Press Releases

Today, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released the following statement in response to President Donald Trump’s Executive Orders that will politicize the civil service and help his billionaire friends at the expense of the American people:

“Donald Trump has used his first day in office to begin the purge of the nonpartisan civil service of experts, use the federal workforce as a piggy bank for billionaire oligarchs like Elon Musk, and politicize the services that the federal government provides to the American people each and every day. With a stroke of his pen, he has threatened to return us to the spoils system, putting us on a dangerous path toward a world in which government services and benefits are allocated based on the politics, not the needs, of the recipient.

“In Donald Trump’s vision for America, your social security check goes to the bottom of the pile because you disagree with him. In his vision for America, disaster aid is allocated to red states first and to blue states only if they sufficiently bend the knee. In his vision for America, nonpartisan civil servants are punished or fired if they don’t put the needs of his billionaire friends above the needs of you, the American people.

“I will not stand for that vision for America. Democrats on the Oversight Committee will not stand for it, and the American people will not stand for it. As these draconian orders inevitably make their way through the courts, my colleagues and I will man the ramparts in defense of our civil service and the American people they so proudly serve.”

On January 16, 2025, Ranking Member Connolly reintroduced the Saving the Civil Service Act, which would protect the civil service by preventing Donald Trump from implementing his plans to politicize the nonpartisan federal workforce and the services it provides.