Government Employee Accountability Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LYNCH. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to say that I have the utmost affection and respect for the gentleman from Pennsylvania. He and I are friends. But I must say that he's wrong on this case.

It's ironic that you choose James Madison as the one person that you rely upon in your argument, because it was James Madison that actually drafted the due process clause. He was the one that took the recommendations from the delegates from New York and actually drafted the text. He made his own amendments to the due process clause that we today rely upon to protect constitutional rights.

Let me also talk about the Senior Executive Service in our Federal government. Those are the employees that rise to the top. They do after years of serving in many cases because of their expertise in protecting our veterans at the VA hospitals. But the Senior Executive Service is an experienced corps of dedicated Federal employees who provide institutional stability and continuity across administrations, and they serve as a vital link between political appointees, frontline managers, and the Federal workforce. We don't want each administration coming in and saying for no reason, Well, I'm a Republican. I'm going to fire all the Democratic executives in the Senior Executive Service. We don't want a Democrat coming in and saying, I'm going to fire all these Republicans who are in senior positions.

One of the protections we provide is due process of law. Despite the important role that Senior Executive Service employees play in the Federal Government, this bill that's on the floor today would deprive these employees of the basic due process rights available to them under existing law. The legislation would give agency heads the broad discretion to just fire people, fire senior executives that are suspected of misconduct, and employees would bear the burden of proving their reinstatement. This is called ``ready, fire, aim.'' It would allow firing employees for basically any reason that in the discretion of the senior management is required. As the gentleman from Maryland and I--and I congratulate him on his advocacy here--it presumes guilt before we get all the facts. That is completely inconsistent with the principles of our Constitution.

I am deeply concerned that this legislation may cause irreparable reputational damage if an individual is wrongly accused and forced to seek reinstatement. The person may eventually be vindicated, but the damage to the individual's reputation, their financial stability, and their career may be beyond repair. Moreover, there are effective tools already existing to hold senior executives accountable for performance and conduct issues. These disciplinary procedures provide very simply, 30 days' notice. You have to have notice why you're fired in writing. That's not a lot to ask, 30 days' notice of why you're being fired. This is what you're eliminating from the law right now. It gives that person 30 days to scramble to get a representative to put a case together to say, No, these aren't the facts. It allows them, if they are able, to get an attorney or a representative, which includes the right to that written decision and the right to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Those are the basic due process rights that James Madison has supported. You're right, James Madison is still here today. He's on this side. He's on the side of due process. He doesn't want a kangaroo court. He wanted protections for constitutional rights, and he thought it was so important that he incorporated those in the text of the Constitution.

During committee consideration of H.R. 2579, I offered an amendment to apply these existing due process protections to the expedited removal provisions in the bill, but my amendment was rejected. For these reasons--and I say again I have great respect for the gentleman from Pennsylvania--I urge my colleagues to vote against this measure in support of due process, in support of the principles that James Madison advocated. Also, I want to say the previous bill that the gentleman talked about earlier that we voted on, 410 votes, that had the ``ready, aim, then fire'' provision.

It gave the due process rights. The bill that we supported in the previous session, it wasn't exactly the same, as the gentleman acknowledged; it had due process rights. It allowed employees to have 30 days to have a written decision to know what the charges were against them and to respond. So this is a very, very different bill than passed the House overwhelmingly in the previous session.

This bill does not allow the employee the 30 days' notice of what they did wrong. It does not allow them to defend themselves against the charges. It does not allow them to have a representative. It does not allow them the ability to protect their reputation in real-time. This bill fires them first and then asks questions later. For those reasons, it should be rejected.

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Mr. LYNCH. I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate his advocacy.

Mr. Speaker, I do want to point out some inconsistencies in the argument by my friend from Pennsylvania. In the case of Mr. Neely and in the case of Lois Lerner, under existing law, all that was required before they fired either of those individuals is to give them 30 days' notice, 30 days' written notice of the charges against them, give them the 30 days to put together a defense or to offer their version of the facts.

That's all that was required, and then we could have fired them or put them on administrative leave without pay. That was within the discretion of GSA.

So when GSA tells Mr. Kelly they can't do anything, there's plenty they could do. They could have taken both those employees, put them on administrative leave without pay--talk about protecting the taxpayer. I'm for that. They had the power to do that in these cases.

They could have taken both those employees, under current law, with due process in place, put them both on administrative leave without pay, and we could have protected the taxpayer. That was the discretion on the part of the administration and the folks that made the decision in that place. It was not a fault of the law.

But interestingly enough, it also protected us to have the second version of the facts put forward to bring more light to this.

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Mr. LYNCH. Think about this. That due process right would allow an employee who might be the fall guy, it might be a person that they're trying to fire to shut them up, it gives them an opportunity to come before the public and say, while they're still in their job, to say, no, that's not the way it went down.

Now, it might be to the benefit of the Republican, it might be to the benefit of the Democrat, whatever position you have, whoever that individual might be. But it brings truth, it brings facts, and it brings the ability of that individual employee to protect themselves.

That's what we're asking for here, that 30 days' opportunity. And it can be without pay. We can protect the taxpayer and still give due process rights to our employees. This bill should be opposed for all those reasons.

I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) for yielding.

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