Political Quotes

“The Merit Systems Protection Board is a small but mighty independent federal agency created by Congress to protect the merit system principles and to promote an effective federal workforce free of prohibited personnel practices. Typically, the Board is led by three presidentially-appointed and Senate confirmed members. However, the term for the last remaining Board member expired on March 1, 2018. That board member already extended his term in a holdover capacity, but was limited by statute to one year extension, meaning the Board has been without even a single Board member since March 2019. The Office of Special Counsel refers cases to the Board when it suspects a federal agency has performed an unfair or adverse action against a federal employee. The Board can then temporarily table the agency action while adjudicating the employee's claim. However, the Board can only table the action or adjudicate it if it has a quorum--or two members. As the Board currently sits, there are no confirmed members, and the Board has been without a quorum since January 7, 2017. This means that the Board cannot perform any of these actions to protect federal workers from agency actions that OSC deems suspect. This Amendment would provide urgent, temporary relief to whistleblowers while the Board waits for at least one appointee.…”