Terry Gerton There’s a lot going on. When people in your district reach out to your office today, what kind of federal workforce issues are you hearing from them?
Glenn Ivey Well, a lot of them are having trouble getting their benefits, so their challenges with respect to whether it’s Social Security, the VA, sometimes we’re having a lot IRS issues, retirees are having troubles getting their payments, that kind of stuff. My office is very busy with constituent services calls that we get. We have to lean in, or lean on, these departments and agencies to get them to move forward. And that’s what we’re there for, so there’s no problem with that. But we’re doing a lot of it. We’ve been fairly effective with it. I’m very proud of my group and what they’ve been doing, but we got a lot more work to do.
Terry Gerton Have you noticed any changes in the trends of complaints or concerns over the last 18 months?
Glenn Ivey There have been some. For example, the IRS piece kind of ramped up a little bit on this front in a way that surprised me a bit. But we’ll see. And these things ebb and flow, so we’ll see as more goes forward. Another piece, too, I know we’ll talk a little bit about this going forward, but when people do come up to me, they’re concerned about what the status is for federal employees, people who still have their positions and want to hold on to them. They’re worried about additional attacks that may be forthcoming from the Trump administration. And we can talk more about that, but certainly something that we’re focused on and trying to make sure we can do as much as we can to protect them from the, frankly, reckless and irresponsible acts by the Trump administration to attack federal government employees.
Terry Gerton Well your district in Maryland is home to lots of federal agencies and lots of feds themselves, but you’ve been outspoken about efforts to close the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Why has that issue received so much attention lately?
Glenn Ivey Well, it’s a very important facility. It’s been doing great research for more than a century. And a lot of people have come to rely on it, whether it’s commercial sector, farmers and the like. A lot of researchers rely on the information they get there. The research that they do, which targets farming and the like, is critical, I think, for a lot those sectors. And the effort to essentially close it down — trump realized that he couldn’t just shut it down because it’s created by statute, and he didn’t want to try and get it through Congress, because I think he realized he would lose that. So I think they tried the USAID strategy, just depopulate it so you have an entity that’s still in place, but it’s hollowed out. We were able to block that, we being unions, Democracy Forward, other groups came together. Prince George’s County filed as part of this group too to block the relocation of these employees and we got a temporary restraining order from a court that’s hearing the case in the Ninth Circuit which is the West coast, California. Not only is in place until December 11th, we’re going to try — I’m working on legislation now with members of the Maryland delegation to try and extend that as we’re going to really have to hustle to have a shot at it but that’s that’s what we’re trying to do
Terry Gerton If you’re not successful in getting that legislation through, what other means might you have to hold the BRAC in place?
Glenn Ivey Yeah, I mean the part of what we’re trying to do as well is to reach out to Republicans because it’s not just the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center that’s been impacted by this. There are facilities across the country, some of them in red districts that have been impacted as well. So we’re reaching out to those people to say, you know, why don’t you team up with us on this? Because a lot of times they’re closing down those institutions or those research facilities with no reason. They’re just, and that’s been the challenge. We got Andy Harris (R-Md.), actually, to agree to some report language, this is for FY27, though, that said, you can’t redo the relocation piece until you provide strong factual support for why you’re doing it and what the benefits will be, as opposed to the negatives. Cost-benefit analysis, essentially. So I think if we can get Andy Harris on board, at least at that level, we’ll be able to get other Republicans, too. Hopefully, I hope he gets a big warning shot about what happens on November 3rd and maybe becomes more responsive to federal government employees in the wake of the election.
Terry Gerton Well, the BARC situation is one. You mentioned USAID is another, in terms of the administration taking action to change the function of federal agencies, perhaps without Congress’s agreement. So what tools does Congress have to ensure agencies carry out the programs and the missions that you’ve established and funded them for?
Glenn Ivey Yeah, great question. I’m on the appropriations committee in the House, and the appropriation process, the power of the purse, is a great way to do that. Now, one of the things I think we’re going to have to try and do is be much more detailed in the way we sort of appropriate the funding so that we’re specific about how the money has to be spent. What’s happened in the past was I think, frankly, there was an assumption of good faith between the Congress and the White House, whether it was Democrat or Republican on either side. And I think that was in place previously. Clearly, that’s not true anymore. The Trump administration is, frankly, acting in bad faith. And they have an agenda to try and shut, in this instance, down federal agencies and force out federal employees across the board. So we’ve got to take that additional step. There’s some Republican support for that, too, because I think they recognize that, to the extent the OMB and the federal government, in the form of the White House, are just making the decisions about whether they can withhold money or shift it from here to there without permission from Congress. It disempowers the appropriations committees in the House and the Senate. And one of the arguments we’ve been making, Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has been a real lead in this effort, is to say to our Republican colleagues, if you want to maintain the power of this committee and the power of Congress, we have to join together and reasserting the power of the purse and pushing back on the Trump administration. If we have a strong result on November 3rd, I think that’ll help too.
Terry Gerton Congressman Glenn Ivey represents Maryland’s 4th District. As we’re talking about these changes to federal agencies, Congressman Ivey, what concerns you more, losing federal employees, which has kind of happened across the board, or losing the expertise and the institutional capability in federal agencies?
