Based on limited experience, Paul Mirengoff believes almost all Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) are liberal Democrats, a group he certainly doesn't want hearing cases.
Some real ALJs beg to differ.
I don't talk much with ALJs about politics and never at a government office. I rarely interact with ALJs other than at a Social Security office. My impression is that the veterans preference assures that ALJs as a group aren't particularly liberal, particularly for lawyers. Of course, it's more than possible that Mr. Mirengoff regards anyone who doesn't wear a MAGA cap regularly as a liberal Demicrat.
8 comments:
I saw a couple ALJs who I thought were liberal and therefore most ALJs sre liberal. That seems to be this guys false premise du jour. Just ignore the plummeting claim approval rates at SSA and move along, nothing to see here...
that article is a joke. the author seems to say he is basing his impression on the ALJs he knew from his time in DC. ok let me repeat, ALJs he knew in DC, "Having lived almost all of my life in the Washington, D.C. area, I’ve known more than a few administrative law judges. Nearly all of them are/were liberal Democrats..."
not to be hypocritical for also generalizing, but who did he statistically expect to find in DC or DMV, a bunch of devout conservatives (ok, this argument is not perfect given the Trump administration folks that have invaded the area)? but living in DC and making a sweeping generalization on the political philosophies of ALJs nationwide, is like living in San Francisco, NYC, LA, or any other uber-liberal city and making the same lame brained generalization. put another way, I went to Salt Lake City one time, and most of the ministers there seemed to be connected to the Mormon faith, I guess ministers everywhere in US are connected to the Mormon faith as well.
I know, my argument is inherently hypocritical, but hey, come on!
Who is Mirengoff? Is he actually an accomplished attorney and admired thinker, or just somebody with a blog whose outrageous opinion is being given full credit by the marketplace of ideas?
Most SSA ALJs don't practice in DC, so clearly Mirengoff has never met them.
Having argued before, written for, and served with, ALJs in more than half the country over the past two decades, I have firsthand knowledge that Mirengoff is dead wrong.
More to the point, SSD is not an inherently political program. Oh, yes, you may personally feel that children and prison-SSI claimants and Mexicans can never be disabled, but the program rules stay the same from administration to administration, and many of those cases are still getting granted.
Even if Venezulez hacked the 2020 election and put Alexandra Ocasio in the White House, SSD regs would not suddenly be rewritten to turn all ALJs into 95% payers.
I've worked with liberal Democrat ALJs who deny 80% and alt-right Republicans who pay 80%. The most liberal ALJ in my office denies more than half their cases, and our far-left office management is about as anti-union and hard-line pro-SSA management as you can imagine.
Then again, facts never meant much to modern day think-tank conservatives. They'll take Mirengoff's article as proof of their private beliefs, and begin instilling loyalty checks within a couple of years.
Many high denier judges in my region are registered Democrats. The judges whom I know are Republican usually are 40% types.
That article is nonsense. Unfortunately, that's enough to get the attention of this administration.
Is it just me or are the majority of SSA ALJs white males? I think there is more to that than party of record.
There's an answer to the question. What experience did the former OPM process give most points to? What backgrounds for ALJs hired since the late aughts are most common? What do we know about folks in these fields generally in terms of political persuasion, etc.?
Answer these questions (and there are bright line answers), and you'll understand a lot more about the leanings of SSA ALJs and what has happened to OHO's pay rate over the last eight or so years.
I cannot resist the temptation to compare this blundering blogger’s post with vocational expert testimony at ALJ hearings. How many times have you heard VEs say something like this. “I’ve seen three document preparers do the job this way, so all 56,780 document preparers must do it that way...” How many times have you seen ALJs accept such testimony?
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