Picking Your Next Boss

Do members of the multi-million member federal family vote as a bloc and if so, who’s likely to get most of them this November?

Federal and postal unions almost always endorse the Democratic candidate. But outside the 680,000 workers in the U.S. Postal Service (who are heavily unionized), most of the government’s other 1.8 million civil servants do not belong to a union or pay dues to help support unions who lobby for better pay and benefits.

There is no evidence (meaning I couldn’t find it!) that feds, whether they gather statistics, provide services, patrol the borders or sort our mail are a lock for either political party. But are enough of them to tilt the scales in states that are listed as up-for-grabs in the upcoming presidential election.

I suspect, but couldn’t prove, that feds vote in a higher percentage than many other segments of the population. I also suspect they they tend to vote in much the same way as their neighbors. The Washington area suburbs might be a good example. In the Democratic-dominated Maryland counties in the metro area, with huge concentrations of active and retired civil servants, most of the congressional delegation is Democratic. In the Virginia suburbs, just across the river, and also with huge numbers of federal (and military) people, the Republicans tend to get elected and reelected.

The 385,696 feds who live and work in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia do not include the postal worker population in those states or several hundred thousand employees of the CIA, NSA and some other intelligence agencies.

The good news for feds everywhere is this bipartisan clout in both the House and Senate makes it more likely that feds will get good treatment when it comes to pay raises and improved benefits. Equally important, the friends-of-feds in both parties (who often hold key leadership jobs or chair important committees) are able to fend off proposals that could reduce benefits.

But whichever candidate gets their votes this year, the fact is that everybody who works for the government is old enough and eligible (through citizenship) to vote. And there are a lot of them and they are well-represented especially in what the media says will be battleground states.

Here are the state-by-state totals for feds. Two important points:

1. A fed might work in New York but live in New Jersey. Or work in D.C., but live in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia or Pennsylvania. Live in New Hampshire but work in Massachusetts. Or live in Kentucky but work in Ohio. But they are eligible to vote somewhere.
2. These numbers do not include the nearly 800,000 employees of the U.S. Postal Service. They are also heavily concentrated in big cities and big population states. But they are also rural letter carriers who live and work far from big cities.

Here are the numbers rounded off as of March, 2008 for states with substantial numbers of feds:

Alabama, 26,500 nonpostal federal workers; Alaska, 12,500; Arizona, 37,100; Arkansas, 13,700; California, 153,000; Colorado, 35,600; Connecticut, 7,900; Delaware, 3,100; District of Columbia, 149,000; Florida, 78,400; Georgia, 72,600; Hawaii, 22,300; Idaho, 8,700; Illinois, 46,100; Indiana, 22,000; Iowa, 8,600; Kansas, 15,000; Kentucky, 22,700; Louisiana, 20,000; Maine, 10,000; Maryland, 111,600; Massachusetts, 27,400; Michigan, 26,000; Minnesota, 16,700; Mississippi, 18,200; Missouri, 37,100; Montana, 10,000; Nebraska, 9,300; Nevada, 10,000; New Hampshire, 4,300; New Jersey, 28,400; New Mexico, 24,300; New York, 64,000; North Carolina, 38,000; North Dakota, 6,000; Ohio, 45,700; Oklahoma, 34,400; Oregon, 19,600; Pennsylvania, 64,300; Rhode Island, 6,400; South Carolina, 19,200; South Dakota, 7,900; Tennessee, 26,200; Texas, 124,600; Utah, 28,800; Vermont, 3,900; Virginia, 128,000; Washington, 50,000; West Virginia, 14,700; Wisconsin, 13,600; Wyoming, 5,300.

Nearly Useless Factoid

As the beginning of the school season looms large on the horizon, it may be useful (or useless) to review a list from Snopes.com titled Absent without Leave. Among the items are “Please excuse Joey Friday, he had loose vowels.” and “Please excuse Sara for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.” A fine lesson in what not to do.

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com

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