[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 205 (Wednesday, December 18, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7133-S7135]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Recognizing Government Employees

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I start by thanking my friend and 
colleague from West Virginia, Senator Manchin, for his remarks and for 
his steadfast support for workers throughout the United States of 
America and for working to try to bring us together in a bipartisan 
manner to get things done in the United States.
  I rise today to give thanks to all who serve our country in uniform 
and as civilians. Even as partisan division and anger seem to reach new 
depths every day, Democrats and Republicans have remained united in our 
support and our high regard for our fellow Americans who honorably 
serve in the U.S. Armed Forces. Those who serve have earned every 
measure of gratitude shown to them by friends and neighbors and by all 
of us here in the Congress.
  Other public servants deserve our thanks as well, but unfortunately, 
support for them is not nearly as unanimous or as universal. I will 
focus the remainder of my remarks on them. While they do not go into 
combat, they share the same dedication and love of country as those who 
do. Many of them also go into harm's way--law enforcement officers, 
diplomats in war-torn lands, smokejumpers fighting forest fires--and 
all of them swear an oath to our Constitution, just like our troops and 
just like Members of Congress.
  I am talking about Federal civil servants. These dedicated public 
servants, men and women, are not normally public figures, but the 
Nation saw their strength and their character at the witness table in 
last month's House impeachment hearings, Americans like Laura Cooper, 
David Hale, George Kent, Bill Taylor, Jennifer Williams, Marie 
Yovanovitch, all of whom have served in nonpolitical positions for all 
or most of their careers. All of them testified before Congress under 
subpoena.
  These are just a few of the 2.1 million Americans who make up the 
Federal civil service and the Foreign Service. They work together here 
at home and abroad in every field of endeavor and on behalf of all of 
us. For example, budding entrepreneurs can call on Small Business 
Administration loan officers for help accessing capital and foreign 
commercial service officers to help sell their inventions to the world. 
Farmers know that the Natural Resources Conservation Service employees 
can help them keep their land productive for the long term. Foreign 
agricultural service diplomats help American farmers make a living 
feeding the world.

  Yet, too many of our colleagues, including many on the other side of 
the aisle, have defamed public servants and now accuse those who 
testified in the House of attacking the President. That accusation has 
it exactly backward. The modern civil service was created after an 
attack on a President in order to prevent future attacks on Presidents. 
Yes, President Garfield was assassinated in 1883 by a disgruntled job 
seeker.
  In those days, each President handed out most of the Federal jobs, 
often based on political allegiance more than skill. Imagine if that 
system still existed today--small business loans going only to campaign 
aides, law enforcement protecting only certain communities that voted 
for the President, and farm assistance being denied to those who backed 
the wrong Presidential candidate. Countries today with corrupt systems 
like that are among the poorest on Earth. None of this came to pass in 
America because the President who came after Garfield, Chester A. 
Arthur, signed a law creating the modern civil service.
  Today, the President still has the authority to make political 
appointments to the most senior positions in the executive branch, but 
the overwhelming majority of positions are career civil servants who 
are hired based on merit, not political connections. The diplomatic 
corps was similarly professionalized in the decades that followed.
  Put simply, that swamp was drained. Now other swamps have arisen, and 
actions like campaign finance reform are badly needed to address them, 
but professional civil servants are not the problem. In fact, since the 
civil service and Foreign Service were created, they have risen to 
every challenge. They mobilized America's resources to protect the 
public health and to beat back the Great Depression and wage war on 
fascism and on poverty.
  Over the last half century, as the number of Americans they are 
serving has grown by more than 120 million, the number of civil 
servants has remained flat. That is doing a lot more with less.
  If problems arise in the conception or execution of Federal programs, 
they must always be acknowledged and they must be fixed. Congress works 
hard to do that, often with the help of whistleblowers who raise the 
alarm about great fraud, waste, and abuse.
  But some of my colleagues and our predecessors have made the terrible 
mistake over the last 40 years of systematically disparaging all 
``bureaucrats.'' This causes incalculable harm by turning good people 
away from public service and demoralizing those who are there. It hurts 
dedicated public servants to hear ``bureaucrat'' spat out as some kind 
of insult when the Senator or candidate doing so was probably more 
upset by the policies they were directed to implement than the civil 
servants implementing those policies.
  Of course, the attacks and criticism leveled against Federal 
employees in the past were a lovefest compared to the hostility 
demonstrated by this administration and this President--assaulting them 
with name calling, assaulting bargaining rights, and even moving 
offices 1,000 miles away to get people to quit.
  A new report by the Partnership for Public Service finds plummeting 
morale at the U.S. Department of Agriculture driven by a huge decline 
in scores at the USDA's Economic Research Service and the National 
Institute of Food and Agriculture. The Trump administration did not 
like the reports that those researchers at those agencies were 
publishing, and they punished them by suddenly moving their jobs 
halfway across the country and in the process lost hundreds of 
experienced, knowledgeable Federal employees in the area of 
agriculture. The vast majority of staff at those agencies lost their 
jobs when they decided not to move, and many of their jobs now remain 
unfilled. This has needlessly caused an upheaval that is delaying all 
sorts of reports on which those in the farming economy rely.
  This administration's hostile atmosphere has been cited as 
contributing to a 61-percent increase in civil servants resigning 
during the first 18 months of this administration, including almost 
1,600 leaving the EPA. Nearly half of our most senior Foreign Service 
officers left the government during President Trump's first 2 years, 
along with

