As the Senate prepares to join the House in a recess until after Labor Day, there remains a chance of action to fill the vacant seats on the MSPB, although there seems to be no such prospect regarding key vacancies at OPM and the FLRA.
In the case of all three agencies, nominations have cleared the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, although with varying degrees of support.
The committee early this year approved nominations for two of the MSPB seats and more recently approved a nominee for the other. Their confirmation would allow the MSPB to return to normal operations after having lacked a quorum since January 2017; it has had no members since March of this year. With no quorum the board may not rule on appeals from its hearing officers—who have continued to issue decisions all the while—with the result that a backlog of more than 2,100 cases has built up. It’s estimated that working it down will require a year or more.
The OPM has lacked a confirmed director for all but about six months—in mid-2018—of the last four years. The current acting director, Margaret Weichert, has been the administration’s point person in advocating for breaking up the agency, an issue that apparently has held up action on the nominee, Dale Cabaniss. Although Cabaniss was approved on a voice vote, four Democrats on the committee went on record as opposing her, largely related to union opposition based on her tenure during the Bush administration as a member and then chair of the FLRA.
The FLRA meanwhile lacks a general counsel, a key position in that agency because that person reviews unfair labor practice complaints forwarded by regional offices and decides whether they should be reviewed by that agency’s board. Unions have filed numerous such complaints related to agencies imposing policy changes after declaring bargaining at an irreconcilable impasse. The committee last week approved the nomination of Catherine Bird, a senior HHS official, for that position; however, the vote fell along party lines, following opposition from unions based on her tenure as a management negotiator there.
