IFPTE Urges House and Senate Armed Services Committees to Include the "Preventing a Patronage System Act" in NDAA
As House and Senate Armed Services Committees are meeting to hash out the final National Defense Authorization Act, the must-pass annual bill that sets spending priorities and defense policy, IFPTE reached out to House and Senate leadership to urge them to include the Preventing a Patronage System Act (H.R. 302/S. 4702) in the final legislation.
By including the Preventing a Patronage System Act in the NDAA, Congress would prohibit any presidential administration from unilaterally moving jobs out of the competitive merit-based civil service and into the excepted service, which would result in those federal employees losing their due process rights and those position being converted to at-will employment.
The letter recounts that the last administration issued an Executive Order on October 20, 2020, to create a “Schedule F” in the excepted service for moving competitive service positions into the excepted service. Congressional leadership and Armed Services Chairs and Ranking Members are reminded that, “Though Schedule F was rescinded soon after President Biden took office, a broad coalition on good governance organizations and unions agree that the threat of any future administration implementing Schedule F or any similar effort to inject political patronage, cronyism, and corruption into the federal government would not only be felt by federal employees — it would harm working people, our economy, and the legitimacy and functionality of our democracy.”
IFPTE also made clear to Congressional leaders that “Schedule F has significant implications and risks for national security and homeland security,” and that competitive service positions staffed by qualified, experienced, and dedicated nonpartisan civil servants working in roles that “inform and support foreign policy, national defense strategy, national intelligence, defense industrial policy, defense procurement, and homeland security policies” would be turned into “political appointments where federal employees can be fired by a president for any reason with no recourse to due process, and their political appointee replacements hired with no required qualifications.”
IFPTE also joined dozens of good governance groups, scholars, and labor unions in a coalition letter organized by the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) to request Congressional leadership “pass legislation that protects America’s civil service system from future attempts to create broad exceptions to the competitive civil service. “ The coalition letter notes, “if government employees owe their jobs more to personal or political allegiance rather than merit, they will be more beholden to the party in power instead of the law of the land. That erodes safeguards for the rule of law within the institution of the executive branch, which could undermine the power of Congress and set the stage for greater inter-branch conflict.”
Read IFPTE’s letter to House Speaker Pelosi, House Minority Leader McCarthy, House Armed Services Committee Chair Smith, and Armed Services Ranking Member Rodgers.
Read IFPTE’s letter to Senate Majority Leader Schumer, Senate Minority Leader McConnell, Senate Armed Services Chair Reed, and Senate Armed Services Ranking Member Inhofe.
Read the NARFE-led coalition letter to Congressional leadership here.