With the U.S. Capitol dome as background, Helen Luryi, a former Labor Department employee who lost her job in April, approached the microphone wearing a blue shirt that read “tenacious not traumatized.”
“This shirt is a message for Russell Vought,” she told the assembled TV cameras and a handful of supporters, referring to the Office of Management and Budget director who has said previously that he wanted to put civil servants “in trauma.”
Luryi was one of several former and current federal workers who were joined by members of Congress at a press conference Monday to push Democrats against supporting a measure to continue government funding, which will otherwise expire at midnight, unless lawmakers add provisions reining in President Donald Trump’s agency workforce overhauls.
“Trump desperately needs approval for his budget from Congress, so our demand and our plea to Democrats in Congress is: do not give it to him,” she said. “Do not give it to him unless you can get meaningful protections for American civil liberties and the federal programs that so many millions rely on. Your votes on this budget are the one tool you have right now. Please use it.”
Senate Democrats have so far been unwilling to provide the necessary votes to pass a measure extending current government spending levels through Nov. 21. They’ve demanded that any stopgap bill include subsidies to prevent increases to Affordable Care Act premiums.
During a shutdown, federal employees are not paid whether they’re furloughed or ordered to continue working. They receive backpay when funding resumes. This time around, however, OMB has directed agencies to implement mass layoffs in the event of lapse in appropriations.
Charlotte Slaiman, an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission who spoke at Monday’s press conference, said that she was initially fearful when she found out about the reduction in force threat.
“For the last nine months, the Trump administration has created a crisis for the federal government that is far worse than any shutdown,” she said. “Still, when I saw the OMB memo threatening to fire more federal workers if Congress didn’t agree to their budget, I was scared.”
But after talking with other federal employees, Slaiman decided that the proposed government funding bill would only embolden the Trump administration to continue its agency overhauls.
“We realized Donald Trump and Russell Vought want us to be scared. We’re supposed to believe that if Congress votes for their poison pill budget that they will suddenly start using our government agencies properly to advance the interests of the American people instead of their own? That they’ll keep up their lawlessness only if they can’t get the votes to pass their budget?” she asked. “This is just a political stunt, and we’re not buying it.”
Many speakers emphasized that the Trump administration can conduct layoffs whether the government is shut down or not.
“When [Vought] threatens to use a shutdown to fire more federal employees, I think we all understand that a shutdown gives this administration no more power to do that than they do today,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. “The point is, they’ve been doing this from day one.”
The organizers of the press conference touted a petition that has been signed by more than 2,000 federal employees, urging Congress to pass a continuing resolution only if it takes a number of actions like restoring collective bargaining rights for government workers, stopping RIFs and cracking down on the Trump administration’s impoundment of agency funding.
An impoundment is when the executive branch withholds or delays congressionally approved funding. The Government Accountability Office, which adjudicates the lawfulness of impoundments, has concluded that the Trump administration has committed at least seven impoundments since the start of his second term. The most recent determination was announced on Monday.
“To our elected officials, I think the message is resoundingly clear, but we want you to fight back,” said Alexis Goldstein — who identified herself as a member of the union local for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency that has been targeted for near elimination. “The way you stand up to a bully is not to cave to the bully. The way you stand up to the bully is to say no to the bully. So if you say no, we will have your backs.”