[[Page S7134]]

many midcareer diplomats. Applications to the Foreign Service are at a 
10-year low during this Presidency--a hollowing out at every level. It 
will take a generation to recover.
  But as vicious as the attacks on Federal employees have been during 
the first 3 years of this administration, in recent months, we faced an 
even more insidious threat from a President who incites his followers 
to violence in one breath or tweet and spews venom against individual--
individual--public servants by name in the next. These verbal assaults 
have led to harassment of government employees, like those who appeared 
as witnesses in the House. The President's supporters have acted, in 
many cases, on his incitements. There have been at least 29 criminal 
attacks or threats prosecuted in our courts where the attacker was 
echoing the President's rhetoric, according to one analysis.
  This need to maintain support for our Federal employees is going to 
be especially important in the next several months when events will 
unfold that are sure to evoke strong passions across the political 
spectrum and around the country.
  First, the election season is heating up, as will, no doubt, the 
President's criticisms of those with whom he disagrees, and we are 
going to consider the question in this body of impeachment, as they are 
doing so today in the House.
  I know it is hard, but I ask my fellow Americans to set aside for a 
moment how they feel about the impeachment case. Set that aside, and 
think about the particular individuals who testified, what they did and 
what they did not say. Think about Ambassador Taylor and Mr. Kemp, who 
learned four languages, not to seek personal wealth or personal glory 
but to advocate for our country. Think about being raised on stories of 
Nazi and Soviet oppression of your parents, like Marie Yovanovitch. No 
one could have faulted her for seeking a more comfortable life here. 
Instead, she ventured back out to some of the most dangerous parts of 
the world and sometimes at significant personal risk to herself. She 
went abroad to extend the American people's hand of friendship and to 
pursue our interests. She went as the direct, chosen representative of 
three Presidents.
  These public servants don't have the luxury of choosing the policies 
they pursue or of just speaking their own minds at any time. Setting 
aside the personal beliefs they may hold, all the public servants I 
have spoken to so far served America under both administrations of both 
parties. Even last month, they did not have the luxury of speaking 
their minds on subjects of their choice or at a time of their choosing, 
as we do right here in the U.S. Senate. No, congressional subpoenas and 
their duty to our constitutional laws compelled them to testify, not to 
opinions but to facts.
  The witnesses spoke about their love of country and pride in serving 
it. They did not speak about political affiliations or show any desire 
to undermine, let alone overthrow, this or any other President. They 
honored their oath of office, just as other dedicated civil servants 
and Foreign Service Officers do every day, striving to accomplish what 
Congress, the President, and their agency leaders ask of them.
  Nobody--nobody--who swears the same oath to the Constitution, as we 
do in this Chamber, should criticize them for honoring their oath.
  Far from a nefarious deep state, the depth of knowledge, the 
expertise, and the diligence of public servants show the depth of our 
agencies of government, the depth of our state. They are the ballast 
that keeps the ship of state on course.
  We believe that America's strength springs not only from the 
undisputed benefits of a free people pursuing their ambitions and 
dreams but also from sometimes harnessing those talents for important 
national purposes.
  We believe that America's greatness has resulted not only from a 
collection of individuals acting alone but from our capacity to work 
together for the common good. We should not see government as the enemy 
but as the imperfect instrument by which we can accomplish together, as 
a people, what no individual or corporation can accomplish alone.
  I ask my colleagues to stop, to think about what we have built in 
this country--a system of government that has helped eradicate many 
diseases, sent mankind to the Moon, built the infrastructure to connect 
the continent, and so much more. American ingenuity, harnessed to 
common purpose through government, powered these achievements.
  As we look to the future, let's consider what it will take to 
maintain our momentum and maintain our greatness as a united country. 
It takes people. It takes skilled people, and it takes, among others 
working in our free society, a dedicated public service. We will lose 
those public servants, as we are already seeing, if people keep 
attacking them.
  Let's ask ourselves a simple question. What kind of country do we 
want to be--a country that embraces all who serve, in uniform and out 
of uniform, or a country that retreats even further into tribalism and 
political echo chambers?
  I am proud to stand with our civil servants. In 2017, Senator 
Sullivan and I cofounded the Foreign Service Caucus to support our 
diplomats, a bipartisan start toward turning the tide.
  This week, we have taken additional steps forward with the passage of 
paid parental leave for Federal employees, and we will pass a well-
deserved pay raise shortly. There is so much more we can do. Senators 
can start right now and take personal responsibility for ushering in a 
new era of respect for all of our public servants. I ask my colleagues 
on both sides of the Capitol to stop the insults, stop the verbal 
assaults, and stop questioning the patriotism of these fine Americans.
  We can fight over programs; we can fight over budgets; but let's not 
speak ill of civilians who serve. Let's not hurl the term 
``bureaucrat'' as a slur. Let's not call people in certain government 
agencies ``scum.'' Let's disagree with witnesses without questioning 
their patriotism.
  Let's remember that those who join the Federal service do so out of a 
desire to help their fellow Americans and that they deserve our respect 
and our thanks. If we want to know what is really going on with the 
Federal program, we should be talking to our civil servants to get 
ideas about what is working and what needs to be fixed. They are always 
willing to offer their opinions for those purposes. If you want to root 
out waste, fraud, and abuse, let's keep open the lines of communication 
with Federal employees and whistleblowers. Remember that Federal 
employees cannot bargain for wages or benefits, so, instead, they 
bargain for a workplace that works better for the American people.

