Steve Lynch: “I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding, and I join him in opposition to this bill. While originally my remarks…”

“I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding, and I join him in opposition to this bill. While originally my remarks would have been much kinder to the bill, and I may have considered supporting it, I did not consider it favorably in committee. I know we had a voice vote on that. But in light of the unfortunate remarks that imply that there was illegal activity going on by Federal employees, and that is why we need this bill that is before us right now, I do have to agree with the ranking member, the gentleman from Virginia, that this bill is, indeed, a part of the vanguard of legislation to severely restrict and eliminate the use of official time. Under the bipartisan Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, a Federal employees who serves as a union steward or union representative may be granted official time to perform activities that--and this is the important standard that is in the bill--the gentleman from Georgia indicated that we need this bill because there is no standard. The standard in the Civil Service Reform Act requires a number of things: It requires both labor and management to agree on the use of official time, and that official time be ``reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest.'' That is the standard today, and every single Federal workplace-- management and labor--have to agree that the use of official time is reasonable, that it is necessary, and that it is in the public interest.…”