Harrison: More of our protections have been put in jeopardy by Supreme Court

An epilogue should be added to the recently released streaming miniseries “Death by Lightning” explaining how this past week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision gutted the governmental reform that was at the heart of the historical drama – the inception of American civil service protections.

“Death by Lightning” tells the story of James Garfield and his unlikely successful candidacy to become the nation’s 20th president in 1880.

Garfield, a preacher, attorney and Ohio congressman, campaigned on civil service protections and the end of the so-called “spoil system” where people were awarded governmental jobs as political favors. He also campaigned on ensuring that Black Americans who were recently freed from slavery were afforded the right to vote and other civil rights, in addition to access to educational opportunities.

Garfield was tragically shot and killed in his first year in office by Charles J. Guiteau, a mentally unstable man whose disturbingly persistent efforts to be rewarded as part of that spoils system were rejected by Garfield and his staff.

While Garfield’s tenure was one of the shortest in American history and thus his accomplishments were limited, his death did help to spur the nation’s first civil service reforms that ultimately provided some protections for government employees and based their hiring and employment on a merit system instead of the spoil system that had led to corruption throughout the history of the country.

The inception of the civil service system was viewed at the time as a reform furthering the still novel idea of American democracy.

This past week, the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision in Trump v. Slaughter allowed President Donald Trump to fire commissioners of various governmental commissions without cause. Many of the commissions were established by Congress and approved by past presidents to have both Democratic and Republican members regardless of who the president was. The intent was to remove politics, as well as the spoil system, from governmental decisions when possible. Trump fired the Democratic members, and the Supreme Court ruled he had that authority.

The decision was viewed by many as a significant weakening of the United States civil service system that can trace its infancy to Garfield’s assassination.

Trump v. Slaughter came in conjunction with other recent rulings by the Supreme Court diminishing civil service protection. The nation’s highest court, for instance, recently rubber-stamped the firing of a large number of employees of the Department of Education without cause.

The decision by the Supreme Court is the latest in their efforts to significantly limit the impact of landmark legislation that was viewed as important in the nation’s history and in the ongoing efforts to achieve a more just society.

Earlier this year, the Court gutted the Voting Rights Act that protected the voting strength of Black Americans and other minorities.

People died in furtherance of civil rights for Black people leading up to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. And, as depicted in “Death by Lightning,” a president was killed leading up to the passage of laws to create civil service protections in the 1880s.

In “Death by Lightning,” taking a bit of dramatic license, the former first lady, Lucreta Garfield, secretly visited Guiteau in prison soon after her husband’s death. In a dramatic scene she said that she lied to her husband on his death bed by telling him he would be remembered as a great president.

In reality, she said, she knew what could have been a great president would be a historical footnote because of his short tenure caused by Guiteau’s bullet. But she goes on to deliver the ultimate blow to the egotistical Guiteau, who had illusions of grandeur, by telling him he would be even less of a footnote.

Perhaps, she was wrong.

Thanks to the 2026 version of the United State Supreme Court, it could be argued the legacy of Charles Guiteau lives.

This column was produced by Mississippi Today, a nonprofit news organization that covers state government, public policy, politics and culture. Bobby Harrison is the editor of Mississippi Today Ideas.