Will Congress take up legislation to address the President’s Schedule Policy/Career rule?

Terry Gerton Well, I know you’re on the road and so I’m going to jump right into this. We agreed to talk about Schedule F. So what are your current thoughts on where the Trump administration is with its schedule policy career proposals?

Kweisi Mfume What frightens me most about Schedule F as proposed by Donald Trump is that it will in all likelihood result in the purging of our federal workforce, hardworking men and women who are not political appointees, but who work day in and day out to make sure, in a nonpartisan fashion, that our government is functioning. That frightens and it ought to frighten everybody, whether they’re in government or not, because Donald Trump, in my opinion, seeks to turn this federal workforce into a workforce of sycophants or people who just believe and trust in anything that he says and whose real test is a loyalty test.

Terry Gerton You obviously have a lot of federal workers in your district there in Maryland. What are you hearing from your constituents?

Kweisi Mfume Well, I have 19,000 in my district; I think probably 140,000 throughout the state. People are afraid. People just know that they’ve done what they were supposed to do. They work hard, they play by the rules, they do their job, they do it well. And then to see this effort to rearrange, redefine, and then repopulate this whole Schedule F employee list is scary. And it’s scaring a lot of people. What scares me particularly about it is that unlike the original Schedule F, Donald Trump, not OPM, will have final say on who is hired, who stays on board and who leaves. That’s dangerous, whether it’s a Democrat or Republican in the White House. It’s very dangerous because it injects into all of this uncertainty that we’re already living in a great deal more. So federal employees are frightened. They are trying to figure out what to do next. They have mortgages, they have kids at the trying to get through school, they have other bills and responsibilities, they have parents that they are taking care of. All the things that beset any other group of employees beset federal employees. It’s a terrible position to be in, and one where if you’re a federal employee, you just don’t know which way to turn. Usually, Congress has been a stopgap. But with the Republican majority in the House and in the Senate, and a Supreme Court that seems to be more inclined to support rather than to not support this president, and a Justice Department and FBI all at his beck and whim and call, it makes it very difficult for federal employees to see their way out.

Terry Gerton So you mentioned Congress’s response to this. There have been a number of bills introduced in past congresses, including one by the late Congressman Gerry Connolly, to protect federal employees by making it illegal to create another employment schedule for federal civilians. Where is Congress on this now? Are there new pieces of legislation that might be introduced?

Kweisi Mfume The thing that I think works best to blunt this is for Congress, in a bipartisan way, to create legislation that prevents the creation of new federal employment categories, and/or modifies federal employee protections. Once that’s finalized, then Congress can vote to reject the Schedule F policy career OPM rule and instead offer something up that provides protection and a great deal of oversight. And oversight I think is meet needed more than anything else. I’d be lying if i didn’t tell you that this is a do-nothing Congress. We’ve done so very, very little in the six months since we’ve convened and it’s a shame, quite frankly, because in any other scenario people who know better would be clamoring on both sides of the aisle to be able to create and to pass protective legislation or legislation that creates an opportunity and a firewall against what we’re seeing, but that is not the case. This is a very partisan Congress and with Democrats and a couple of Republicans every now and then working on trying to find a way to prevent much of what has happened, we don’t see a great deal of progress.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Congressman Kweisi Mfume, who represents Maryland’s 7th District. So, Congressman, who might be the leads in Congress for this kind of future legislation?

Kweisi Mfume Well, I hope it’s myself and it’s a senior member of the other side of the aisle. You know, I’ve been working very closely with Pete Sessions, a Republican from Texas, on a number of legislative efforts, a number of inquiries, and hopefully a number subpoenas to try to bring people before our federal workforce committee. If that’s the case, then it would be us. But heretofore, it’s been Gerry Connolly and usually several Democrats. It’s just very difficult. And I don’t want to make this a partisan discussion, but we’re dealing with partisan politics here. So unless there are Republicans who are willing to step up and to be co-leads or co-sponsors on legislation like this, it’ll continue to be a talking point or a discussion point. And that’s why I said this is a do-nothing Congress. We have done so very little in the face of all sorts of opportunities and all sorts of wrongs. We’ve done very little to address them. We can always talk about them and go on the floor of the house and rail against them, but there’s got to be real action. That action in a Congress that is split this closely has to be bipartisan if it’s going to get out. And I would just urge people who hear this broadcast, who listen to you regularly, to remember that the more that members of Congress in the House and Senate hear from people all over this country, the more likely they are to be sensitive to the issues that we care so much about.

Terry Gerton I appreciate that outreach to the listening community and encouraging them to reach to their members of Congress. But there are pieces right now in the mega bill, the reconciliation bill, that are also pretty disadvantageous to federal employees: higher retirement contributions to protect their work status as opposed to being at-will, fees to file at the Merit Systems Protection Board. How have those discussions played out as this bill has progressed?

Kweisi Mfume They played out on the House side. We had 504 amendments, I believe, to try to correct every aspect of this piece of legislation, including the things that you were talking about. It’s been very, very challenging to find a way to get help from the other side. When you have that many amendments and you fail that many times, it’s because there is a partisan gridlock. So, it’s scary to know that these proposed changes are out there and that this bill now has moved from the House, where we tried like hell to correct it and to make it better, and it’s on the Senate side where, you know, they operate a little differently and many of the things that are going on over there, we don’t find out about until they are a part of a news story or when there is a disagreement among senators of the same party. I just believe more than anything else, these sort of changes are going to continue to be whispered and then take shape and be formulated into the final bill. And we don’t know if this bill is going to come back again for a conference committee. My sense is that the Senate doesn’t want that, even though Speaker Johnson does. I just don’t know right now, to the extent that I can honestly say to you, where things are on the Senate side with this bill. I know they’re very punitive things, and some of which you mentioned, that do not bode well for federal employees.

Terry Gerton With all of this uncertainty, Congressman, what advice do you have both for folks who are currently in the federal workforce and those who might have hoped to come into the federal workforce?

Kweisi Mfume  I hope people are not deterred. Public service is still very, very admirable considering all the things that we have before us as options. It’s right at the top of the list, and it’s at the top of the list because it’s always been a noble profession. People who’ve come into government service have come in because they care about their government, they care bout the direction of things, they want to help, they don’t want to be on the sidelines, they want to make sure that, in a non-partisan way, they can contribute. So that’s the first thing: don’t be deterred.  At this particular point in time, watch and keep an eye on where things are going. And those who are in the public workforce, federal employees all over the country — and by the way, 80% of all federal employees are outside of Washington, D.C., as you know — even though the administration and people who’ve been trying to decimate federal workforce would argue just the opposite. Those persons who are in, I believe should stay in, and to the extent possible, hunker down like many are doing. Continue to do the great job that you are doing. And we are trying to find a way to get the cavalry on the Hill to liberate, protect, and save our civil service as we know it.