s U.S...
...They’re thought of as good stepping-stones to federal judgeships...
...Attorney now, just as it was Case’s right in 1969...
...A life of accumulating credentials and waiting to be offered positions isn’t the best possible incubator of the aggressive talent a U.S...
...On June 17, James Free of Moore’s staff gave a luncheon for aides to the Philadelphia congressmen...
...His critics say he’s a publicityhound and a leaker, that he doesn’t get along with the FBI, that he and Judges Lacey and Stern constitute a political gang of their own, that he speaks out on legislative matters that are none of his business...
...Attorney in Detroit, Philip Van Dam, solely because he is a Republican, Van Dam called it “politics as usual...
...Attorney is a Republican, appointed during the Nixon Administration, whose term expires early next year...
...Williams, whose conduct throughout has been just plain shameful, still won’t say why he wanted to get rid of Goldstein...
...They quickly turned the office into one of the best in the country, and when in 1971 Lacey finally got his judgeship, Case, at his urging, nominated Herb Stem to replace him...
...The more he compromises his ideals, the more he fudges his positions, the more he lets his advisors manipulate him like a product, the better Redford fares at the polls...
...He has zero empathy for politicians...
...Some of a U.S...
...But Justice said yes to the idea of replacing Goldstein if someone equally qualified (this is the general standard of the Carter Administration could be found...
...In any event, because it was so ham-han ded, the replace-Marston campaign was its own worst enemy...
...In Chicago, the administration, at the request of Senator Adlai Stevenson 111, replaced Samuel Skinner with Thomas P. Sullivan after apparently rejecting the first choice of the Daley machine, former lieutenant governor Neil F. Hartigan...
...Attorneys non-political giows out of experiences like Jonathan Goldstein’s...
...Attorney, where he would replace David M. Satz, a Williams appointee who hadn’t done much about political corruption during his eight-year tenure...
...Attorney’s appointmentthe senator’s and the President’sand they work as countervailing forces...
...In the late sixties, Fred Lacey had come to know two young Justice Department lawyers who were in New Jersey prosecuting the Colonial Pipeline case, a complicated bribery-andkickbacks affair that involved, among others, the Bechtel Corporation, whose lawyer in New Jersey was Fred Lacey...
...Attorney it is the junior senator’s turn...
...Senators have to please the public-they’re accountable to the public...
...It’s important to the attorney general to have people he trusts as U.S...
...If my performance nose-dives, then I’m extremely vulnerable.’’ Marston is one of the few federal employees of whom that’s true, because with the concept of merit usually comes the concept of tenure, and any pressure to perform quickly evaporates...
...Attorneys who use their jobs most obviously for personal political gain-like Governor James Thompson of Illinois, who got his start as a tough federal prosecutor-are also the best...
...For instance, not long ago Michael Straight, the acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, told The New York Times that “the cancer of political interference has begun to undermine the credibility” of the arts endowment and its sister organization, the National Endowment for the Humanities...
...And sometimes the U.S...
...A lot of people would like to be U.S...
...Attorney needs...
...Most people aren’t saints...
...The guy’ll report back to me, tell me how it’s going...
...The Justice Department balked, which it does often in situations like this...
...With the admiring voters of New Jersey, he’s known as an unimpeachable Mr...
...One merit name thrown around in Philadelphia as a possible replacement for Marston is Alan J. Davis, a 40-year-old, impeccably credentialed (Penn, Harvard Law School, Harvard Law Review, a circuit court clerkship) member of a big corporate firm...
...A lot of politicians would be happy to see me replaced...
...The client-the federal government-is a prestigious one, and one that is more idealistic than most...
...Most people aren’t saints...
...One of them was Senator Richard Schweiker’s own chief legislative aide, a 33-year-old lawyer named David W. Marston...
...Here too, respectable people want to get rid of politics, replacing it with merit...
...The Justice Department got the message...
...Back in January, even before the Inauguration, Goldstein decided he would put Carter’s promises to the test and steadfastly refuse to quit for political reasons...
...Eilberg’s aides immediately brought up the Glancey issue and, according to one source, “the whole lunch degenerated into a shouting match about patronage...
...He convicted the captain of a Liberian oil tanker that spilled its cargo into the Delaware River...
...When both senators from the state in question are from the opposition party, then other officials-congressmen, mayors, local bosses-get into the act, but their nominations cany less weight...
...He went on to warn that “aggressive politicization of Federal cultural policy is now imminent...
...Attorney is likely to be the kind of person who’s going to go out and get the job-the way Marston did, against long odds...
...People like Tommy Roberts aspire to U.S...
...Seymour’s, for instance, has judges (and perhaps bar associations and governors) choosing nominating commissions that pass lists of candidates to the President, who must choose from the list...
...He regularly works in political campaigns...
...Shortly after the Inauguration this year, Senator Williams made it clear that he wanted Goldstein out...
...While the Curran controversy was raging, aspirants to the job were making it known to Pennsylvania’s two Republican senators that they were available...
...Attorney vacahcy opens up in a state, the panel would consider applications from one and all, on their merits, and then forward their recommendations to the attorney general, who would make the final decision...
...Carter’s attorney general, Griffin Bell, has repeatedly made a point of endorsing this view...
...In person he is friendly and very cautious, the kind of person who insists on going “way, way off the record” in order to say bland things about merit selection...
...Jobs That Exciting Back in 1961 John F. Kennedy took a lot of heat for his political removal of Elliott Richardson as the U.S...
...The papers and Philadelphia’s extremely vocal reform movement...
...A life of accumulating credentials and waiting to be offered positions isn’t the best possible incubator of the aggressive talent a U.S...
...Carter won Pennsylvania, a key state for him, largely on the strength of a handsome majority in Philadelphia that Rizzo played a major part in delivering...
...Even if Rizzo and Carter were now friends, the Philadelphia reformers would jump all over the new President if he began to seem too close to the mayor...
...Against this barrage, all the White House could do was protest lamely that the appointments were in fact non-political...
...About a year before the job opened up, Marston had started thinking about being a U.S...
...When he fired Jonathan Goldstein, the U.S...
...He refused, and in September Carter fired him...
...He’s very good,” says one source, “but he doesn’t have the same drive as Lacey, Stem, and Goldstein...
...Williams’ candidate for the job was Joseph Nolan, a former president of the state bar but not, apparently, an ideal U.S...
...And sometimes the U.S...
...Further Toward Caution The merit appointee is a hard person to judge, since he doesn’t exist yet...
...Clean...
...Lacey’s first move as U.S...
...Before they’re changed too, it’s worth looking at them-and through them, at politics generally-a little more closely...
...He cleaned out the old clubhouse-approved assistants in the office and replaced them with the brightest young lawyers he could find, people whose politics, he says, are a complete mystery to him...
...He was stymied...
...He wasn’t highly thought of in the legal community, he had little directly related experience, and there were apparently a couple of unsavory connections in his past...
...So they’re interested in knowing if you’re accepted by the bar, by the judiciary, by blacks, by labor, and so on...
Vol. 9 • December 1977 • No. 10
