Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, CONGRESSIONAL NEWS—Democratic leaders raise alarms bells over federal workforce assaults, DOGE’s ‘shadow government’ actions, (Feb 7, 2025)

By Pamela Wolf, J.D.

Chuck Schmer: “DOGE is not a real government agency. DOGE has no authority to make spending decisions. DOGE has no authority to shut programs down or to ignore federal law.”

Democratic leaders swung into action against the many controversial moves to dismantle the federal workforce taken by President Trump, Elon Muck, and the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) in the first weeks of the Trump administration. The pushback ranged from demanding that Elon Musk be subpoenaed to testify, to a roundtable convened with federal employee groups and civil service organizations in order to formulate a plan of action.

‘Unconstitutional assault on government.’ At a February 5 Oversight and Government Committee hearing on President Trump’s and Elon Musk’s “dangerous efforts to dismantle the federal workforce,” Ranking Member Gerald E. Connolly called for Elon Musk to be subpoenaed testify before the Committee.

“We depend on our government to safeguard our food supply and ensure lifesaving medication is safe to consume,” Connolly said. “We depend on our government to provide alerts about extreme weather through the National Weather Service and to provide communities with disaster relief when that weather hits home.

“This is the so-called Deep State that President Trump and his acolytes continue to demonize, and these are the programs and services sitting on Elon Musk’s chopping block right now. Their efforts to, rightsize government serve no one but themselves and fellow oligarchs who want to destroy, deregulate, and privatize, leaving everyday Americans to foot the bill with not only their paychecks, but potentially their well-being and their lives.”

Connolly pointed to several actions that the Trump Administration took in its first two weeks:

• Ordered a hiring freeze on all federal civilian positions;

• Ordered all federal employees back to the office full-time;

• Paved the way to purge more than 100,000 non-partisan career civil servants and replace them with political loyalists;

• Waged war on our nation’s commitment to civil rights by eviscerating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs;

• Ordered the politicization of the Senior Executive Service;

• Forced employees to surveil and report on colleagues;

• Fired the Democratic Commissioners of the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission;

• Administered loyalty tests to career civil servants at the National Security Council;

• Granted security clearances to incoming White House officials without vetting them;

• Reportedly violated cybersecurity, procurement, and privacy laws by recklessly handling federal systems and data;

• Attempted a late-night purge of 17 nonpartisan inspectors general in a brazenly illegal attack that will only provide cover for the corruption that inevitably will ensue; and

• Ordered a freeze of federal grants, loans, and other financial assistance programs (immediately after the funding freeze was issued, Medicaid and Head Start reported disruptions, and some of FEMA’s online portals were cut off. The freeze was halted by a judge and then rescinded by the Administration).

“President Trump and Elon Musk are using a wrecking ball to systematically dismember our government piece by piece,” said Connolly. He called on Congress to “stop this unconstitutional assault on our government.”

Roundtable call-to-action. A day earlier, on February 4, Steny Hoyer, Ranking Member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, hosted a roundtable with major federal employee groups and civil service organizations to coordinate action on the Trump Administration’s “unprecedented and dangerous attacks on the federal workforce and the critical services they provide to the American people.”

The roundtable included representatives from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Democracy Forward, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the Internation Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE), the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

“AFGE expects the next four years to pose the gravest threat to the nonpartisan, merit-based civil service system, since the system was established in 1883 and revised in the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act,” said AFGE President Everett Kelly.

“The 142-year-old merit-based civil service is a pillar of our democracy, ensuring that the day-to-day functions of federal agencies are carried out by qualified experts hired based on their skill, not political affiliation,” said NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald. “We applaud those members of Congress who understand the gravity of the threat and are joining forces to avoid the politicization of our federal workforce. Federal employees took an oath to uphold the Constitution and serve their country and they should not be subject to political loyalty tests. The American people deserve to have government services delivered by qualified, nonpartisan professionals who do their job regardless of which party occupies the White House.”

“The Trump administration’s actions show utter disregard for the continued, effective operation of the federal government on behalf of the American people, putting at risk public safety, national security, and government services, from emergency response to veterans’ health care to timely receipt of Social Security benefits,” said NARFE National President William “Bill” Shackelford.

