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June 11, 2013
Anderson: The Problem Is Not Just IRS Lawyers; The Problem Is All Federal Government Lawyers
Robert Anderson (Pepperdine), The IRS as Microcosm:
I searched the Federal Election Commission database for contributors with the term "lawyer" or "attorney" in thee occupation field. I then sorted the results by government agency (including the many permutations of agency names in the database). This produced a list of 20 federal agencies with at least 20 employees contributing to either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney in the 2012 election.
The results for the IRS were striking. Of the IRS lawyers who made contributions in the 2012 election, 95% contributed to Obama rather than to Romney. So among IRS lawyers, the ratio of Obama contributors to Romney contributors was not merely 4-to-1 at previously reported, but more like 20-to-1. The ratio of funds to Obama was even more lopsided, with about 32 times as much money going to Obama as to Romney from IRS lawyers.
So has the IRS gone off the rails into hyper-partisanship, leaving behind other more balanced federal agencies? ... The data show, however, that the partisanship of the lawyers in the IRS is not unusual or even particularly extreme among federal agencies. In fact, the lawyers in every single federal government agency--from the Department of Education [100%] to the Department of Defense [68%] -- contributed overwhelmingly to Obama compared to Romney. The table below shows the results for all agencies with at least 20 employees who contributed to either Obama or Romney. ...
AGENCY
NUMBER OF LAWYERS CONTRIBUTING TO
PERCENT OBAMA
OBAMA
ROMNEY
NLRB
44
0
100.00%
UNITED NATIONS
23
0
100.00%
DEPT. OF EDUCATION
47
0
100.00%
DEPT. OF LABOR
66
2
97.06%
FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER
65
2
97.01%
FINRA
26
1
96.30%
FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMM.
23
1
95.83%
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
86
4
95.56%
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
80
4
95.24%
INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE
38
2
95.00%
... The IRS is near the top in terms of partisanship, but does not stand out as being markedly different from the other agencies. Some agencies, such as the Department of Education and the NLRB, did not have a single lawyer who contributed to Mitt Romney, even though dozens contributed to Barack Obama. The Department of Justice had the largest number of lawyer contributors of any federal agency, and 84% of those employees contributed to Obama. ...
The political contribution numbers of government lawyers show that the IRS controversy is really a symptom of a larger disease -- the rule by career bureaucrat lawyers. Lawyers as a group are not politically representative of the country as a whole, and neither are government employees, so the combination of the two of them creates a dramatic mismatch with the bulk of America. The result of the mismatch is that government agencies lack the political diversity that is necessary to effectively represent the American people. The idea that the Department of Justice, on which we depend for fair and impartial enforcement of the law, is so overwhelmingly tilted to one side should make everyone uneasy regardless of political viewpoint. Whatever the reason for the disparity,the numbers reveal a severely dysfunctional culture in government agencies, one that does not serve the country well.
The media and Congress have understandably focused on the IRS specifically in sorting out the controversy. The numbers, however, suggest that the problem is not with the IRS in particular, but with the federal government as a whole (and indeed, with state governments as well). The root of the problem is the rule by a class of career government employee lawyers who lack the diversity of opinion that is found in the non-lawyer private sector. The IRS inquiry, rather than focusing narrowly on "who knew what" within the agency, should lead to a top-to-bottom rethinking of who's doing the administration in the modern bureaucratic administrative state.
June 11, 2013 in IRS News, Tax | Permalink
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Comments
Economically speaking, isn't there probably a pretty good argument that whether or not they actually believe in President Obama's policies, those lawyers were just protecting their own interests, since Romney made lots of noise about eliminating government jobs?
That cynical perspective aside, "government lawyers" as a group, and especially those working for the agencies listed here, are going to be inherently politically self-selecting. When one party's principles call for raising tax burdens and a personal responsibility to "pay one's fair share," and the other's call for minimizing tax burdens and applaud clever tax avoidance, the sort of people who actually want to work for the agency in charge of collecting taxes are probably going to fall primarily on one side of the aisle, no?
