A Law That Outlasts the Administration That Passes It

The Three-Phase Legislative Strategy for Making Career Government Permanent

Campaign Briefing: Decoupling Partisan Politics from Governance

2028 Presidential Campaign of Martin A. Ginsburg, RN

March 27, 2026

I. Executive Orders Are Not Enough

Any president can issue an executive order converting political positions to career service. The next president can reverse it on Day One. We have watched this happen — on issue after issue, administration after administration — and the result is not governance. It is a pendulum. Policy swings one direction, then the other, and the people caught in the middle are the ones who needed the government to work consistently.

That is not reform. That is a gesture dressed up as one.

If we are serious about building a professional federal government that outlasts any single administration, we need law. Legislation that Congress debates, passes, and places on the books — legislation that requires another act of Congress to undo. That is what endures.

That is the difference between a policy and a commitment.

The Career Leadership Reform Act is this campaign's legislative vehicle for making professional government permanent. It moves in three phases, structured for the political reality of a Congress where no reform passes without building the case for it — and for the operational reality of a federal bureaucracy that will not be reorganized overnight.

II. Phase One: Start Where the Path Is Clear

The first phase targets positions where there is no statutory requirement for presidential appointment — cases where the political designation was applied by custom or administrative habit, never by law. These are the positions where conversion is cleanest, the legal pathway is unambiguous, and the operational benefit is immediate.

Chief Financial Officers. Assistant Secretaries for Administration. Budget Directors. Chief Information Officers. Human Capital Officers. These roles exist across dozens of federal departments. In many agencies, they are already filled by people with deep technical backgrounds who happen to carry a political designation neither they nor the agency actually needs. Conversion normalizes what is already functionally true in practice.

The goal is to submit Phase One legislation within the first one hundred days of the administration. Presidential capital is highest at the start. The mandate for reform is freshest.

The moment to move is then, and we will be ready.

III. Phase Two: Apply What Already Works

Phase Two targets departments where equivalent career positions already exist elsewhere in the federal structure. When one department fills a role with a political appointee and another department fills the identical role with a career professional, the argument for conversion is not theoretical. It is simply a matter of applying a consistent standard.

These conversions require more coordination and more Congressional engagement, because they often involve committee jurisdiction and agency-specific statutory language. They take longer. They require the record of results from Phase One to make the case. That is by design. Reform that moves faster than it can be defended is reform that doesn't hold.

IV. Phase Three: The Harder Work

The third phase addresses positions where conversion requires new statutory authority — roles where the law explicitly designates presidential appointment and where Congress must act to change the designation. This is the most difficult phase, and we will not pretend otherwise.

It will require sustained public support. It will require a clear record from the first two phases showing that career-led agencies perform better, serve faster, and cost less to restart after transitions. The case must be made in practice, not just on paper. Phase Three is earned by the success of what comes before it.

It is achievable — because the argument is not ideological. Operational positions should be run by operational professionals. That is not a liberal idea or a conservative idea. It is a competence idea, and competence serves every American regardless of party.

V. What This Is Really About

There is a principle that runs through everything this week's briefings have described. It is not complicated. Government positions exist to serve the public. When those positions are filled by people who can do the job — who have been doing the job, who will still be doing the job after the next election — the public gets served. When those positions are filled to reward loyalty, the public waits.

The veteran who gets their check on time. The family whose loan application doesn't fall into a gap between outgoing and incoming leadership. The community whose infrastructure project doesn't restart from scratch because the officials overseeing it changed. These are the people this legislation is for. They are the reason it needs to be law and not just policy.

Competency should not expire at the end of an administration. This law ensures it doesn't.

Martin A. Ginsburg, RN

2028 Presidential Campaign of Martin A. Ginsburg, RN