Norton Requests Hearing on Her Bill to Restore Due Process Rights to Federal Workers
WASHINGTON, DC – In an era when federal employees are often ignored, or worse, by Congress, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) this week requested a hearing on a federal employee bill that has bipartisan and bicameral support. Her bill would overturn an unprecedented federal court decision that strips many federal employees of due process rights to independent review of an agency decision removing them from a job on national security grounds.
In December, Senator Jon Tester (D-MT), chair of the subcommittee that oversees federal employees on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced companion legislation, with Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) as original cosponsors. Norton's bill also has bipartisan support, with five Democrats signing on as cosponsors along with two Republicans.
"A hearing is the next step for the bill, which has a prospect of passage because of its growing bipartisan support in both chambers," said Norton. "However, if nothing else, a hearing will bring to light our efforts to stop the use of a ‘national security' catch-all to repeal civil service protection against arbitrary or retaliatory action."
The bill, which Norton introduced in October, would overturn a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, Kaplan v. Conyers and MSPB, that prevents workers who are designated as "noncritical sensitive" from appealing to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) if they are removed from their job. Norton said it undercuts Title 5 section 7701 of the Civil Service Act, which ensures federal workers due process rights conferred to them by the United States Constitution. She also said the court decision opens entirely new avenues for arbitrary action or retaliation by an agency head, and makes a mockery of whistleblower protections passed in the 112th Congress.
The case was brought by two Department of Defense (DOD) employees, Rhonda Conyers, an accounting technician, and Devon Northover, a commissary management specialist, who were permanently demoted and suspended from their jobs after they were found to no longer be eligible to serve in noncritical sensitive positions. The decision would affect at least 200,000 DOD employees who are designated as noncritical sensitive. Moreover, most federal employees could potentially lose the same rights to an independent review of an agency's decision because of a pending rule by the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that would permit agency heads to designate most jobs in the federal government as noncritical sensitive. Noncritical sensitive positions include jobs that do not have access to classified information.
Published: January 9, 2014