With polls showing Democrats NOT getting flack for the Govt. Shut Down vote hold ?
They seem to be trying to cast themselves as the saviors of Federal Workers, aiming straight at OMB Boss Vought’s threats of employee cuts….
President Donald Trump’s decision to fire thousands of federal workers this month was meant to pressure Democrats into quickly ending the government shutdown. Instead, it could have the opposite effect.
As the shutdown enters its 15th day, many Democrats say they want a commitment that employees subjected to reductions-in-force, or RIFs, will be rehired before they agree to reopen the government — even as courts independently act to curb the firings.
“It’d be pretty unconscionable to open it up and still have to put up with those thousands and thousands of firings,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who represents a fed-heavy district bordering Washington.
Negotiating the fates of those workers could further complicate the path out of the shutdown, with Democrats already demanding the extension of key expiring health insurance subsidies and an end to Trump’s moves to cancel congressionally approved spending.
Beyer said he would leave it to the top Hill Democrats — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — to figure out whether a U-turn needs to be written into legislation. “But it definitely should be fully reversed,” he said.
Federal workers and their advocates won an early victory Wednesday when a California-based federal judge halted some of the layoffs on a temporary basis. The White House budget office has said in court papers some 4,000 employees have already been subject to RIFs, and budget director Russ Vought said in an interview with “The Charlie Kirk Show” Wednesday the layoffs could ultimately go “north of 10,000.”
It’s possible that the layoffs might be overturned without congressional intervention as lawsuits stack up. But some Trump administration mass firings undertaken before the shutdown were initially blocked by federal judges only to be ultimately found valid and allowed to remain in effect.
Jeffries has denounced the firings as an intimidation tactic and said they “will be reversed, either congressionally or by the courts.” Schumer has called on the White House to undo the latest firings but has not said whether forcing a backtrack should get tacked on to Democrats’ demand list.
“The administration should reverse every single firing from last week and should stop playing politics with people’s livelihoods and their lives,” he said in a Wednesday floor speech….
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