1. United States
2. Mo.
3. Letter

More than 50 members of Congress are demanding answers about this administration’s effort to strip career federal employees of civil service protections and potentially replace a professional, nonpartisan workforce with one that can be subjected to political loyalty tests. Once again, I am asking you: Where are you? Why is your name not among the members of Congress demanding answers? Why are you not using the power of your office to investigate what Russell Vought and this administration are doing to the federal government and the people who depend on it? This is not an abstract political debate. For millions of Americans, the consequences of dismantling federal agencies can literally become a matter of life and death. Federal employees administer Social Security and disability benefits. They protect our food and water. They inspect workplaces and investigate dangerous products. They respond to disasters, protect public health, care for veterans, enforce our laws, and perform countless other functions Americans rely on every single day. When experienced career employees can be removed more easily, intimidated into silence, or replaced based on political loyalty, the consequences extend far beyond Washington. When agencies lose expertise and institutional knowledge, real people suffer. Benefits are delayed. Safety protections weaken. Oversight disappears. Mistakes go unchallenged. Corruption becomes easier to conceal. Russell Vought has made no secret of his desire to radically dismantle the federal government as we know it. Now, thousands of career positions are being stripped of longstanding protections while Congress and the American public are denied basic transparency about who is being targeted and why. How much more will it take before you speak up? Congress is supposed to be a check on executive power. You took an oath to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump, Russell Vought, or any political party. Yet while dozens of your colleagues are demanding transparency and accountability, you remain conspicuously absent. Your silence is not neutral. When elected officials refuse to challenge potentially unlawful abuses of executive power, that silence enables those abuses to continue. I want a direct answer: Do you support Russell Vought’s efforts to dismantle the career civil service and remove protections from thousands of federal employees? Do you support allowing an administration to make it easier to fire career professionals who may refuse political pressure or object to improper or unlawful directives? If you do not support these actions, then why aren’t you standing with the members of Congress demanding answers? The American people should not have to wait until someone loses critical benefits, a preventable disaster occurs, or lives are lost before their representatives decide that dismantling the institutions responsible for protecting them has gone too far. History will record who defended our democratic institutions when they were under attack and who remained silent because challenging their own party was politically inconvenient. You still have a choice about which group you will belong to. I am asking you to publicly demand full transparency regarding Schedule Policy/Career, support meaningful congressional oversight of Russell Vought and this administration, and defend the career federal employees who serve the American people rather than a political party. Your constituents deserve to know whether you intend to fulfill your constitutional responsibility to hold the executive branch accountable, or whether you intend to continue standing by while others in Congress do the work you were elected to do. I expect an answer.