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Executive Order 13162 Revoked 🏛️✅ Zone 1: Maximum Authority Constitutional Fidelity (+0.23) 📜 Art. II §3: Administrative Management & Civil Service

Executive Order 13162—Federal Career Intern Program

William J. Clinton William J. Clinton
•
Thursday, July 6, 2000
•
3 min read (653 words)
•
65 Fed. Reg. 43211

Executive Brief • At a Glance

⏱️ 3 min read (653 words) • ● Revoked
🎯 Primary Mandate

Executive Order 12596 of May 7, 1987, is revoked.

View all 4 directives ↓
⚖️ Constitutional Footing
🏛️✅ Zone 1: Maximum Authority
Express or Implied Congressional Authorization
📜 Art. II §3: Administrative Management & Civil Service
Framers' constitutional debate ↓
🏛️ Scope & Affected Sectors
Armed Forces & Military Establishments Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants Private Citizens & Property Owners
Inspect unabridged text ↓

Plain-English Translation & Framers' Constitutional Analysis

Early Statesman synthesis distilling legal jargon into practical meaning, statutory anchors, and structural constitutional impacts.

Signed by President William J. Clinton on July 6, 2000, this order concerns Federal Career Intern Program. There is hereby constituted the Federal Career Intern Program (Program). The purpose of the Program is to attract exceptional men and women to the Federal workforce who have diverse professional experiences, academic training, and competencies, and to prepare them for careers in analyzing and implementing public programs. "Career Intern" is a generic term, and agencies may use occupational titles as appropriate.

Constitutional Assessment: This action represents an orderly exercise of Article II administrative discretion, managing the internal machinery and personnel of the executive branch without abridging the ancient liberties of the people.

Key Directives & Operative Actions

▪
The OPM shall provide oversight of the Program

Executive Order 12596 of May 7, 1987, is revoked.

▪

There is hereby constituted the Federal Career Intern Program (Program).

▪

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) shall develop appropriate merit-based procedures for the recruitment, screening, placement, and continuing career development of Career Interns.

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In developing those procedures, the OPM shall provide for such actions as deemed appropriate to assure equal employment opportunity and the application of appropriate veterans’ preference criteria.

Constitutional & Societal Entities Impacted

🏛️ Armed Forces & Military Establishments 🏛️ Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants 🏛️ Private Citizens & Property Owners

Policy Areas & Topics

🏷️ Labor & Employment 🏷️ Government Operations & Civil Service
🏛️

The Framers' Constitutional Council

1787 Prism

Evaluating this order against the constitutional debates of 1787 and the limits of Article II executive power.

🏛️✅ Zone 1 (Maximum Authority)
§

"When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate."

— Justice Robert H. Jackson, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) Express or Implied Congressional Authorization
JM

James Madison

Separation of Powers & Legislative Primacy

"The constitutional magistracy was designed not to invent policy, but to be the faithful instrument of the laws passed by the people's representatives." — Speech in the First Congress (1789)

Madison would approve the structural posture of this order. The President acts strictly in subordination to statutory authority granted under Article II, Section 3 ("take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"). The checks and balances hold firm because the policy origin remains with the legislature.

Madisonian Stance: Concurring (Statutory)
AH

Alexander Hamilton

The Energetic Executive & Unified Command

"A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government." — Federalist No. 70 (1788)

Hamilton would view this directive as the natural and indispensable functioning of administrative leadership. Without the power to coordinate agencies, manage personnel, and resolve operational ambiguities, the modern presidency would be reduced to an impotent figurehead.

Hamiltonian Stance: Supportive of Execution
GM

George Mason

Bill of Rights, Due Process & 10th Amendment

"The president will be surrounded by flatterers and sycophants... and the great powers of the executive will gradually absorb the liberties of the people." — Cato IV (Anti-Federalist, 1787)

The Anti-Federalist prism advises continuous democratic vigilance. Even routine administrative directives aggregate centralized federal power away from town halls and state assemblies toward a distant executive apparatus.

Anti-Federalist Stance: Eternal Vigilance Required
📐

Five Measurable "Constitutional Friction" Dimensions

An objective audit measuring potential separation-of-powers tension against the United States Constitution and established Supreme Court doctrine.

⚖️ Discretionary Twilight Zone
36 / 100 friction index
Dimension 1 • Art. I, §1 & §8

Legislative Encroachment & Purse

Moderate Friction

Administers commerce or fiscal programs requiring ongoing statutory delegation and legislative oversight.

Benchmark: Power of the purse, taxes/tariffs, and rule of law reserved to Congress.
Dimension 2 • Art. II, §1 & §3

Executive Scope & Faithfulness

Moderate Friction

Directs internal executive branch machinery, agency workflows, and federal personnel.

Benchmark: Faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress vs. unilateral decree.
Dimension 3 • 10th Amendment

Federalism & State Sovereignty

Moderate Friction

Engages state and local partners in cooperative federalism programs.

Benchmark: Police powers and un-delegated responsibilities reserved to the States.
Dimension 4 • 5th & 14th Amendments

Due Process & Individual Rights

Low Friction

Focuses on internal governmental operations with no direct impairment of private rights or property.