Glenn Ivey Both, actually. And the federal employees have the expertise, so when you lose a lot of the federal government employees, especially the more senior ones, you’re losing a lot of institutional knowledge, you are losing a lots of experience that’s come from over the years that really there’s no substitute for it. You’re also losing the ability to train the next generation that’s coming up. And in some areas, like NASA for example, NASA Goddard, it’s harder to attract young talent because they wanna go work for the people who can train them and show them the way to go forward and help them learn more. They’re drawn to the people who can be good mentors, not just from the standpoint of networking, but from the stand point of helping them learn how to do their jobs and how to them better. When you take that away, you make it less attractive to go there. So that’s one of the things I think. I don’t know if that was an unintended consequence by the Trump administration, but I think for Republicans who weren’t expecting this, it’s a real problem because they recognize at this point increasingly that the federal government isn’t able to do the types of things that we need it to do in very challenging times. Just one quick example, AI is everything across the board, but there’s a lot of areas where man, it sure would be nice to have really experienced people on that front who are very knowledgeable about it. We pushed a lot of those people out. And, to the extent there we’re trying to bring in new people, well why would they want to come into a chaotic environment which is what he’s created and a lot of these departments and agencies you don’t have stability it’s a lot about certainty, usually you’re making less in the federal government than you would in the private sector especially if you have this level of expertise. What attracts them to come in to the government now we need them the most? He’s really created a situation where he’s making the United States a lot weaker than it was at a time when we need to be strong in our competition against China, but to make sure that we’re doing the right things for the American people from a technological standpoint as well.
Terry Gerton you’re convening a roundtable next week to talk about the federal workforce, tell us about what you’re going to be focused on.
Glenn Ivey Yes, it’s a closed strategy meeting, so we’ll do something for the public a little bit down the road, but this is really an effort to try and come together with a strategy for how to move forward. Part of it’s going to take a look at what’s happened in the past two years, been enormously damaging from the standpoint of federal government employees and the protections that were in place, especially the merit system overall, I think has really been hollowed out. How do we address that? How do we turn it around? What’s the best way to move forward? There’s a short-term piece to that because even if we Democrats take the House and the Senate back, we won’t be able to fix it all in 2027. We’ll need the White House. But there are things that we’ll be able do in the short run if we have those, or at least one chamber in hand. And then the next piece of that that we really need to think through and have ready to go, what happens when we get a Democrat in the White house again? How can we rebuild the federal government employee structures that were there? How can we build the protections that were there? How can we reestablish the ability to provide the American people with the services that they need at this critical time?
Terry Gerton You’re engaging the federal labor unions in this conversation. What are you hearing from them? What are their big concerns?
Glenn Ivey Well, I mean, different unions have different focuses — foci, I guess, whatever the plural for focus is. But generally speaking across the board, the lack of federal government protections, the undermining of the merit system, all of them share that. How to move forward is sometimes a little different depending on the industry and the departments and the agencies that are most implicated by it. But I think we’ll figure out how to build on that. And it doesn’t have to be a one-size-fits-all. There are things that might work for defensive department employees that won’t work for a Department of Justice prosecutors. In fact, I’m sure there are. So we’ll have to differentiate, but that’s fine. We have to make sure we just do it in a way that rehabilitates these departments. You’re going to have some that just need to be entirely gutted and revamped from the ground floor up. I think ICE is one of those. And we’ll have, I think, the ability to think it through and start building some of that out. The other piece that’ll be important is to what extent Trump has put people in place who really have a greater allegiance to him than the Constitution. And what do we do about that? Because I don’t know that we want to really try and build a structure that keeps them in place. We need to have people in a place who are really committed to serving the American public and following the law and the Constitution above all, regardless of who’s in the White House, regardless of who is in Congress, that to say you’re going to have any kind of loyalty owes, it’s the loyalty to the country and the Constitution that we need to focus on.
Terry Gerton You talked a little bit earlier about short-term and long-term approaches and strategies. After the midterms, Congress is going to have a very short period of the lame duck session to get some last things out the door before you convene the new Congress in January. What’s at the top of the priority list for that session?
Glenn Ivey Well, it depends on whether we win. You knew that was the answer, right? I mean, you win the House and the Senate, it might be a different agenda. But, I mean there’s spending bills that need to happen. The House has passed the appropriations bills, the Senate has not. What’s going to happen with that? Is it going to be a CR or something different? Probably a CR, but I think we’ll have to see. There are other bills, you know, the farm bill that I think there’s a lot of interest in passing something, but whether [Mike] Johnson (R-La.) and [John] Thune (R-SD) can get something done, I think, is an open question. They’ve really struggled with the most basic legislation, and that’s going to continue to be a problem. The sports bill is another one that’s kind of raised its head, and we’ll see how that goes. But there’s going be a lot of efforts, I thinks, sometimes. You know how this goes at the end of a lame duck. People try and slip something in at the 11th hour. That’s how the stadium got moved from Prince George’s County to D.C. There are going to be the things like that probably in this session too, so we’ll just have to be on our toes.
Terry Gerton We’ll have to definitely keep our eyes open.
Glenn Ivey Yeah, for sure.
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