On the recordNovember 30, 2017
I thank the gentlewoman for her distinguished leadership and for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I want to focus in particular on where we are and where we have been. I think it is important, as we discuss these issues dealing with the Ensuring a Qualified Civil Service Act of 2017, that we really have the responsibility, as Members of Congress, to engage in safe and fair workplaces all over the Nation. Certainly, I want to speak particularly about the Civil Service Act, which I am stunned that this would extend the period of time for a probationary period from 1 year to 2 years. But what is most striking, since I am a member of the Judiciary Committee, is that Federal employees will remain at-will employees for a period of time with virtually no due process protection. I clearly want to try to understand an administration that, first of all, wants to make skinny the government to disallow it to do its work; and then, on top of that, it wants to have temporary employees with no due process rights. Yesterday, we stood on the floor of the House to insist that there be mandatory training for sexual harassment and, as well, to recognize that there should be zero tolerance for sexual harassment and, of course, sexual assault. As an African-American woman, over the years, historically, we, along with women all over the world, have seen the plight, or the devastation, of sexual harassment and sexual assault.…
