Political appointments in the United States federal government until 1883. In 1820 Congress limited federal administrators to four-year terms, which led to constant turnover; by the 1860s and the Civil War, patronage had led to widespread inefficiency and political corruption. Although it used to be confined to cabinet positions, department heads, and foreign ambassadorships, by the 1860s patronage had spread to low-level government positions. This meant that when the incumbent political party lost a presidential election, the federal government underwent wholesale turnover. On July 2, 1881, Charles J. Guiteau, a disaffected and mentally unstable political office seeker, assassinated President James Garfield. This highlighted how much the
Charles J. Cooper commercial, and civil rights litigation. Cooper led the legal team for the defendant-intervenors in "Hollingsworth v. Perry," defending California Proposition 8 in 2008, which banned same-sex marriage in the state. He argued this case before the US Supreme Court. Charles has been retained by Attorney General, Jeff Sessions for counsel in response to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Charles J. Cooper Charles 'Chuck' J. Cooper (born 1955) is an appellate attorney and litigator in Washington, D.C., where he is a founding member and chairman of the law firm Cooper & Kirk, PLLC. He was named by