Rep. Roy's remarks on H.R. 302

WASHINGTON — Rep. Chip Roy gave the following remarks Thursday afternoon ahead of his vote against H.R. 302:

The clip of Rep. Roy's remarks is available here and a transcript is below:

The fact is, the bureaucracy has never been more politicized than it is today. This bill is the 'Federal Bureaucrat Protection Act.' That's what this is. Let's be 100% clear. This is about leftists in this body wanting to protect the entrenched leftists in the bureaucracy, undermining the will of the American people every single day. That's what it's about.

We don't want to allow the people who are running the agencies to go in and fire people who are either not doing their job, completely violating their ethics at the desk, or frankly, are going right against the law or the will of the American people. Look no further than the Department of Homeland Security, which is turning a blind eye to our border. Look no further than an FBI that's targeting parents for daring to challenge school boards. 

That's what your federal bureaucracy is doing. All of these charges being levied, saying, 'oh, this is about hate, going after federal employees.' I'm a former federal prosecutor who worked for the Department of Justice. My father worked in the federal government for 20 years, right here. But I know why the gentleman, my friend, Mr. Beyer, was here: because the richest counties in America are right here in Fairfax, Loudoun County, Montgomery County, feeding right off of the back of the beast that is the federal government, the bureaucrats that are stepping over the will of the American people. 

And if we dare put forward legislation, like I have, to say that those bureaucrats should be able to be fired at will. For example, how about the HUD employee caught using his work email for private business deals, the postal employee arrested for bringing cocaine into the workplace, an EPA employee who spent years viewing pornography for two to six hours of the workday. But the fact is, only 25% of federal supervisors felt they could successfully remove an employee, while 78% reported that previous efforts to remove the employee had no effect. Only 3% of whistleblower complaints are substantiated. 175 of 16,000 discrimination complaints were substantiated in 2019.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to preserve an entrenched bureaucracy to step over the will of the people, so that this town can decide the wellbeing of the American people. That's what it's about. It's about power. It's about the entrenchment of power among bureaucrats, my colleagues know it, and that's why they're trying to advance this legislation.

###