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Van Hollen Leads Dems Group Warning OPM Changes Could Strip Federal Workers of Due Process Protections

March 24, 2026

More than a dozen Senate Democrats, led by Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, are opposing two Trump administration proposals that would transfer federal employee appeals from the independent Merit Systems Protection Board to the Office of Personnel Management. The senators argue this consolidation would eliminate crucial checks and balances established by the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, which intentionally separated policy-making from adjudication to prevent conflicts of interest. Under the proposed changes, OPM would control the entire process from creating personnel policies to enforcing them and ultimately deciding appeals against those same policies, with final authority resting with a political appointee.

Who is affected

  • Federal employees facing suitability determinations, workforce reductions, and other personnel actions
  • Federal job applicants subject to suitability reviews
  • The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which would lose adjudication authority
  • The Office of Personnel Management, which would gain expanded powers
  • Political appointees at OPM who would gain final decision-making authority
  • Senate Democrats (specifically Van Hollen and over a dozen colleagues from multiple states)

What action is being taken

  • The Trump administration's Office of Personnel Management is proposing two rules to transfer appeals authority
  • Senate Democrats are submitting letters during the official comment period opposing the proposals
  • OPM is consolidating adjudicatory functions within its agency while operating with reduced internal staffing

Why it matters

  • This matters because it would dismantle the foundational structure of federal civil service protections established over 45 years ago. The separation between policy-making and adjudication was deliberately designed by Congress to prevent conflicts of interest and protect against political retaliation. Eliminating this independence would allow the same political appointee who creates and enforces personnel policies to also serve as the final judge in disputes about those policies, fundamentally undermining the merit-based civil service system and due process protections that federal workers have relied upon for decades.

What's next

  • No explicit next steps stated in the article

Read full article from source: The Washington Informer

Van Hollen Leads Dems Group Warning OPM Changes Could Strip Federal Workers of Due Process Protections