House Democrats believe they’ve found a response to Republicans’ claims that firing federal workers is simply a return to merit-based employment in the government.
New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver will introduce a bill Tuesday that, if passed, would reinstate jobs and offer backpay to all probationary employees who were fired under the Trump administration’s directives to federal agencies, according to a copy of the legislation shared exclusively with NOTUS.
She’s calling the bill the Model Employee Reinstatement for ill-advised Termination Act — an apparent reference to a bill Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk proposed in January to make it easier to fire federal workers. Loudermilk’s bill is the Modern Employment Reform, Improvement, and Transformation Act, or MERIT Act.
“Elon Musk is running rampant through the White House and doing whatever he wants to do through many of these agencies, and this is why we’re introducing this bill,” McIver told NOTUS. “It’s fair, and workers deserve better.”
McIver’s bill is co-sponsored by more than 50 other House Democrats.
In January, the Office of Personnel Management sent a memo directing federal agency heads to disclose a list of employees who had been serving fewer than one or two years and “promptly determine whether those employees should be retained at the agency.” A Feb. 11 executive order from the administration also directed federal agency heads to carry out large-scale workforce reductions.
Subsequent layoffs affected probationary employees in almost every government agency. Probationary federal employees are in the first one or two years of their position — including people who were recently promoted. According to OPM data, more than 200,000 federal workers were in the first year of their job as of last year.
Most agencies have not released definitive numbers on how many probationary employees were laid off, but the figures likely total to over tens of thousands of government workers.
A federal judge ruled last week that the OPM directive was illegal because OPM does not have the authority to fire workers outside of its own offices. But the ruling didn’t reinstate any of the fired employees.
Experts have warned that several of the employee cuts — such as those that targeted local meteorologists for the National Weather Service and employees at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — could have dire consequences for key government functions and Americans’ safety.
The Democratic bill comes the same day that Trump is set to deliver a joint address to Congress. Multiple Democratic lawmakers have announced plans to bring probationary employees who were fired from federal government positions to the event.
McIver’s legislation isn’t the only recent effort from House lawmakers to demand answers from the Trump administration. In a letter sent Monday, first reported by FedScoop, 18 House Democrats — including some who are co-sponsoring McIver’s bill — urged Charles Ezell, OPM’s acting director, to reinstate probationary employees who have been fired and stop any plans for further workforce reductions.
“The Trump Administration’s executive overreach could cripple federal agencies,
including in critical areas of disaster preparedness, public health, public safety, and national
Security,” the letter said. “Instead of dismantling federal institutions through mass layoffs of mission-critical employees, the Trump Administration must empower and invest in the skilled and mission-driven workforce that our nation already has.”
The Democrats who signed the letter also requested that Ezell hand over a variety of documents related to OPM’s decisions to fire probationary employees.
And in a letter to the Office of Special Counsel last week, 85 House Democrats applauded special counsel Hampton Dellinger’s decision to recommend halting the firings of six probationary workers. The lawmakers urged Dellinger to expand that decision to cover all probationary employees.
McIver’s legislation is set to be backed by multiple federal employee labor unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Federation of Federal Employees and Service Employees International Union. AFGE was also a plaintiff in the case that prompted the federal judge’s ruling that deemed OPM’s directive illegal.
Some Republican lawmakers, like Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Virginia Rep. Jen Kiggans, have expressed concern about the probationary employee firings. And Republicans have faced backlash at town hall events from constituents frustrated about DOGE’s sweeping cuts and firings.
But McIver told NOTUS that her bill won’t have any Republican co-sponsors. She and her office reached out to multiple Republican members to offer an opportunity to sign on, she said.
“They don’t seem to care how many of their constituents are losing their jobs,” she said. “By putting more people on unemployment, they are playing a political game right now.”
The bulk of votes that Congress has taken this session have been largely along party lines, with Democrats struggling to push legislation to the floor. This offers the bill a slim chance of passage, but McIver said she’s hopeful it can garner bipartisan support.
“Our options as Democrats are very limited, but at the end of the day, that doesn’t mean that we give up,” she said.
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Shifra Dayak is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.