Ranking Member Cole Hearing Remarks on H.R. 302, H.R. 2988 and H.R. 8326

Press Release

As delivered during today's hearing:

Today's hearing covers three items, all of which were reported out of the Committee on Oversight and Reform. Collectively, in my view, these bills represent yet more bad ideas and bad policy being pushed by this Majority at the expense of the American people.

The first of these I'll discuss is H.R. 302. It prohibits the president from placing civil service positions in the excepted service unless those jobs were on Schedules A through E, as they were in effect on September 30, 2020.

Republicans on the Oversight and Reform Committee have expressed concerns with this bill because it would effectively eliminate the ability of future presidents to establish new categories of excepted service positions, which would freeze into place the existing schedules. This would limit the president's authority over the executive branch, make it harder for the president to be effective in making policy changes and would make it difficult to discipline or terminate civil servants in policy-making roles for poor performance or insubordination.

While I believe strongly in the need for a well-structured civil service and the need for civil service protections and am strongly supportive of the federal workforce, I understand concerns that a blanket ban on adding new categories of excepted service positions may ultimately harm the institutions this bill is purportedly trying to protect. I look forward to a robust discussion on this bill today.

The second item I'll discuss is H.R. 2988. It would make extensive changes to existing whistleblower protections for federal employees and would essentially grant a presumption of entitlement to any employee who claims whistleblower status.

H.R. 2988 is, in many ways, a solution in search of a problem. While there are already many existing and bipartisan protections for whistleblowers in federal law, there is no evidence that the extensive changes envisioned in this bill are necessary. The bill would impose serious restraints on the executive branch, preventing them from managing or disciplining bad-acting employees who claim whistleblower status to protect their positions. It also assumes that everyone who claims whistleblower status is a good actor, when the reality that we all know is that there are unscrupulous individuals who would claim this status knowing full well that they are bad actors.

While true, bona fide whistleblowers should be protected from retaliation, this bill would extend those protections much further than is necessary and would effectively prevent disciplinary action for those acting in bad faith. Such a state of affairs would be bad for the civil service, bad for the executive branch and ultimately bad for the nation.

Finally, our last bill, H.R. 8326, is deeply misguided. H.R. 8326 would make several changes to the Census Bureau and to the decennial census process. It would vest the director with unprecedented power and authority to make all operational, statistical or technical decisions for a decennial census, while at the same time eliminating existing presidential authority and control over the Census Bureau. The bill would also restrain the Bureau from asking important questions on the decennial census, such as a question on citizenship.

The decennial census is a constitutional duty of the executive branch, providing critical information for the government on the American people as a whole and informing duties like redistricting. Vesting control of this important process in an unelected bureaucrat, making it nearly impossible for the president to overrule the director or replace the director for cause and preventing the Census Bureau from asking critically important questions about the American people are all a recipe for disaster. I urge the Majority to rethink this misguided piece of legislation.

Mr. Chairman, today's agenda makes clear that this week will be yet another lost week for the House of Representatives, as we do nothing to advance the real interests of the American people. We face a deadline at the end of the month to keep the government open and operating. The crisis at our southern border continues unabated, and the American people continue to suffer under the weight of the heavy inflation and economic recession caused by the Majority's reckless policies.

We could and should be taking steps this week to address these issues, and instead, the Majority is having us spend time on three bills that won't go anywhere and won't become law. This is hardly the best use of the people's time, Mr. Chairman, and I hope we will do things differently in the coming weeks.

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