The bill
Postal Employee Appeal Rights Amendment Act of 2025
HR. 1559, 119th Congress — read as touching Labor Unions.
Sponsored by
Rep. Connolly, Gerald E. [D-VA-11]
ID: C001078
Follow the money
The bill
HR. 1559, 119th Congress — read as touching Labor Unions.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
22 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy" section, p. 106-108 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
ASSUMING FIRST SPONSORSHIP - Mr. Walkinshaw asked unanimous consent that he may hereafter be considered as the first sponsor of H.R. 1559, a bill originally introduced by Representative Connolly, for the purpose of adding cosponsors and requesting reprintings pursuant to clause 7 of rule XII. Agreed to without objection.
November 19, 2025
📍 Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another thrilling episode of "Congressional Theater" brought to you by the esteemed members of the 119th Congress. Today's feature presentation is HR 1559, the Postal Employee Appeal Rights Amendment Act of 2025. *yawn*
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill's stated purpose is to extend the right of appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) to certain employees of the United States Postal Service (USPS). Wow, how noble. I'm sure it has nothing to do with currying favor with postal unions or padding the resumes of its sponsors, Mr. Connolly and Mr. Garbarino.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill amends Section 1005(a)(4)(A)(ii)(I) of title 39, United States Code, to include certain USPS employees in supervisory, professional, technical, clerical, administrative, or managerial positions covered by the Executive and Administrative Schedule. Oh, what a mouthful. In simpler terms, it's a minor tweak to an existing law that will likely have negligible impact on the lives of most Americans.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The affected parties include USPS employees who aren't represented by a bargaining representative recognized under section 1203 and are in certain positions covered by the Executive and Administrative Schedule. I'm sure these individuals are just thrilled to be the beneficiaries of this monumental legislation. The real stakeholders, however, are likely the postal unions and special interest groups that will use this bill as leverage for future negotiations.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** The potential impact is minimal, but the implications are rich in comedic value. This bill is a classic example of "legislative theater," where lawmakers pretend to address a pressing issue while actually doing nothing substantial. It's a clever way to waste taxpayer time and money on a non-problem. The real disease here is the chronic condition of "Congressional Inertia," where our esteemed representatives prioritize self-serving grandstanding over meaningful policy changes.
Diagnosis: This bill is suffering from a severe case of "Symbolic Legislation Syndrome" (SLS), characterized by a propensity for empty gestures, vague language, and an overall lack of substance. Treatment involves a healthy dose of skepticism, a strong stomach for bureaucratic nonsense, and a willingness to call out the obvious lies and posturing.
Prognosis: This bill will likely pass with minimal fanfare, only to be forgotten in the annals of legislative history. Meanwhile, the real issues plaguing our postal system – inefficiency, mismanagement, and declining services – will continue to fester, ignored by our courageous lawmakers.
Rep. Connolly, Gerald E. [D-VA-11]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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No committee contributions found
This bill has 10 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
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Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 53 nodes and 34 connections (41 secondary connections hidden)
Total contributions: $104,850
Showing top 18 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 1 helped.
Section 2 extends the right of appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board to certain employees of the United States Postal Service, which may be seen as a benefit to labor unions representing these employees.
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"HR 1559 extends MSPB appeal rights to certain USPS employees, which aligns with Project 2025's emphasis on performance accountability and merit-based systems by supporting fair personnel processes, though it does not directly address performance appraisal reform or merit pay."
