Unions in Federal Workers Alliance Tells Senate Appropriators to Defund Trump Administration's Illegal and Unconstitutional Actions
This week, IFPTE and several unions in the Federal Workers Alliance (FWA) sent a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins and Vice Chair Patty Murray requesting that the lawmakers include provisions in the next government funding bill to stop the Trump Administration’s illegal and unconstitutional actions. These executive branch actions seek to dismantle federal agencies, politicize the civil service, and instigate a constitutional crisis by ignoring Congress’ authority.
The request to Senate Appropriations leadership was also shared with all Republican and Democratic Appropriators. The letter reminds the Senate Appropriations Committee leadership that Article 1 of the Constitution clearly outlines the powers of Congress in the Legislative Vesting Clause and the Tax and Spending Clause. The letter also notes that Chair Collins had publicly voiced strong concern in 2019, during the first Trump Administration, about the dangerous executive branch overreach, when she asked and responded, “"do we want the executive branch now or in the future to hold the power of the purse – a power that the framers deliberately entrusted to Congress? We must stand up and defend Congress' institutional powers as the framers intended that we would, even when doing so is inconvenient or goes against the outcome that we might prefer."
The letter lists several provisions that IFPTE seeks to include in the next government funding bill, which will need to be passed by March 14 to prevent a government shutdown. Those requests include: denying funding for reductions in force (RIFs) and reorganizations that lack Congressional authorization and appropriation; denying funding for executive branch actions that conflict with Congressional authorizations or appropriations in violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act and the Impoundment Act or other laws; including the Saving the Civil Service Act to prevent the Trump Administration from converting tens of thousands of apolitical civil service positions to political positions that are loyal to the President, not the public; clarifying “national security work” so the President cannot convert non-supervisory Department of Defense and other agency employees to be excluded collective bargaining rights; and blocking agencies from revoking union dues deduction.
We are working with the labor movement and advocating that Congress assert its constitutional authority by including these provisions in the next government funding bill.