Preventing A Patronage System Act of 2021

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, it is apparently Groundhog Day in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Today, just like the last day we debated a bill in the Oversight and Reform Committee's jurisdiction, Americans continue to face sky-high inflation, painfully high gas prices, and supply chain shortages.

Americans continue to face the consequences of a broken border that allow fentanyl shipments to flood in and kill our teens, along with a host of other urgent problems. They continue to look to this Congress for help with these real and pressing crises.

Yet, what are Democrats prioritizing instead of addressing these issues during one of the last legislative weeks of this session? Another bill that insulates Federal bureaucracy from accountability. This time the bill is Representative Connolly's Preventing a Patronage System Act.

This is just another Democrat bill that has nothing to do with the American people's priorities. What is the problem the bill tries to address? The Democrats' bill seeks to prevent future Presidents making Federal employees more accountable to the American people whom they serve.

Our Founding Fathers never envisioned a massive, unelected, unaccountable Federal Government with the power to create policies that impact Americans' everyday lives. But that is currently the state of today's Federal bureaucracy.

President Trump sought to take on this bureaucracy and restore power to the people by draining the swamp. He issued an executive order in October 2020 to help make Federal bureaucrats who have the ability to create and implement policy more accountable for their actions.

We should all be in favor of policies making it easier to remove civil servants who refuse to follow the will of the voters. That is what President Trump's executive order did.

Democrats are beholden to the Federal bureaucracy--a workforce who thinks they know better than the American people. They are wrong. Democrats have made every effort to preserve bureaucrats' ability to thwart the policies of any President who tries to implement policies to reign in the expansive influence of the Federal Government over the daily lives of Americans.

This bill is contrary to the American way of government--of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The bill's sponsors allege it is a bill that prevents a return to the patronage system instituted in the 19th century. That is simply not true. President Trump never attempted to return to a patronage system. Just the opposite.

Instead of instituting a new patronage system, President Trump simply made it easier to discipline or remove civil service officials in our government's policymaking roles.

These influential Federal employees should not be allowed to chronically underperform or actively undermine the work of their politically accountable superiors.

If you support an efficient and effective executive branch that is accountable to the American voters, then you must oppose H.R. 302.

Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Federal managers have tools now to remove poor performers when appropriate. In fact, over 10,000 Federal employees were removed last year from their jobs for poor performance.

This bill does not change the removal process for employees who are not performing their jobs well, and schedule F was never about removing employees who are performing poorly. That policy was designed to intimidate and remove career employees who dared to provide impartial advice that may be perceived as contrary to an administration's political agenda. Civil servants are supposed to help administrations follow the law.

So let's set the record straight about schedule F. It was intended to punish Federal employees doing their jobs ethically and legally.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), the chairman of the Government Operations Subcommittee, and the author and sponsor of this bill.

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Mr. COMER. This schedule F has been grossly mischaracterized by my friends on the other side of the aisle.

I want to relay a scenario. Let's say, Mr. Speaker, that this year were a Presidential election year. Let's say that gas prices were an issue in the election. One Presidential candidate campaigns on: We are going to lower the price of gasoline at the pump significantly. We are going to lower it to the price it was when President Trump was in office. The other Presidential candidate campaigns, and says: No, we are going to convert everything to electric vehicles, and everything is going to be fine.

I would say in that scenario the candidate who says they are going to lower gas prices is going to win overwhelmingly because this is one of the biggest issues in America right now.

Fast-forward to the administration. The President comes in, and he says: We are going to lower gas prices because we are going to issue more permits and we are going to reduce the barriers and roadblocks that the previous administration put in to block the American energy companies. He orders that. He has got a mandate from the people on that issue.

The bureaucrats then say: No. No. We are not going to issue more permits. No. We are going to make it even harder. You can't frack and you can't drill. I don't care what the American people said at the voting box. I am Mr. Bureaucrat, and no, we are not going to do it.

That is why we need schedule F employees because the unelected bureaucrats are not accountable to the American people. We have got a scenario here in Washington, D.C. where the unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats are calling the shots, regardless of the will of the American people. That is why we support President Trump's proposal for the schedule F employees.

Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York.

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the distinguished majority leader quoting the Constitution's constitutional role of Congress in making policy.

I will remind my friend, the majority leader, that it is Congress' role to appropriate money, not the President. And that is why we should have oversight hearings on the $300 billion student loan bailout proposal that the President unconstitutionally proposed.

The U.S. House of Representatives needs to concentrate its energy on helping Americans survive economic turmoil and defending our borders and national security.

I once again urge House Democrats to get back to what the American people elected us to do: conduct oversight over the Federal Government and the Biden administration, which is on a path to destroy America.

We need to hold hearings, conduct oversight, and pass legislation affecting the crises that every American is facing today. That is our constitutional responsibility. But instead, today, we are once again spending valuable resources and time on divisive political messaging legislation.

I think if any American was watching this committee hearing today, they would share the frustration of those of us on this side of the aisle who are trying to drain the swamp, who are trying to hold unelectable, unaccountable Federal bureaucrats who refuse to do their jobs accountable. That is part of the job of Congress.

This bureaucracy gets bigger every Congress. I have noticed, with the exception of one speaker, all the speakers on the other side of the aisle who spoke in favor of this bill represent the Washington, D.C. Federal bureaucracy workforce.

The majority of Congress, we represent America, and America wants to hold poor-performing government employees, bureaucrats, who are paid with their hard-earned tax dollars, accountable. That is why the Republicans oppose this legislation, and I urge all of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to do the same.

Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York.

I do not represent the Washington workforce. I represent New York City. I represent the private sector, the private-sector capital of the world, New York City, Manhattan. That is who I represent.

I also represent taxpayers, a lot of them, and they want their money to be spent for good government. They want the people working in the government to be impartial and dedicated to doing the best job possible without political influence. That is exactly what this bill we are talking about today is about.

Schedule F, as I repeat, was never about removing employees who were performing poorly. We have a whole system to do that. We removed over 10,000 last year. This is about protecting employees who are doing a good job from political influence.

I reiterate the crucial role of the people who make up the professional and nonpolitical civil service in delivering government services to our constituents, protecting our democracy, and carrying out agency missions across the Federal Government.

Injecting undue political influence into that system, as schedule F would have done, would be disastrous for the merit system we have in place.

When we pass this bill today, we are making sure that no President of either party, Democrat or Republican, can ever unilaterally take such destructive action in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support a merit system, to support the civil service system that has served us so well, to vote to keep politics out of the civil service system, and to support the important underlying bill.

I congratulate my colleague and very good friend, Mr. Connolly, on his excellent work on this bill. It is bipartisan. We have three Republicans. But I hope that we will pick up more, because this is about voting for freedom, democracy, independence, good government, you name it.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this important bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this commonsense amendment offered by my friend, Representative Hice.

President Trump took needed steps to ensure civil servants serve the American people, not their own interests. One of President Biden's first actions was to undo these needed reforms.

Representative Connolly introduced this bill, even before President Biden was sworn in, to overturn President Trump's action and to prevent any future President from reinstating them.

Obviously, the Biden administration has a radically different view of the Federal workforce than President Trump did, one that House Republicans strongly disagree with.

This amendment would simply ensure that a future President could reinstate a policy similar to schedule F to allow for more accountability within the career civil service. We should not tie the hands of a future duly-elected President to implement the clear mandates of the American people.

Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. 302.

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