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Press Release Published: Sep 15, 2022

Comer: Democrats’ Bill Makes the Swamp Swampier

WASHINGTON—House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) today delivered remarks on the House floor in opposition to Democrats’ so-called Preventing a Patronage System Act (H.R. 302), a bill that insulates the federal bureaucracy from accountability. Ranking Member Comer emphasized how the Founding Fathers never envisioned a massive unelected, unaccountable federal government with the power to create policies that impact Americans’ everyday lives. He noted how former President Trump sought to make the federal bureaucracy more accountable to the American people and blasted Democrats’ efforts to further expand the federal government’s influence over Americans.

Below are Ranking Member Comer’s prepared remarks.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It’s apparently Groundhog Day in the House of Representatives.

Today, just like the last day we debated a bill in the Oversight and Reform Committee’s jurisdiction, Americans continue to face sky-high inflation, painfully high gas prices, and supply chain shortages.

Americans continue to face the consequences of a broken border that allow fentanyl shipments to flood in and kill our teens, along with a host of other urgent problems.

And they continue to look to this Congress for help with these real and pressing crises.

Yet what are Democrats prioritizing instead of addressing these issues during one of the last legislative weeks before November’s congressional election?

Another bill that insulates the federal bureaucracy from accountability.

This time, the bill is Representative Connolly’s “Preventing a Patronage System Act.” 

This is just another Democrat bill that has nothing to do with the American people’s priorities.

What is the problem the bill tries to address?

The Democrats’ bill seeks to prevent future Presidents making federal employees more accountable to the American people whom they serve.

Our Founding Fathers never envisioned a massive unelected, unaccountable federal government with the power to create policies that impact Americans’ everyday lives.

But that is currently the state of today’s federal bureaucracy.

President Trump sought to take on this bureaucracy and restore power to the people by draining the Swamp.

He issued an executive order in October 2020 to help make federal bureaucrats who have the ability to create and implement policy more accountable for their actions.

We should all be in favor of policies making it easier to remove civil servants who refuse to follow the will of the voters.

That is what President Trump’s executive order did.

Democrats are beholden to the federal bureaucracy—a workforce who thinks they know better than the American people.

They are wrong.

Democrats have made every effort to preserve bureaucrats’ ability to thwart the policies of any president who tries to implement policies to reign in the expansive influence of the federal government over the daily lives of Americans.

This bill is contrary to the American way of government—of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The bill’s sponsors allege it is a bill that prevents a return to the patronage system instituted in the 19th Century.

But that is simply not true.

President Trump never attempted a return to a patronage system.

Just the opposite.

Instead of instituting a new “patronage system,” President Trump simply made it easier to discipline or remove civil service officials in our government’s policy-making roles.

These influential federal employees should not be allowed to chronically underperform or actively undermine the work of their politically accountable superiors.

If you support an efficient and effective executive branch that is accountable to America’s voters, then you must oppose H.R. 302.

I reserve the balance of my time.