Op-Ed: Houston Keene: The federal bureaucracy is appointed, not anointed

Our society has become far too polarized. Unfortunately, that polarization has spread to what is supposed to be a nonpartisan stable of civil servants working for the American people.

The United States Constitution is the greatest legal document the world has ever produced, enshrining the God-given rights of our citizens in protection from those in the federal government who would view them as roadblocks. Article II of this seminal document vests the president with the power of the executive branch, and, by extension, authority over those who work in it. It is the duty of these employees, all of whom take an oath to uphold the Constitution, to carry out the agenda and all lawful orders of the President elected by the American people.

Unfortunately, congressional and executive actions over the past few decades have eroded this authority, allowing for protections that make it difficult, at times almost impossible, to mete out discipline or terminate unelected bureaucrats who are not working for the American people or, worse, working against the president they are constitutionally obligated to serve.

That’s where we come in.

Democracy Restored is a nonpartisan government watchdog that exists to help return the power to the people in the face of a federal government ceding authority to unelected bureaucrats. We are dedicated to exposing federal employees who impede the work mandated by the American people in the name of their own personal or special interests.

To put it simply, we exist to educate the public on how the federal government really works, how it far too often doesn’t work, and who is behind that. And we’ve already seen the effects of unelected influence in the federal government.

Our society has become far too polarized. Unfortunately, that polarization has spread to what is supposed to be a nonpartisan stable of civil servants working for the American people, their elected president, and his or her leadership choices. The bureaucracy and its professional problems today can be characterized by countless instances, including — but not limited to — White House staffers protesting the president they work for while promoting anti-Semitic propaganda attacking our closest Middle Eastern ally; literal therapy sessions for State Department employees mourning an election outcome; a U.S. Airman immolating himself in front of the Israeli Embassy in our nation’s capital over Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists; and attorneys at one agency refusing to reveal information about ongoing cases to political appointee lawyers forcing leadership to discover this information via the public docket instead of the agency’s attorneys..

It is clear that the rot of political polarization has finally reached official Washington’s core. This political rot has run so rampant in our federal government that now an FBI whistleblower is alleging that the agency’s security clearance division can’t be trusted to handle Trump administration background checks.

Let that sink in: a whistleblower is warning that the security clearance wing of the Federal Bureau of Investigation — one of the highest echelons of law enforcement — cannot be trusted to handle background checks on the incoming president’s picks to serve the American people.

Needless to say, such alleged politicization would tarnish the agency and further erode the trust of the public.

The solution is a simple one: sunshine. Everyone knows sunshine is the best disinfectant (especially me as a new father), and that goes especially for the federal government. Democracy Restored and other nonpartisan organizations like us exist to ensure the American people know exactly what their government is doing. It should not take seismic scandals like Watergate to grease the wheels of change in Washington when American citizens are begging for civil service reform — in fact, lawmakers are so encouraged by the formation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the leadership of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy that they formed a bipartisan DOGE Caucus.

The American people deserve to have a government that works for them, not the other way around. The only way to ensure that is to restore the balance of power in the executive branch, and Democracy Restored is here to help ensure that happens.

Houston Keene joins Democracy Restored after a career working in Congress and as a nationally syndicated journalist covering politics, including the executive branch and government ethics. Houston was born in Austin, Texas, and is a proud father, husband, and Baylor Bear.