Top House Democrats maintain they won't budge on voting for the GOP-led continuing resolution even in the face of threats of mass firings by the Trump administration, The Hill reported Wednesday.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Democrats are accustomed to the administration's efforts to trim down the federal workforce.
"The mass firings of federal workers — the Trump administration has been engaging in this since Jan. 20," Jeffries said, in reference to the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
Jeffries' comments came in reaction to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, who said Wednesday the administration would begin firing federal employees in one to two days.
"We are going to have to lay some people off if the shutdown continues," Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday. "We don't like that. We don't necessarily want to do it, but we're going to do what we have to to keep the American people's essential services continuing to run."
Last week, Vought issued a memo instructing agencies to prepare "reduction-in-force notices for all employees" in programs "not consistent with the president's priorities."
Still, Democrats remained steadfast against voting for the continuing resolution — though Democrats supported such measures 13 times under the Biden administration.
They are also challenging Trump's executive authority to lay off — not just furlough — federal employees.
"A shutdown doesn't obviate the civil service protections that federal workers have. A shutdown doesn't obviate the legal requirements that the administration has to follow a process if they want to conduct a reduction in force," said Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va. "So if they attempted to use the shutdown as a pretext to circumvent any of those legal requirements, it would end up in court, and they would almost certainly lose."
The Trump administration argues, however, that with a Schedule F reclassification of federal employees as "at will," stripping them of civil service protections, they have the authority to permanently reduce the federal workforce during the shutdown.
"It does give an opportunity to the power in charge, the president in charge, to make unilateral decisions that don't need a vote of Congress about which programs in the government are essential and which are not," House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday.
He said that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., behaved "very stupidly, just walked right into that trap. He's handed President Trump the keys to the kingdom."
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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