Deep State Accountability? GOP Lawmakers Push Measure Amid DOGE Audits

As the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency duel with bureaucrats over waste, House and Senate Republicans are pushing reforms to hold entrenched federal employees accountable. 

On Thursday, Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., proposed a Senate version of the Modern Employment Reform, Improvement, and Transformation Act, or MERIT Act. 

Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., introduced the House version in late January. 

“Americans are tired of funding the fraud, waste, and abuse within our bloated federal government bureaucracy,” Loudermilk said in a public statement. “With the passage of the MERIT Act, Americans will have a government they can be proud of again, not one they fear and distrust.”

Loudermilk has introduced the bill in previous sessions of Congress. However, with DOGE and President Donald Trump aggressively pushing reforms in the bureaucracy, the proposal has potential for momentum. 

“Prioritizing transparency and accountability are essential to maintaining the integrity of our federal government and protecting hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” Loudermilk added. 

Lawmakers say this would address problems from the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, addressing misconduct and poor performance from federal employees, who are largely shielded from firing or discipline under current civil service protections. The bill permits agencies to remove a senior executive from the civil service for performance reasons rather than merely demoting the individual. 

“It’s well past time for the federal government to stop operating like a runaway train to nowhere and hold itself to the same standards that millions of hardworking Americans in the private sector hold themselves to every day,” Sheehy said in a public statement. 

“This legislation is an important step toward bringing an end to bloated bureaucracy and restoring common sense and accountability in the federal government,” the freshman Montana senator added. 

The MERIT Act authorizes agencies to recoup bonuses and awards when performance or conduct issues are discovered and it is determined that the bonus or award would not have been paid had these issues been known at the time.

The proposal further addresses federal employee grievances. The Merit Systems Protection Board is an existing three-member board responsible for hearing appeals related to the firing or punishment of federal employees. Currently, if an employee doesn’t like how the board rules on his appeal, he can draw out the process by calling for an outside arbitrator for another appeal. The bill would prohibit such outside arbitration and leave the board’s decision as final. 

Further, the legislation affects the retirement benefits of employees who are removed because of a felony conviction for actions committed while on official business. Under the proposal, the period of service during which the criminal activity occurred will be eliminated when determining an employee’s length of service for retirement benefit calculations.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the nation’s largest federal employee union, did not respond to an inquiry from The Daily Signal by publication time. 

The union denounced a 2018 version of the MERIT Act, asserting, “This bill would politicize the civil service by making it easier for politicians to fire federal employees,” and claiming the bill was a “broad congressional edict to micromanage agency personnel procedures and limit the ability of the federal workforce to seek justice when treated unfairly by management.”

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