[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4921 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>






116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 4921

     To amend the Foreign Service Act of 1980 to require a certain 
 appointments of chiefs of mission to be from Foreign Service or Civil 
      Service of the Department of State, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            October 30, 2019

   Mr. Bera introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
     To amend the Foreign Service Act of 1980 to require a certain 
 appointments of chiefs of mission to be from Foreign Service or Civil 
      Service of the Department of State, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Strengthening Traditional American 
Diplomacy Act'' or the ``STAND Act''.

SEC. 2. REQUIREMENT RELATING TO APPOINTMENT AS A CHIEF OF MISSION.

    Paragraph (2) of section 304(a) of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 
(22 U.S.C. 3944(a)) is amended--
            (1) by inserting ``or Civil Service of the Department of 
        State'' after ``be accorded to career members of the Service''; 
        and
            (2) by adding at the end the following new sentence: ``Not 
        less than 70 percent of appointments and assignments under this 
        section shall be of career members of Service or Civil Service 
        of the Department, except that this requirement may be waived 
        if the President certifies in writing, on a case by case basis, 
        to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of 
        Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the 
        Senate, that a reduction in such percentage is vital to the 
        national security interests of the United States.''.
                                 <all>