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Department of Homeland Security Morale, Recognition, Learning and Engagement Act of 2019

Floor Speech

Date: April 1, 2019
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: National Security Government Operations

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Mr. Speaker, every day, the Department of Homeland Security's workforce carries out dozens of critical missions, which are as diverse as preventing terrorism, securing cyberspace, transportation security, and disaster recovery.

These 240,000 men and women deserve to have their contributions to keeping the Nation secure valued by not only the American people but also by DHS itself. Yet, even before the President's 35-day partial government shutdown earlier this year, morale within DHS was a persistent problem. In fact, for the past 7 years, DHS has ranked dead last among all large Federal agencies in the Partnership for Public Service's annual ``Best Places to Work in the Federal Government'' survey.

This is unacceptable. Senior DHS leadership, most especially the Secretary of Homeland Security, needs to prioritize improving morale within the DHS workforce. In the Obama administration, then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson began to address this operational imperative through a range of programs under the unity of effort umbrella. Unfortunately, the current administration largely abandoned those promising efforts.

I have long been committed to improving conditions for the DHS workforce. To that end, I reintroduced H.R. 1433, the DHS MORALE Act, a bill that passed the House unanimously and received tremendous support from the labor organizations representing the DHS labor force.

The DHS MORALE Act requires DHS to develop and implement policies related to leadership development, employee engagement, career progression, and employee recommendations.

This Congress, two new provisions were added to the bill. The first directs the DHS Chief Human Capital Officer to analyze government-wide Federal workforce satisfaction or morale surveys to inform efforts to improve morale. The second provision requires a report to Congress on the impact of the recent government shutdown on DHS human resources and morale. Both of these measures would be a step toward fixing the longstanding morale problems at DHS.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the passage of H.R. 1433, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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