1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

Co-sponsor the PATH to the Foreign Service Act, H.R. 8642 and S. 4466, and the Foreign Service Test-Free Reentry Act, H.R. 9730, and press the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to schedule a hearing on both bills. The State Department is now advertising for people with experience in foreign assistance and humanitarian response, precisely the expertise the government eliminated when it dismantled USAID. Between January 2025 and March 2026, USAID terminated about 6,780 of its 7,510 awards and its worldwide workforce fell from roughly 13,600 to 241. Now State is recruiting on a careers page and requiring applicants to pass the Foreign Service Officer Test, a requirement the same lateral entry program did not impose in 2024. These officers were already selected, tenured, promoted, and entrusted with billions in public funds before the government removed them. Making them start over as though that service never happened wastes decades of expertise and the taxpayer investment that built it. Both bills sit in committee with no hearing and no markup. That has to change. I do not understand why the government would eliminate an experienced workforce and then spend money recruiting people to replace the expertise it discarded. Co-sponsor these bills and push the committees to act.