— 73 — Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy that would change regularly to depress cheating. President Donald Trump’s OPM planned to implement such changes but was delayed because of legal concerns over possible disparate impact. Courts have agreed to review the consent decree if the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures setting the technical requirements for sound exams are reformed. A government that is unable to select employees based on KSA-like test qualifications cannot work, and the OPM must move forward on this very basic personnel management obligation. The Centrality of Performance Appraisal. In the meantime, the OPM must manage the workforce it has. Before they can reward or discipline federal employees, managers must first identify who their top performers are and who is performing less than adequately. In fact, as Ludwig von Mises proved in his classic Bureaucracy,14 unlike the profit-and-loss evaluation tool used in the private sector, government performance measurement depends totally on a functioning appraisal system. If they cannot be identified in the first place within a functioning appraisal system, it is impossible to reward good performance or correct poor performance. The problem is that the collegial atmosphere of a bureaucracy in a multifaceted appraisal system that is open to appeals makes this a very challenging ideal to implement successfully. The GAO reported more recently that overly high and widely spread perfor- mance ratings were again plaguing the government, with more than 99 percent of employees rated fully successful or above by their managers, a mere 0.3 percent rated as minimally successful, and 0.1 percent actually rated unacceptable.15 Why? It is human nature that no one appreciates being told that he or she is less than outstanding in every way. Informing subordinates in a closely knit bureaucracy that they are not performing well is difficult. Rating compatriots is even consid- ered rude and unprofessional. Moreover, managers can be and often are accused of racial or sexual discrimination for a poor rating, and this discourages honesty. In 2018, President Trump issued Executive Order 1383916 requiring agen- cies to reduce the time for employees to improve performance before corrective action could be taken; to initiate disciplinary actions against poorly performing employees more expeditiously; to reiterate that agencies are obligated to make employees improve; to reduce the time for employees to respond to allegations of poor performance; to mandate that agencies remind supervisors of expiring employee probationary periods; to prohibit agencies from entering into settlement agreements that modify an employee’s personnel record; and to reevaluate proce- dures for agencies to discipline supervisors who retaliate against whistleblowers. Unfortunately, the order was overturned by the Biden Administration,17 so it will need to be reintroduced in 2025. The fact remains that meaningfully evaluating employees’ performance is a critical part of a manager’s job. In the Reagan appraisal process, managers were evaluated on how they themselves rated their subordinates. This is critical to — 74 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise responsibility and improved management. It is essential that political executives build policy goals directly into employee appraisals both for mission success and for employees to know what is expected. Indistinguishable from their coworkers on paper, hard-working federal employees often go unrewarded for their efforts and are often the system’s greatest critics. Federal workers who are performing inadequately get neither the benefit of an honest appraisal nor clear guidance on how to improve. Political executives should take an active role in supervising per- formance appraisals of career staff, not unduly delegate this responsibility to senior career managers, and be willing to reward and support good performers. Merit Pay. Performance appraisal means little to daily operations if it is not tied directly to real consequences for success as well as failure. According to a survey of major U.S. private companies—which, unlike the federal government, also have a profit-and-loss evaluation—90 percent use a system of merit pay for performance based on some type of appraisal system. Despite early efforts to institute merit pay throughout the federal government, however, compensation is still based primarily on seniority rather than merit. Merit pay for executives and managers was part of the Carter reforms and was implemented early in the Reagan presidency. Beginning in the summer of 1982, the Reagan OPM entered 18 months of negotiations with House and Senate staff on extending merit pay to the entire workforce. Long and detailed talks between the OPM and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress ensued, and a final agreement was reached in 1983 that supposedly ensured the passage of legislation creating a new Performance Management and Recognition System (PMRS) for all, (not just management) GS-13 through GS-15 employees. Meanwhile, the OPM issued regulations to expand the role of performance related to pay throughout the entire workforce, but congressional allies of the employee unions, led by Representative Steny Hoyer (D) of government employee– rich Maryland, stoutly resisted this extension of pay-for-performance and, with strong union support, used the congressional appropriations process to block OPM administrative pay reforms. Bonuses for SES career employees survived, but per- formance appraisals became so high and widely distributed that there was little relationship between performance and remuneration. Ever since the original merit pay system for federal managers (GM-13 through GM-15 grade levels, just below the SES) was allowed to expire in September 1993, little to nothing has been done either to reinstate the federal merit pay program for managers or to distribute performance rating evaluations for the SES, much less to extend the program to the remainder of the workforce. A reform-friendly President and Congress might just provide the opportunity to create a more comprehensive performance plan; in the meantime, however, political executives should use exist- ing pay and especially fiscal awards strategically to reward good performance to the degree allowed by law.