Anderson explicitly states that he's ignoring the reasons behind the disparity, but it's hard to do so when they preclude any effective solution to the problem. Where exactly is the IRS, or the Department of Labor, or the EPA going to find Republicans who even _want_ to work for them, much less have the requisite qualifications or necessarily low salary requirements?
Posted by: K1 | Jun 11, 2013 4:28:25 PM
What would be far more meaningful would be the addition of a third column that showed the number of lawyers in each agency that give to neither candidate. I wager that most agency attorneys abstain from making political gifts. The problem with reporting that data would be that the story may evaporate. Doing good empirical research is rough because it often produces a result that does not support the author's hypothesis.
Posted by: Bill Turnier | Jun 11, 2013 4:33:07 PM
Bill,
I starting shaking my head as soon as I saw that third column was missing. This study is woefully incomplete.
Posted by: HTA | Jun 11, 2013 5:10:09 PM
Alternative theory; the Obama administration sent out word that anyone NOT donating heavily to the Obama re-election campaign might find themselves "sequestered" out of a job!
Posted by: Michael Rivero | Jun 11, 2013 5:11:44 PM
It's the chicken or the egg theory. Are the lawyers liberals when they go into government work, or do they tend that way to support their own jobs.
My experience? They are liberals when they come in. Why? Because they are willing to take lower salaries than those offered by private practice. They want to save the world.
Posted by: of course | Jun 11, 2013 5:15:49 PM
Of course, maybe people who support the opposition will be more likely to contribute to a 501c4 instead of directly to the candidate...If that is true, this chart tells me that Obama was president in 2012, and the GOP candidate was the challenger.
Posted by: Anon | Jun 11, 2013 5:18:54 PM
these data would be more meaningful if romney were a credible candidate.
Posted by: r. willis | Jun 11, 2013 7:05:08 PM
Speaking from personal experience, the data above appears to reflect the truth. When I practiced law for a Federal agency, at least 9 of 10 attorney colleagues were committed and vocal supporters of the Democratic Party. Government attorneys of the Republican stripe were a very small minority, and often ridiculed by their peers.
It really does not require too many grey cells to understand the mutual attraction between the Federal civil service and attorneys who support a larger government. People who dispute this relationship have their head in the sand.
Posted by: Jake | Jun 11, 2013 8:49:31 PM
What a meaningful application of "science"!
Posted by: person | Jun 11, 2013 9:43:50 PM
Anyone reading this would automatically look for some data on the number of lawyers; Robert Anderson is expert enough that this cannot have been inadvertent, so by his kind of analysis it suggests a massive right-wing conspiracy.
I jest, of course. But: "The political contribution numbers of government lawyers show that the IRS controversy is really a symptom of a larger disease -- the rule by career bureaucrat lawyers . . . a dramatic mismatch with the bulk of America." I mean, really.
Posted by: Ed | Jun 11, 2013 9:45:00 PM
Conservatives at management levels in federal agencies are treated the same as conservative professors in most universities -- they better keep their opinions to themselves and not be politically active if they know what's good for their careers. The Obama Administration's Chicago-styled politics with a history of personal destruction doubles down on the threats. That emboldens liberals in agencies who can use their positions to attack conservative donors and organizations.
Posted by: Woody | Jun 11, 2013 10:25:15 PM
I worked as an attorney for the IRS Chief Counsel Office for a year. I was not aware of any other attorney's contributions or affiliations with any party. My take was that everyone there had a job to do, and they did it.
Posted by: Allen | Jun 12, 2013 12:59:51 AM
Those who hate government in general and the tax man in particular do not apply for government jobs or try to become the tax man. My bet is that this is a universal law which you could get confirmed in any country.
Posted by: GSo | Jun 12, 2013 6:32:38 AM
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