Steny Hoyer: “I rise in opposition, and I am sorry that I rise in opposition. This bill has much in it which deals with Federal…”

“I rise in opposition, and I am sorry that I rise in opposition. This bill has much in it which deals with Federal employees fairly at a time when they are at risk, at a time when they have been traumatized by shutting down the Federal Government, telling them to go home and maybe we will pay you, and maybe we will not. This bill comes at probably one of the most tenuous times in the civil service that I have seen. We are going to have trouble recruiting and retaining our good people. Let me tell you what is wrong with this section 201 if you are a supervisor and you are charged with the responsibility of rating an employee. That is an extraordinarily difficult task under the best of circumstances, because human beings have trouble judging one another. But I tell my friends who are bringing this section 201 to the floor that if the consequences of my rating my Federal employee is to either give them 10, 7, or 5 years seniority, the pressure on me will be geometrically increased, geometrically increased, because that employee know that I not only do not give him or her an outstanding rating, but that the consequences of that may be, after 5 or 10 or 15 years' service, that somebody with 5 years' service will have more points than I do.”