The House Government Operations Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 23 at 11 a.m. EST on ways to “rebuild” the Federal workforce after four years of bruising under the Trump administration, including a late 2020 bid to establish a new classification for policy-related Federal positions.
The subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said the hearing will look at the current state of the Federal workforce “and the actions that are necessary to repair, rebuild, and fortify it for the future.” As part of that agenda, the panel will talk about “the need to attract and retain young talent to prepare for the future retirement of much of the current Federal workforce,” the subcommittee said.
“After four years of the Trump administration, the Federal workforce has sustained significant damage,” the subcommittee said. “Former President Trump reduced the ranks of the federal workforce; replaced expert, career professionals with partisan operators; and attacked collective bargaining rights and the independence of the competitive civil service to further his own personal and political agenda.”
The hearing will feature a discussion of the Preventing a Patronage System Act introduced in January by Reps. Connolly and Brian Fitzpatrick, R.-Pa. That bill, among other objectives, took aim at an October 2020 executive order by former President Trump that created a “Schedule F” classification for Federal employees in policy-making positions and made it easier to hire and fire them. The executive order was invalidated by President Biden last month.
The hearing will also discuss legislation to reauthorize the Merit Systems Protection Board, the subcommittee said. Witnesses will include Janice Lachance, executive vice president at the American Geophysical Union; Everett Kelley, National President of the American Federation of Government Employees; and Anne O’Connell, a law professor at Stanford Law School.
