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Floor Speech
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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleagues Senator Warner and Senator Van Hollen. We just had a press conference where Senator Cardin and Senator Hirono also came to speak about the importance of this issue.
As everybody knows--you learned this in civics in grade school-- officials in the United States swear loyalty not to the President but to the Constitution of the United States. Under the Constitution, Congress passes laws, and the President enforces them.
But from the beginning days of our country, the President can't do all the enforcement and implementation on his or her own; it is too big a job for an individual. In a big and complex country, you need people whose whole job might be enforcing a particular law--say inspecting a meat- processing plant. You need people to make sure planes don't crash into each other at airports, people to prosecute anybody running a scam to cheat the elderly out of their life savings, people to bust tax cheats or catch somebody dumping toxic chemicals into a stream, in violation of the Clean Water Act.
Federal employees do all these things. They work to ensure that critical resources and services are provided in countless communities across America. They work to keep Social Security up and running, manage veterans' benefits, research medical diseases, and develop cures and vaccines.
Enforcing the law and running government requires people who are duty-bound to enforce the laws enacted by Congress and to obey the lawful orders of the President, all subject to the overriding duty to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. But we swear fealty to that Constitution, not to a person.
Early in the Republic, as my colleague indicated--Senator Van Hollen--the executive branch operated under what is known as the spoil system, as in the expression ``to the victor go the spoils.'' But there quickly arose an obvious problem: If the people who enforce American laws answer only to the President, then if you are on the President's team, they go easy on you, and if you are against the President, they bring Federal law down on you like a hammer. That is not the rule of law.
It took a century, from the founding of America until enactment of the Pendleton Act--and Senator Van Hollen talked about a tragedy that occurred at the foot of Capitol Hill, which was once a train station where President Garfield was assassinated in 1881. It took that tragedy to basically galvanize this growing awareness that our Federal employees should be hired based on merit, not political loyalty.
Since then--nearly 150 years--our Nation has recognized the value of a nonpartisan and merit-based system to carry out Federal Government functions. Having a dedicated civil service based on merit rather than political loyalties is in the best interest of everyone. It not only promotes professionalism and reduces cronyism, it also promotes stability.
We saw in the last Trump administration the track record of the political appointees. There was a revolving door in many of these positions. How many Secretaries of State? How many Secretaries of Defense? How many Secretaries of the Navy? When you are switching positions out, you get worse and worse quality of service. The professional civil service is not just about merit, it is also about stability.
Our civil service is tasked with protecting so many important values: national security, economic productivity, guiding public health, and so much more. There have been attempts in recent years to erode the independence of the Federal civil service, and that is why I am here on the floor, where I will in a minute request Senate passage of the Saving the Civil Service Act.
The bill upholds the merit system principles to ensure that the Federal Government is equipped with the most qualified and experienced individuals. Specifically, the Saving the Civil Service Act will prohibit the reclassification of Federal employees to schedules outside of the competitive civil service without congressional consent. If Congress agrees to this, that is one thing, but to do the reclassification over the objection of or without even consulting with Congress would be barred by this bill.
Over 2 million Federal employees work in all 50 States and U.S. territories.
There are 147,000 in Virginia.
In New Mexico, there are more than 22,000 Federal employees who work in critical areas such as nuclear research. Some of the most important research that has been done in the history of the United States was done in New Mexico by highly trained scientists, and that continues today.
In Missouri, which my colleague Senator Schmitt represents, Federal employment is more than 37,000, and many work for the VA, for the Treasury, for the Army, for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and for the Department of Homeland Security.
This shouldn't be a partisan bill. We don't have any need and never have had a need for Democratic meat inspectors or Republican air traffic controllers, Democratic VA nurses and Republican cancer researchers; we just want people who have expertise. These experts may have their personal political opinions, but as long as they are doing their jobs, they deserve protection from political retaliation.
To be clear, the President can govern as he or she sees fit within the bounds of statute. Many Federal laws have ambiguity. If there is too much ambiguity, we in Congress need to fix it. The President is empowered to use flexibility within the law as he sees fit, and career Federal employees have to follow those directives and implement the President's interpretation of the law falling within legal bounds. The President, additionally, has the ability to appoint 4,000 political appointees, some of whom must be confirmed by the Senate but many of whom don't even require Senate confirmation.
If a President tries to go outside the law, someone should be able to stand up and say, ``Mr. President, that is illegal, and you can't do it. Telling your boss ``That is illegal, and you can't do it'' is not disloyalty. That is patriotism. That is loyalty to the Constitution and to the law. Again, we all take the same oath. The oath is to the document, not the President.
Third and finally, my bill does not mean that we don't expect accountability from Federal workers. In any large organization, government agency, or large company, there is a potential for unnecessary bureaucracy to develop. In a large pool of people, there may be some bad apples not doing their job. Nothing in this bill protects Federal employees from accountability for their performance.
In fact, the National Federation for Federal Employees has testified before Congress on more than one occasion about the circumstances in which Federal employees have been terminated for cause. That demonstrates that while they exist to defend the rights of their members, they are not going to apologize for or shirk responsibility for bad behavior of employees whose performance merits termination.
I am all for solutions that increase accountability and efficiency. I am on the Foreign Relations Committee, and I followed with great interest the efforts of President Trump's first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, and his team in 2017 in that space.
The rights of civil servants and the goals of an efficient, responsive Federal Government shouldn't be in competition, and I refuse to dismiss as naive the idea that Federal workers can have a range of personal political views but still serve faithfully and carry out the law and the faithful orders of the Commander in Chief.
I know this is possible because it is exactly what we ask of the American military--my oldest son is a marine--and the military delivers that in a significant way. Every servicemember is allowed to vote, but whoever is duly elected--that is whose lawful orders they follow.
The bill is about basic fairness. The American people should have high expectations of Federal workers and should know that the people enforcing American laws aren't going easy on someone just because they happen to be a friend of the President, Democratic or Republican.
Some will argue that this is necessary because the Federal Government is too big and inefficient. In fact, the Federal Government is smaller today than it was during its peak in the post-World War II years, with more than 3 million Federal employees at that time.
So I am looking forward to working on this and making sure that we uphold this value that has stood the test of time since 1883--a professional civil service, not one placed on political loyalty or cronyism.
399 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, just a brief response.
My colleague from Missouri mentioned the fact that recent decisions of the Supreme Court have put more burden on the shoulders of Congress not to abdicate decision-making responsibility but to own it, and that is precisely what my bill would do. It would not block a President from trying to make reforms to the Federal civil service; it would just require that the President do so in consultation with the article I branch.
That article I branch, come January 3, is going to be two Republican Houses. I can't imagine why a Trump Presidency would be afraid of two Republican Houses. If any proposal with respect to the Federal civil service has merit, it would seem that the President should have some sense of confidence that he can convince the next Congress of the United States to go along with it. But if, in fact, he is worried about his ability to convince two Republican Houses to go along with plans with respect to the Federal Civil Service, I think that should tell us something.
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