AI Analysis:
"HR 1559 expands MSPB appeal rights to more USPS employees, which increases the appeals workload, whereas Project 2025’s Central Personnel Agencies section seeks to streamline the appeals process to reduce backlog and enable managers to address poor performance more effectively. The bill’s focus on procedural fairness overlaps only tangentially with the policy’s goal of managing bureaucracy through efficient merit‑based oversight."
— 74 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise responsibility and improved management. It is essential that political executives build policy goals directly into employee appraisals both for mission success and for employees to know what is expected. Indistinguishable from their coworkers on paper, hard-working federal employees often go unrewarded for their efforts and are often the system’s greatest critics. Federal workers who are performing inadequately get neither the benefit of an honest appraisal nor clear guidance on how to improve. Political executives should take an active role in supervising per- formance appraisals of career staff, not unduly delegate this responsibility to senior career managers, and be willing to reward and support good performers. Merit Pay. Performance appraisal means little to daily operations if it is not tied directly to real consequences for success as well as failure. According to a survey of major U.S. private companies—which, unlike the federal government, also have a profit-and-loss evaluation—90 percent use a system of merit pay for performance based on some type of appraisal system. Despite early efforts to institute merit pay throughout the federal government, however, compensation is still based primarily on seniority rather than merit. Merit pay for executives and managers was part of the Carter reforms and was implemented early in the Reagan presidency. Beginning in the summer of 1982, the Reagan OPM entered 18 months of negotiations with House and Senate staff on extending merit pay to the entire workforce. Long and detailed talks between the OPM and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress ensued, and a final agreement was reached in 1983 that supposedly ensured the passage of legislation creating a new Performance Management and Recognition System (PMRS) for all, (not just management) GS-13 through GS-15 employees. Meanwhile, the OPM issued regulations to expand the role of performance related to pay throughout the entire workforce, but congressional allies of the employee unions, led by Representative Steny Hoyer (D) of government employee– rich Maryland, stoutly resisted this extension of pay-for-performance and, with strong union support, used the congressional appropriations process to block OPM administrative pay reforms. Bonuses for SES career employees survived, but per- formance appraisals became so high and widely distributed that there was little relationship between performance and remuneration. Ever since the original merit pay system for federal managers (GM-13 through GM-15 grade levels, just below the SES) was allowed to expire in September 1993, little to nothing has been done either to reinstate the federal merit pay program for managers or to distribute performance rating evaluations for the SES, much less to extend the program to the remainder of the workforce. A reform-friendly President and Congress might just provide the opportunity to create a more comprehensive performance plan; in the meantime, however, political executives should use exist- ing pay and especially fiscal awards strategically to reward good performance to the degree allowed by law. — 75 — Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy Making the Appeals Process Work. The nonmilitary government dismissal rate is well below 1 percent, and no private-sector industry employee enjoys the job security that a federal employee enjoys. Both safety and justice demand that managers learn to act strategically to hire good and fire poor performers legally. The initial paperwork required to separate poor or abusive performers (when they are infrequently identified) is not overwhelming, and managers might be motivated to act if it were not for the appeals and enforcement processes. Formal appeal in the private sector is mostly a rather simple two-step process, but government unions and associations have been able to convince politicians to support a multiple and extensive appeals and enforcement process. As noted, there are multiple administrative appeals bodies. The FLRA, OSC, and EEOC have relatively narrow jurisdictions. Claims that an employee’s removal or disciplinary actions violate the terms of a collective bargaining agreement between an agency and a union are handled by the FLRA, employees who claim their removal was the result of discrimination can appeal to the EEOC, and employ- ees who believe their firing was retribution for being a whistleblower can go to the OSC. While the MSPB specializes in abuses of direct merit system issues, it can and does hear and review almost any of the matters heard by the other agencies. Cases involving race, gender, religion, age, pregnancy, disability, or national origin can be appealed to the EEOC or the MSPB—and in some cases to both—and to the OSC. This gives employees multiple opportunities to