Preventing A Patronage System Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. HICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Comer for yielding time.

The numbers that were just shared are out of 2.1 million Federal employees, and the figure is accurate. Some 10,000 were terminated in 2021, but this is a fraction. People in the private sector are three times more likely to be terminated for poor performance than are people in the Federal Government. That is because it is so restrictive and so difficult to go through the process.

In fact, when the discussion deals with Federal employees that have been on the job past the probationary period, the number of terminations drops to half of what was just spoken of. These are skewed numbers that are being shared, but also a fraction of the over 2 million Federal employees and a fraction in comparison to those who were terminated in the private sector.

We must be able to deal with poor performers in the Federal Government, and our Democrat friends want to protect them and make Federal bureaucrats a protected class. That is absolute insanity. It is bad for America. It is bad for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I again thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York.

Schedule F was never about removing employees who were performing poorly. That was not the purpose. There is already a procedure in place for that.

It aimed to strip workplace protections away from Federal employees so that anyone who didn't adhere to an ideology aligned with the President, the former President, could be easily replaced with someone who did.

That is a violation of the impartiality with which the civil service is meant to operate. It is supposed to be an independent, merit-based system not tied to ideology.

If changes that consequential are to be made to the civil service, they shouldn't happen without the approval of Congress. That is what this bill does. This bill preserves Congress' authority in civil service policy. People can't come in willy-nilly and change the system and make it a partisan system overnight.

If implemented, schedule F would have placed Federal employees' careers in the hands of political appointees who could fire them for presenting data, evidence, or views that contradict the political whims of an administration.

Let me begin by stating clearly that I oppose the underlying bill here. Some of my Democratic colleagues claim that there is no such thing as a deep state, that there are no problems that we have within our Federal employee system. But there are genuine, valid concerns.

Take, for example, a Washington Post story titled: ``Resistance from within: Federal workers push back against Trump.'' In that article: ``Federal workers are in regular consultation with recently departed Obama-era political appointees about what they can do to push back against the new President's initiatives.''

We have a problem, and it is a problem that bureaucrats do not do their jobs in fulfilling the will of a duly-elected President and the will of the American people. Instead, over and over, as time has shown it, they resist the will of the President.

This whole title here of H.R. 302, ``Preventing a Patronage System Act,'' a patronage system is designed to get people in the front door. That is not even what we are talking about. We are talking about people who are already in the door who are not doing their job. For crying out loud, it is the back door that needs to be dealt with, when you have poor performers, people who are not doing their job.

President Trump dealt with this by instituting schedule F, giving him the authority to do away with policymakers who refused to do their job. That is something that is desperately needed, and that is what is at stake. It is that issue that my amendment addresses.

Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by my good friend, Representative Hice.

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Mr. HICE of Georgia.

I respect greatly the gentleman from Virginia and enjoy working with him, but his characterization that we are attacking Federal employees is just not true.

There are millions of great Federal employees, and those who are doing their job have absolutely nothing to worry about. That is not what we are addressing here. We are addressing those who refuse to do their job.

There needs to be a means of dealing with those--especially in this schedule F that President Trump put in place--those who are responsible for policymaking, to do the will of the elected President of the United States. My Democrat colleagues are trying to protect those individuals and enable them, give them the right to continue to force their will upon the American people rather than the will of the American people as expressed through the duly-elected President, whomever that may be. This is absolutely wrong and beyond my comprehension.

Even Federal employees themselves, year after year after year, talk about how difficult it is to get rid of poor performers in the Federal workforce. Here we are trying to protect them rather than have the ability to deal with and terminate poor performers and, specifically with schedule F, those who are responsible, regardless of the administration, to perform the will of that administration.

My amendment addresses these issues. I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. HICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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Mr. HICE of Georgia. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

This will be a 5-minute vote.