Benchmark: Protection of private property, contracts, liberty, and procedural justice.
Dimension 5 • Separation of Powers

Youngstown Jacksonian Tier

Low Friction

The President operates strictly as the constitutional Chief Executive, carrying out policy established by Congress with strong statutory backing.

Benchmark: Express or Implied Congressional Authorization
⚖️ Audit Synthesis

This order operates within Justice Jackson’s Zone of Twilight, resting upon concurrent presidential authority or congressional silence.

Weighted composite: Art. I (25%), Art. II (25%), Federalism (15%), Due Process (15%), Youngstown (20%).
ℹ️
How to read these dimensions: Executive power expands whenever an administration acts without explicit statutory authorization from Congress (Article I), touches upon police powers historically reserved to the states (Tenth Amendment), or limits private rights and property without judicial process. A low friction score indicates strict concordance with enacted law; a high friction score highlights orders testing the limits of presidential discretion.
Total Words
653
4,154 characters
Estimated Read Time
3 min
@ 200 words / min
Flesch-Kincaid
17.3
Post-Graduate Legal
Language Tone Score
+0.23
Constitutional Fidelity
How is this scored?
Text size:

Official Archival Text

View Source Document
📑Sections Outline (9 sections)
Sec. 1Sec. 2Sec. 3Sec. 4Sec. 5Sec. 6Sec. 7Sec. 8Sec. 9: Judicial Review

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 3301 and 3302 of title 5, United States Code, and in order to provide for the recruitment and selection of exceptional employees for careers in the public sector, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. #sec-1

There is hereby constituted the Federal Career Intern Program (Program). The purpose of the Program is to attract exceptional men and women to the Federal workforce who have diverse professional experiences, academic training, and competencies, and to prepare them for careers in analyzing and implementing public programs. "Career Intern" is a generic term, and agencies may use occupational titles as appropriate.

Sec. 2. #sec-2

The Program is another step in the Administration’s effort to recruit the highest caliber people to the Federal Government, develop their professional abilities, and retain them in Federal departments and agencies. Cabinet secretaries and agency administrators should view the Program as complementary to existing programs that provide career enhancement opportunities for Federal employees, and departments and agencies are encouraged to identify and make use of those programs, as well as the new Program, to meet department and agency needs.

Sec. 3. #sec-3

(a) The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) shall develop appropriate merit-based procedures for the recruitment, screening, placement, and continuing career development of Career Interns. (b) In developing those procedures, the OPM shall provide for such actions as deemed appropriate to assure equal employment opportunity and the application of appropriate veterans’ preference criteria.

Sec. 4. #sec-4

(a) A successful candidate shall be appointed to a position in Schedule B of the excepted service at the GS–5, 7, or 9 (and equivalent) or other trainee level appropriate for the Program, unless otherwise approved by the OPM. The appointment shall not exceed 2 years unless extended by the Federal department or agency, with the concurrence of the OPM, for up to 1 additional year. (b) Tenure for a Career Intern shall be governed by the following principles and policies: (1) Assigned responsibilities shall be consistent with a Career Intern’s competencies and career interests, and the purposes of the Program. (2) Continuation in the Program shall be contingent upon satisfactory performance by the Career Intern throughout the internship period. (3) Except as provided in subsections (4) and (5) of this section, service as a Career Intern confers no rights to further Federal employment in either the competitive or excepted service upon the expiration of the internship period. (4) Competitive civil service status may be granted to a Career Intern who satisfactorily completes the internship and meets all other requirements prescribed by the OPM. (5) Within an agency, an employee who formerly held a career or career-conditional appointment immediately before entering the Career Intern Program, and who fails to complete the Career Intern Program for reasons unrelated to misconduct or suitability, shall be placed in a career or career-conditional position in the current agency at no lower grade or pay than the one the employee left to accept the position in the Career Intern Program.

Sec. 5. #sec-5

A Career Intern shall participate in a formal program of training and job assignments to develop competencies that the OPM identifies as core to the Program, and the employing agency identifies as appropriate to the agency’s mission and needs.

Sec. 6. #sec-6

The OPM shall prescribe such regulations as it determines necessary to carry out the purpose of this order.

Sec. 7. #sec-7

The OPM shall provide oversight of the Program.

Sec. 8. #sec-8

Executive Order 12596 of May 7, 1987, is revoked.

Sec. 9. #sec-9

Judicial Review. This order is intended only to improve the internal management of the executive branch. It does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable in law or equity, by a party against the United States, its agencies, its officers or employees, or any other person. William J. Clinton

THE WHITE HOUSE, #signature

July 6, 2000.

🔗

Referenced By Later Executive Orders (1)

Subsequent presidents who cited, amended, continued, or revoked this directive in later orders.

References Executive Order 13562—Recruiting and Hiring Students and Recent Graduates
Barack Obama • 2010-12-27
📜

Scholarly & Legal Citations 

Exec. Order No. 13,162, 65 Fed. Reg. 43,211 (July 6, 2000).