“It is critical that labor unions have a seat at the table with Congressional leaders as the civil service faces unprecedented attacks,” said NFFE National President Randy Erwin. “The Trump Administration is clear that they will take extreme measures to weaken the civil service and replace qualified federal employees with political loyalists. We must fight back against harmful plans and protect the workers that maintain our military readiness, provide healthcare to our veterans, defend our national security, protect our communities from wildfires, among innumerable other critical services.”

Challenging DOGE actions. On February 4, the Ranking Members of numerous House committees sent a letter to President Trump demanding information on reported attempts by the DOGE task force to access classified and sensitive information without proper clearance, and expressing concerns that their behavior could “pose enormous risks to our national security.”

Among other incidents, the Ranking Members pointed to reports that DOGE-affiliated-individuals forcibly accessed the offices of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on a weekend day and without advanced notice or coordination. Reportedly, some of these individuals may not have any formal government affiliation, security clearance, or discernible need-to-know. Nonetheless, they threatened on-site security personnel and demanded potentially improper access to government facilities and information systems, including sensitive compartmented information facilities (SCIFs) and the classified materials and systems therein. Administration members subsequently placed security officials and others at USAID on administrative leave because of their efforts to follow established security procedures and prevent the unauthorized access of classified U.S. government information without the necessary security clearances, according to the Democratic committee leaders.

The Ranking Members also were concerned by reports about DOGE-affiliated-individuals gaining access to sensitive personnel data systems at the Office of Personnel Management as well as the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s payment systems at the Department of Treasury. “If not appropriately safeguarded, irregular or improper access to data contained in these systems could compromise the privacy of individuals, as well as elevate counterintelligence risks,” the Democrats wrote.

“Whatever DOGE’s mission entails, a highly irregular process in which security officials are threatened and punished for following laws and policies designed to protect sensitive information is unacceptable and dangerous,” the letter stated. “It is critical that the Administration make clear how and whether Mr. Musk, government and non-government employees, as well as foreign citizens affiliated with DOGE, are appropriately vetted and cleared to access sensitive information, how they are safeguarding the facilities, information, and systems they are accessing, and what functions and spending are included in their mandate.”

The Democrats sought answers to a list of “urgent questions” by February 14, 2025.

Democratic Senators question DOGE actions. On February 5, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and the Ranking Members of several Senate committees also pushed back against DOGE activities by sending a letter to the new Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent. The move came after the “Treasury Department’s inadequate responses and evasive answers to a request for information following the hostile takeover” by Elon Musk and DOGE. Specifically, the Senators expressed concern about DOGE having access to the management and disbursement of trillions of dollars and the highly sensitive information of millions of Americans.

One day earlier, on February 4, Schumer spoke out on the Senate floor condemning the actions of Elon Musk and DOGE, pointing out that: “DOGE is not a real government agency. DOGE has no authority to make spending decisions. DOGE has no authority to shut programs down or to ignore federal law.” Schumer said that DOGE’s conduct cannot be permitted to stand, and that Congress must “take action to restore the rule of law.”

According to Schumer, in response to his complaint that DOGE was acting in many ways as a “shadow government,” Musk had said ‘“Hysterical reactions like this is how you know that DOGE is doing work that really matters’ and that ‘this is the one shot the American people have to defeat bureaucracy…and restore democracy.”’

Schumer had a strong message in reply: “Give me a break. Nothing screams democracy like having a secret squad of company men pull off a hostile takeover of Americans’ Social Security and tax information in the dead of night.

“That’s democracy? No openness? No hearings? No discussion? No hearing the other side out? From a small group of limited people, who have limited backgrounds, who probably don't even know about the programs they're cutting and how they actually work?”

Expect new legislation. Schumer said that he and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries intend to push legislation “to prevent unlawful meddling in the Treasury department’s payment systems, to prevent everyone's records from being made available to a small group of people who can look at them at will.” He noted that these records have always been kept secret and protected, including tax returns and payment systems. “It affects average Americans. And who knows, maybe next they'll say let's slash all of this stuff,” Schumer warned. “That's what they seem to want to do in their $2.5 trillion desire to cut government.”

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