prove their cases, and while the EEOC, MSPB, FLRA, and OSC may all apply essentially the same burden of proof, the odds of success may be substantially different in each forum. In fact, forum shopping among them for a friendlier venue is a common practice, but fre- quent filers face no consequences for frivolous complaints. As a result, meritorious cases are frequently delayed, denying relief and justice to truly aggrieved individuals. The MSPB can and does handle all such matters, but it faces a backlog of an estimated 3,000 cases of people who were potentially wrongfully terminated or disciplined as far back as 2013. From 2017–2022 the MSPB lacked the quorum required to decide appeals. On the other hand, as of January 2023, the EEOC had a backlog of 42,000 cases. While federal employees win appeals relatively infrequently—MSPB adminis- trative judges have upheld agency decisions as much as 80 percent of the time—the real problem is the time and paperwork involved in the elaborate process that managers must undergo during appeals. This keeps even the best managers from bringing cases in all but the most egregious cases of poor performance or mis- conduct. As a result, the MSPB, EEOC, FLRA, and OSC likely see very few cases compared to the number of occurrences, and nonperformers continue to be paid and often are placed in nonwork positions. Having a choice of appeals is especially unique to the government. If lower-pri- ority issues were addressed in-house, serious adverse actions would be less subject
AI Analysis:
"HR 1559 focuses on extending MSPB appeal rights to certain USPS employees, which relates to federal workforce fairness and due process. While Project 2025's Department of Labor section emphasizes worker dignity, family-supporting jobs, and agency roles in protecting workers, the bill does not directly address those broader themes, resulting in only weak thematic alignment."
— 579 — Department of Justice 93. H.R. 5005, Homeland Security Act of 2002, Public Law No. 107-296, 107th Congress, November 25, 2002, 116 Stat. 2135, https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ296/PLAW-107publ296.pdf (accessed February 3, 2023). 94. See, for example, 8 U.S. Code §§ 1103(a)(1) and 1103(g), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1103 (accessed February 3, 2023). 95. See, for example, 8 U.S. Code §§ 1324–1326, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/chapter-12/ subchapter-II/part-VIII (accessed February 3, 2023). 96. Press release, “Justice, Labor Departments Reach Settlements with Facebook Resolving Claims of Discrimination Against U.S. Workers and Potential Regulatory Recruitment Violations,” U.S. Department of Justice, October 19, 2021, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-labor-departments-reach-settlements- facebook-resolving-claims-discrimination-against (accessed February 3, 2023). 97. “Every four years, just after the Presidential election, the ‘United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions,’ commonly known as the Plum Book, is published, alternately, by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.” Senate Committee Print No. 114-26, United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, 114th Cong., 2nd Sess., December 1, 2016, p. iii, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-PLUMBOOK-2016/pdf/GPO-PLUMBOOK-2016.pdf (accessed February 5, 2023). 98. Allen J. Beck, “Race and Ethnicity of Violent Crime Offenders and Arrestees, 2018,” U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Statistical Brief No. NCJ 255969, January 2021, https:// bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/revcoa18.pdf (accessed February 3, 2023). — 581 — 18 DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND RELATED AGENCIES Jonathan Berry MISSION STATEMENT At the heart of The Conservative Promise is the resolve to reclaim the role of each American worker as the protagonist in his or her own life and to restore the family as the centerpiece of American life. The role that labor policy plays in that promise is twofold: Give workers the support they need for rewarding, well-paying, and self-driven careers, and restore the family-supporting job as the centerpiece of the American economy. The Judeo-Christian tradition, stretching back to Genesis, has always recognized fruitful work as integral to human dignity, as service to God, neighbor, and family. And Americans have long been known for their work ethic. While it is primarily the culture’s responsibility to affirm the dignity of work, our federal labor and employment agencies have an important role to play by protect- ing workers, setting boundaries for the healthy functioning of labor markets, and ultimately encouraging wages and conditions for jobs that can support a family. OVERVIEW The labor agencies covered in this chapter include the Department of Labor (DOL), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the National Mediation Board (NMB), the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Congress has provided these agencies with the authority to enforce a wide range of federal statutes regulating workplace conduct, workforce development, employee benefits, labor organization and bargaining, and interna- tional labor conditions.
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.