  On April 19, we will mark 25 years since the bombing of the Alfred P. 
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City--America's deadliest domestic 
terror attack, where 168 people perished, many of them Federal workers. 
As we honor all those who were killed that day, we must come together, 
across the aisle. We must reject the idea of politically motivated 
violence. And we must do it every day, not just on the anniversary of 
that tragedy.
  We can do this. I have confidence we can do it because we have done 
something like it before. I mentioned at the outset of my remarks our 
universal respect for our fellow citizens and aspiring citizens who 
serve in the military. But it wasn't always universally so.
  During the war in Vietnam, many of us remember how polarized and 
divided our country was and how in some cases disagreement over the war 
morphed, for some, into directing anger at our troops. This country 
learned from that mistake. We turned the tide. We came together. Now we 
have nearly universal agreement that it is wrong to blame 
servicemembers for carrying out decisions to go to war that they had no 
part in making themselves; that you can disagree with the war but still 
embrace the warrior.
  For too many of our colleagues, especially as we witness what is 
happening on the other side of the Capitol, that fallacy is playing out 
again today; people are blaming and attacking public servants for 
following the laws they are sworn to uphold, for obeying lawful 
subpoenas, and for doing their duty to tell the truth.
  I am an optimist, and I believe today's critics will learn from our 
past mistakes and correct our approach in the future, just as we 
learned after the

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Vietnam war that it was wrong to criticize or focus our anger on our 
soldiers, even if we disagreed with the war they were deployed to 
undertake and fight.
  I hope we will take that same approach with respect to our civil 
servants; that we will understand and honor their service. I hope we 
will all then jointly proclaim that alongside the greatest military in 
the world, we have the greatest civil service and the greatest Foreign 
Service the world has ever seen.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.