Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, is speaking out after learning the Office of Personnel Management plans to alter hiring rules that determine “suitability and fitness” for government employment.
The proposed rule change by OPM, which acts as the government’s human resources department, was exposed when OPM filed for a rule change on the Federal Register for what is calls “personnel vetting investigative and adjudicative processes for determining suitability and fitness” for a federal job.
"You are supposed to be able to get hired into the federal government,” the Heritage attorney explains, “no matter what your views are, for example, on social issues or what political party you might happen to support when it comes to candidates."
But the proposed rule change is openly making a job candidate’s beliefs part of the hiring process. The proposed language – if allowed to become a new hiring rule – adds three new sections that disqualify a candidate. One states that “Acts of force, violence, intimidation, or coercion with the purpose of denying others the free exercise of their rights under the U.S. Constitution or any state constitution.”
The same federal government that plans to define "free exercise" created a "task force," with three Department of Justice divisions cooperating with the FBI, to investigate disruptive people at school board meetings.
There are currently about 9 million federal employees, including civilians, contractors, grant recipients, active duty military, and postal service workers. The number of civilians overseen by OPM is 1.8 million.
In a related op-ed about the OPM rules, published at The Daily Signal, von Spakovsky points out Democrats consider abortion a constitutional right despite the Dobbs ruling last summer. So if a job candidate sides with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision, the Heritage attorney asks, would that person violate the federal government’s hiring rule?
The answer is: yes. He goes on to write:
Ask yourself this: Can you imagine a government bureaucrat in charge of hiring ever claiming that opposition to liberal state abortion laws is an attempt “to indoctrinate others or to incite them to action in furtherance of illegal acts,” thereby allowing the applicant to be rejected under OPM’s third proposed standard?
It’s not hard to imagine, is it? If you’re a member or leader of a pro-life group trying to change the law in a state such as California that legalizes abortion up through birth, is that “active membership or leadership in a group” with “unlawful aims” under the fourth proposed OPM standard?
Asked by AFN about the public comment period, von Spakovsky says people should comment even if it’s unlikely the Biden administration will stop its discriminatory hiring plans. That’s because a future lawsuit to fight the OPM rule will include those public comments as court documents, he explains, and a judge will demand to know why the federal government ignored the warnings and criticism.
As of today, the Federal Register has 24 comments submitted so far.
