Trump and congressional majority zero in on federal telework
"There's just this continuing tug of war between Congress and localities and the federal workers themselves," said Mitchell Miller.
Town halls, congressional debates, promises from incoming Trump people. They all point to a sharp cutback in telework. Not all members of Congress are in favor though. For what’s actually brewing, The Federal Drive with Tom Temin turns to WTOP Capitol Hill correspondent Mitchell Miller.
Interview transcript:
Tom Temin And this is an issue for the district, for Congress, for the DOGEpeople, and, of course, for employees themselves.
Mitchell Miller Right. This has really become a huge issue, and especially because it’s been heightened by all the talk about the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from President-elect Trump and which is led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. A lot of nervousness, as you know, from federal workers about what is going to happen. There continues to be a very, very big push by the GOP to basically scale back telework, get federal workers back into the office five days a week. Of course, many actually are right now. And this really came to a head last week when there was a tele-town hall for federal workers. I spoke with [Rep.] Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) about this. He said that there’s really a lot of concern and he feels that federal workers are just being potentially mistreated.
Glenn Ivey [Audio clip:] We got a lot of federal employees who’ve been doing great work here for the country for many, many years. And I think they’ve been unfairly vilified and targeted.
Mitchell Miller So this town hall that he sponsored brought in thousands of phone calls and questions from people. In fact, they believe up to 15,000 people took part. There were some talks about what what can employees do about Schedule F and whether or not they can protect themselves. There were union lawyers and administrators who talked about various issues, about basically ways that federal workers can protect their jobs, as well as looking at other issues. Of course, as you mentioned, that telework is a big one related to that issue. The chief financial officer for the district, Glenn Lee, told a House panel last week that since the pandemic, on any given day, he estimates between 100,000 to 250,000 fewer workers are commuting into the district now. That’s not obviously all federal workers, but there’s a good chunk of that not coming into the district. And he warned that for the local economy, that can really provide some economic headwinds for D.C. And as we’ve talked about throughout the entire year, there’s just this continuing tug of war between Congress and localities and the federal workers themselves about how much workers need to actually be back into the office.
Tom Temin Yeah, I think for the city economy, the federal workforce is like the Staten Island ferry that pulls all the stuff into the slip with it when it pulls in and sucks in all the cigarette butts and everything. To use the old Jim Farley expression, former postmaster general, “there’s a lot of interests impinging on that idea and they don’t all agree.” And then while we have you, there’s been a lot of horse trading which involves federal agencies, ironically, in perhaps the most burning question of district history, and that is where the Commanders will play.
Mitchell Miller Right. We’ll have to see how this eventually settles out. There’s a lot that still needs to settle out. But what’s been fascinating is for years, there has been this push by D.C. to try to get the federal land that surrounds the old RFK Stadium, the area where there was so much of those glory days for the team and actually get it transferred from the National Park Service, the lease, the land to the District of Columbia. Once that finally happened in Congress, it has been moving forward with the House and Senate. And it seems like that part of it is almost settled. But then because if the team moves from Maryland to D.C., Maryland’s congressional delegation said, well, wait a second, we’re normally team players in connection with D.C. and Virginia, for that matter. Virginia is kind of out of this discussion at this point. But Maryland said, well, wait a second, we want something in return. So there’s been a lot of horse trading behind the scenes about what Maryland can get. There’s been this talk about getting the Air Guard unit from D.C. into Maryland. So we’ll have to see where this goes. But it really shows how important, as you note, that this RFK Stadium site, the Commanders, the whole identity of the region kind of swirling around the football team and what’s going to happen with it.
Tom Temin Well, maybe one of the horse stables could move to Gaithersburg or something. I don’t know.
Mitchell Miller There’s another option, right.
Tom Temin And I guess we should also mention the whole FBI headquarters question. That stew continues to be stirred with no settling in sight, especially with the Trump administration coming in. But that’s for another day. We’re speaking with WTOP Capitol Hill correspondent Mitchell Miller. And then the NDAA just seems so close to grasp, but yet it’s not quite there.
Mitchell Miller Not quite there, but very, very close. And I think we’re finally going to see the final passage this week in the Senate. The House easily passing the $895 billion defense policy bill last week. The Senate, again, expected to do the same. This would extend a streak, as you know, of more than six decades in a row that it’s actually been passed roughly on time. Among the big things that it includes: a 14.5% pay hike for junior enlisted service members and overall a 4.5% increase for the military. Now, there were some things, as often happens, that some of the lawmakers didn’t like. Democrats said they were not happy about a provision that was backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), much to the surprise, actually, of members of his own party and others on the Armed Services Committee, that got added into the legislation: a ban on gender affirming care for children of military personnel. But overall, there is that traditional bipartisan agreement on the legislation. So this is something very, very big that is actually going to get done in a matter of days.
Tom Temin All 1,813 pages of it, by the way. Exactly. None of which contains a link to find what you’re looking for. So you have to use AI. I did feed the whole bill into an algorithm.
Mitchell Miller Is that right? Yeah.
Tom Temin And what comes out is all not that well informed, strangely, but again that’s for one other day. And I just wanted to ask you to what’s the sense of what are you feeling in Congress, in the Senate, I should say, mainly for confirmation of Trump appointees. I mean, it was kind of rough going with some of their reception early on, but maybe settling down a little bit.
Mitchell Miller Yeah, it’s very interesting to see how it has really changed right now, with maybe one or two exceptions, I don’t see any of President-elect Trump’s nominees not getting through. Of course, the the big one was the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth. They seem to have righted the ship in connection with that. The administration, incoming administration really going on the offensive and and trying to push back about a lot of reports related to him. Tulsi Gabbard, who will be, if she’s confirmed, overseeing 18 intelligence agencies as the head of as the director of national intelligence, probably has the roughest road ahead of the remaining nominees. But even Kash Patel, who’s got a lot of controversy related to him coming in to the FBI, there seems to be a lot of support among Republican senators that they’re going to at least give the President-elect a chance to get all of these people through. Now, we’ll, of course, see a lot of fireworks at the hearings coming up next year. But at the moment, they’ve really smoothed out the road, by the way. Just going back real quickly to the FBI, I did happen to talk to Glenn Ivey about that, the Maryland congressman, and whether he was concerned since Christopher Wray will be resigning as head of the FBI in January. Does that affect anything for the future of the FBI headquarters in Maryland? He basically said we’re going to have to wait and see. But he really hopes that it does not delay anything more, pointing out that it took more than a decade of negotiations to actually get that finally picked and set up so that it is going to be built in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Tom Temin Well, by the time they build it, it could be equipped with mid-century furniture, but mid-century not mid-last century.
Mitchell Miller Very true.
Tom Temin And we don’t know, I don’t think the FBI director has been hired yet that’s actually going to occupy that site, it’s taking so long. Although I did see a story in one of the national papers that the new presidential aircraft from Boeing, the big 747s, won’t be finished now until maybe 2029. So President Trump will not get to ride in those either. So I think if you’re if you’re measuring drapes in Washington, put your ruler away.
Mitchell Miller Right. You’ve got to basically plan out 5 to 10 years ahead for anything that you’re planning.
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Tom Temin
Tom Temin is host of the Federal Drive and has been providing insight on federal technology and management issues for more than 30 years.
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