The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 225, nays 204, not voting 3, as follows: [Roll No. 432] YEAS--225 Adams Aguilar Allred Auchincloss Axne Bacon Barragan Bass Beatty Bera Beyer Bishop (GA) Blumenauer Blunt Rochester Bonamici Bourdeaux Bowman Boyle, Brendan F. Brown (MD) Brown (OH) Brownley Bush Bustos Butterfield Carbajal Cardenas Carson Carter (LA) Cartwright Case Casten Castor (FL) Castro (TX) Cherfilus-McCormick Chu Cicilline Clark (MA) Clarke (NY) Cleaver Clyburn Cohen Connolly Cooper Correa Costa Courtney Craig Crow Cuellar Davids (KS) Davis, Danny K. Dean DeFazio DeGette DeLauro DelBene Demings DeSaulnier Deutch Dingell Doggett Doyle, Michael F. Escobar Eshoo Espaillat Evans Fitzpatrick Fletcher Foster Frankel, Lois Gallego Garamendi Garcia (IL) Garcia (TX) Golden Gomez Gonzalez (OH) Gonzalez, Vicente Gottheimer Green, Al (TX) Grijalva Harder (CA) Hayes Higgins (NY) Himes Horsford Houlahan Hoyer Huffman Jackson Lee Jacobs (CA) Jayapal Jeffries Johnson (GA) Johnson (TX) Jones Kahele Kaptur Katko Keating Kelly (IL) Khanna Kildee Kilmer Kim (NJ) Kind Kinzinger Kirkpatrick Krishnamoorthi Kuster Lamb Langevin Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Lawrence Lawson (FL) Lee (CA) Lee (NV) Leger Fernandez Levin (CA) Levin (MI) Lieu Lofgren Lowenthal Luria Lynch Malinowski Maloney, Carolyn B. Maloney, Sean Manning Matsui McBath McCollum McEachin McGovern McKinley McNerney Meeks Meng Mfume Moore (WI) Morelle Moulton Mrvan Murphy (FL) Nadler Napolitano Neal Neguse Newman Norcross Ocasio-Cortez Omar Pallone Panetta Pappas Pascrell Payne Peltola Perlmutter Peters Phillips Pingree Pocan Porter Pressley Price (NC) Quigley Raskin Rice (NY) Ross Roybal-Allard Ruiz Ruppersberger Rush Ryan (NY) Ryan (OH) Sanchez Sarbanes Scanlon Schakowsky Schiff Schneider Schrader Schrier Scott (VA) Scott, David Sewell Sherman Sherrill Sires Slotkin Smith (WA) Soto Spanberger Speier Stansbury Stanton Stevens Strickland Suozzi Swalwell Takano Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Titus Tlaib Tonko Torres (CA) Torres (NY) Trahan Trone Underwood Vargas Veasey Velazquez Wasserman Schultz Waters Watson Coleman Welch Wexton Wild Williams (GA) Wilson (FL) Yarmuth NAYS--204 Aderholt Allen Amodei Armstrong Arrington Babin Baird Balderson Banks Barr Bentz Bergman Bice (OK) Biggs Bilirakis Bishop (NC) Boebert Bost Brady Brooks Buchanan Buck Bucshon Burchett Burgess Calvert Cammack Carey Carl Carter (GA) Carter (TX) Cawthorn Chabot Cline Cloud Clyde Cole Comer Conway Crawford Crenshaw Curtis Davidson Davis, Rodney DesJarlais Diaz-Balart Donalds Duncan Dunn Ellzey Emmer Estes Fallon Feenstra Ferguson Finstad Fischbach Fitzgerald Fleischmann Flood Flores Foxx Franklin, C. Scott Fulcher Gaetz Gallagher Garbarino Garcia (CA) Gibbs Gimenez Gohmert Gonzales, Tony Good (VA) Gooden (TX) Gosar Granger Graves (LA) Graves (MO) Green (TN) Greene (GA) Griffith Grothman Guest Guthrie Harris Harshbarger Hartzler Hern Herrell Herrera Beutler Hice (GA) Higgins (LA) Hill Hinson Hollingsworth Hudson Huizenga Issa Jackson Jacobs (NY) Johnson (LA) Johnson (OH) Johnson (SD) Jordan Joyce (OH) Joyce (PA) Keller Kelly (MS) Kelly (PA) Kim (CA) Kustoff LaHood LaMalfa Lamborn Latta LaTurner Lesko Letlow Long Loudermilk Lucas Luetkemeyer Mace Malliotakis Mann Massie Mast McCarthy McCaul McClain McClintock McHenry Meijer Meuser Miller (IL) Miller (WV) Miller-Meeks Moolenaar Mooney Moore (AL) Moore (UT) Mullin Murphy (NC) Nehls Newhouse Norman Obernolte Owens Palazzo Palmer Pence Perry Pfluger Posey Reschenthaler Rice (SC) Rodgers (WA) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rose Rosendale Rouzer Roy Rutherford Salazar Scalise Schweikert Scott, Austin Sempolinski Sessions Simpson Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smucker Spartz Stauber Steel Stefanik Steil Steube Stewart Taylor Tenney Thompson (PA) Tiffany Timmons Turner Upton Valadao Van Drew Van Duyne Wagner Walberg Waltz Weber (TX) Webster (FL) Wenstrup Westerman Williams (TX) Wilson (SC) Wittman Womack Zeldin NOT VOTING--3 Budd Cheney O'Halleran

Ms. BUSH and Mr. RUSH changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''

So the bill was passed.

The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.

A motion to reconsider was laid on the table. Members Recorded Pursuant to House Resolution 8, 117th Congress

Baird (Bucshon) Barragan (Beyer) Bass (Correa) Brooks (Fleischmann) Bush (Bowman) Carter (GA) (Mace) Cawthorn (Boebert) Cleaver (Davids (KS)) Conway (Valadao) Cuellar (Garcia (TX)) DeSaulnier (Beyer) Dingell (Kuster) Fallon (Nehls) Johnson (TX) (Jeffries) Jones (Beyer) Khanna (Jeffries) Kilmer (Jeffries) Kirkpatrick (Pallone) Lawson (FL) (Evans) McCaul (Van Duyne) McEachin (Beyer) Moore (WI) (Beyer) Newman (Beyer) Norman (Duncan) Palazzo (Fleischmann) Pingree (Kuster) Rice (NY) (Deutch) Rush (Bowman) Ryan (OH) (Correa) Sanchez (Ruiz) Schiff (Deutch) Scott (VA) (Beyer) Scott, Austin (Cammack) Stansbury (Pallone) Swalwell (Correa) Wexton (Beyer)

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