Federal Employee Antidiscrimination Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman for yielding, and I particularly thank him for his remarks concerning this bill.

I am particularly pleased to rise in support of this bill as a former chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This bill strengthens the protections Federal employees enjoy under the antidiscrimination laws of our country.

It reinforces the importance of this antidiscrimination provisions by requiring that the head of that program report directly to the agency head. It expands notification of findings of discrimination and any action that has been taken pursuant to those findings. Surely, we understand the importance of this section at a time when we have just recently passed the sexual harassment provisions, and, of course, we can see the deterrent effect of assuring any disciplinary action that has been taken is known to the public.

Finally, the bill bars agreements that would keep employees from disclosing any kind of Federal violation, as well as fraud, waste, and abuse. The latter provision is normally called a whistleblower provision.

Madam Speaker, I particularly appreciate that the chairman has brought this bill to the floor--I am sure it is noncontroversial--but he has brought it at a time when Federal employees are experiencing the longest shutdown in U.S. history. This bill cannot and does not purport to make up in any way for the effects of the shutdown. But this bill sends a message to Federal employees that they are particularly valued and, so far as I can tell, it sends it in a unanimous fashion, just as the shutdown should have a unanimous resolution.

It happens that around 62,000 Federal employees live in my own district, because this is the Capital of the United States--the 62,000, I should add, who are furloughed or working with no pay.

But I want to remind Members that each and every Member of this body has Federal employees who are at home desiring to work and are furloughed as I speak. Though I represent a large number, some Members from the far West States should know that they are among those who represent the largest number of Federal employees. That is how dependent they are far away from Washington on Federal employees.

Madam Speaker, the President seems to have moved a step away from claiming dictatorial powers to commandeer Federal funds to open the government. That is probably because somebody drew to his attention the extraordinary spectrum of constitutional, legal, political, and financial issues that would be raised, not to mention a court suit that is probably being prepared, just in case, as I speak.

But, Madam Speaker, I am coming to the floor as well to urge our committee--and the new Democratic majority of which I am a member--to use this crisis of Trump's making to carefully rethink the President's emergency powers, leaving him ample room to move in case of an actual emergency while giving Congress more latitude to contain executive excess.

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Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, in the meantime, I want to lay before the House the easiest of compromises. When I was a tenured professor of law at Georgetown University Law School, I taught negotiations. We usually worked with a number of issues in a negotiation at the same time. However, the easiest compromise to reach is one that involves a number. The number the President clings to is $5 billion. I can think of endless ways--and I am sure every Member can--to compromise that number.

So in the name of a mounting number of Americans who are beginning to feel the consequences of the shutdown, though they are not Federal employees--not to mention the Federal employees themselves--I am asking even for my side to make a more concerted effort to reach an agreeable number, even though the polls show that the American people are with the Democrats on this issue.

As a suggestion, I ask that the Democrats appoint a subcommittee and that the administration do the same to sit down and hammer out an acceptable compromise.

For more than two centuries now, we have operated under a separation- of-powers government to make tyrannical rule nearly impossible. Even Trump is hesitating to declare an emergency to get his border wall. That throws the ball in our camp, we who are Democrats who control this House. I ask that we accept it, use it, run with it, and settle this matter now.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Ms. FOXX of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I would like to make the gentleman from Maryland aware that I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close.

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