Stakeholders Push to Prevent Firings of Career Staff
A coalition of nearly 50 organizations urged Congress to pass the Preventing a Patronage System Act in the FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) last week. This week, two lawmakers echoed that call in an op-ed published in GovExec.
The pushes come as Congress negotiates amendments to the NDAA. The Preventing a Patronage System Act was introduced as an amendment that would prevent presidents from transferring thousands of federal employees out of the competitive service, making them easier to remove without merit protections. Under an Executive Order proposed at the end of former-President Trump’s term, the Schedule F plan would reclassifying career employees with policy making authority, among other characteristics. Employees in the newly created Schedule F would be outside the competitive service making them easier to hire and fire. President Biden rescinded the executive order within his first few days in office. The Preventing a Patronage System Act would prevent subsequent presidents from enacting such an order by limiting the president’s ability to transfer employees out of the competitive service.
Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Mark R. Warner (D-VA), introduced the Preventing a Patronage System Act (S.4685) in the Senate. Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) introduced the same bill in the House (H.R.302).
The bill passed the House as a standalone measure and as an amendment to the NDAA.
Nearly 50 organizations and individuals representing a range of federal employee groups, unions, industry groups, and academic institutions issued a letter to House and Senate Leadership last week urging the Senate to pass the measure by any means available.
“We urge you to pass legislation that protects America’s civil service system from future attempts to create broad exceptions to the competitive civil service, whether as standalone legislation or through the annual National Defense Authorization Act, as has been done in the House, as part of appropriations, as is under consideration in the Senate, or otherwise,” the letter says.
The letter warns of the broad consequences of another Schedule F order, even if enacted on a small scale.
“Normal due process safeguards ensuring termination for cause would no longer apply and these positions could be filled with handpicked and potentially unqualified individuals. These hirings and firings, even on a small scale, would cause substantial disruption of government operations, forcing each new administration to spend additional weeks, if not months, dealing with the aftereffects of their predecessor’s decisions. If such a broad exception to the merit-based system were fully implemented, it could radically change how our government operates,” the letter notes.
The letter was signed by 48 organizations including the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), American Society for Public Administration, the Environmental Protection Network, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), the National Employment Law Project, and Protect Democracy. In a GovExec op-ed this week, Senators Feinstein and Kaine noted the NDAA as a viable option for getting this bill passed through the Senate and into law. Ultimately, the Senators urged Congress to “step up and pass” the
bill to “make sure no future president – from either party – is able to singlehandedly strip away bedrock merit-based civil service protections.”
“Career, nonpartisan federal employees are the backbone of our government, and our states of California and Virginia are each home to more than 140,000 civil servants. They carry out a range of important services, from mail delivery and disaster recovery to food safety inspection and Medicare, Social Security and VA benefits administration,” Senators Feinstein and Kaine said. “These employees hold a wealth of experience and institutional knowledge and are essential to ensuring continuity of government between presidential administrations.” In an interview with GovExec this week, Senator Kaine signaled optimism that the standalone bill would get a Senate floor vote this year.
“I know we would get all Democratic votes, and although I haven’t done a whip count on it yet or know exactly where we’d get the 10 Republican votes [to survive a filibuster], [] I have optimism that we could get this included and sufficient votes to get this passed,” Kaine said.