Back in the 1990s while working for the Clinton administration’s U.S. Office of Personnel Management, I wrote articles in prominent scholarly journals with titles like “Thinking the Unthinkable in ...

Political cartoon by Thomas Nast (1840-1902), depicting William Marcy 'Boss' Tweed (1823 - 1878) with a money bag for a head, c. 1871. Credit - Kean Collection/Getty Images As toxic as American ...

The “spoils system” of the 19th century filled the government with party loyalists and increased corruption across the country, until a popular political movement created appetite for reform.

"To the victor belong the spoils." For decades in the 1800s, that phrase was more than a slogan; it was the official hiring policy of the U.S. government. "You win the election, you're entitled to put ...

Brooklyn’s well-oiled courthouse patronage machine has functioned so long and so smoothly that its rewards have quietly reached some prominent and unlikely players. Take Mario Cuomo. New York has had ...

We will not know the extent or the success of President Donald Trump’s purge of the federal bureaucracy for some time. There will be lawsuits to fight some of his firings and delay or derail his ...