The bill
Postal Supervisors and Managers Fairness Act of 2025
HR. 1560, 119th Congress — read as touching Labor Unions.
Sponsored by
Rep. Connolly, Gerald E. [D-VA-11]
ID: C001078
Follow the money
The bill
HR. 1560, 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. 1560, 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 exercise in legislative theater, courtesy of the esteemed members of Congress. Let's dissect this farce and reveal the underlying disease.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The Postal Supervisors and Managers Fairness Act of 2025 is a masterclass in Orwellian doublespeak. Its primary objective is to create the illusion of fairness while perpetuating the same old bureaucratic inefficiencies that have been plaguing the United States Postal Service (USPS) for decades.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill proposes to modify procedures for negotiating pay and benefits for supervisory and managerial personnel within the USPS. It introduces a 60-day window for the USPS to provide written proposals to the supervisors' organization, which is supposed to facilitate more efficient negotiations. Oh, please. This is nothing but a cosmetic change, designed to create the appearance of progress while maintaining the status quo.
The real kicker is the modification of dispute resolution procedures, which now allows a panel to issue binding determinations on pay policies and schedules within 15 days. Because what could possibly go wrong with giving unelected bureaucrats more power to dictate terms?
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The main beneficiaries of this bill are the postal supervisors and managers who will see their pay and benefits potentially increased. But let's not be naive – this is merely a payoff to a select group of unionized employees, rather than any genuine attempt at reform.
The USPS itself will likely suffer from increased costs and bureaucratic red tape, further exacerbating its already precarious financial situation. And as for the taxpayers? They'll foot the bill, as always, without receiving any tangible benefits in return.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a prime example of legislative myopia, focusing on symptoms rather than the underlying disease. The USPS's problems run far deeper than pay and benefits; they stem from a toxic mix of inefficiency, corruption, and congressional meddling.
By perpetuating this cycle of bureaucratic bloat, Congress is effectively ensuring that the USPS will continue to hemorrhage money and struggle to provide basic services. Meanwhile, the politicians will pat themselves on the back for "supporting" the postal service, all while ignoring the elephant in the room: their own incompetence.
In conclusion, HR 1560 is a textbook case of legislative malpractice – a shallow attempt to address symptoms rather than the underlying disease. It's a bill that promises fairness but delivers nothing but more of the same old bureaucratic nonsense. Bravo, Congress. You've managed to make a mockery of the legislative process once again.
Rep. Connolly, Gerald E. [D-VA-11]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
This bill has 9 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
ID: B001295
Top Contributors
10
ID: C001119
Top Contributors
10
ID: S001218
Top Contributors
10
ID: H001094
Top Contributors
10
ID: C001068
Top Contributors
10
ID: L000599
Top Contributors
10
ID: G000592
Top Contributors
10
ID: S001201
Top Contributors
10
ID: C001130
Top Contributors
10
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 54 nodes and 37 connections (41 secondary connections hidden)
Total contributions: $116,150
Showing top 18 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 1 helped.
Section 2(a) provides a written proposal to the supervisors' organization for any changes in pay policies and schedules and fringe benefit programs, which could lead to better negotiation outcomes for supervisory and managerial personnel of the United States Postal Service, potentially benefiting labor unions.
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 1560 focuses on procedural fairness in negotiating pay and benefits for USPS supervisors, while the Project 2025 excerpt emphasizes performance appraisal reform, merit pay, and reducing rating inflation across the federal bureaucracy. The only overlap is a shared concern for supervisory/managerial compensation, but the bill does not address the core performance‑management objectives of the Project 2025 policy."
— 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:
"The bill focuses on improving collective bargaining and dispute resolution for USPS supervisors, which is a narrow labor relations issue, while Project 2025's section emphasizes broad bureaucratic reform, political control, merit-based systems, and reducing federal workforce size and costs—there is minimal thematic overlap."
— 83 — Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy and PPO’s chosen White House Liaisons and their staff at each agency, is essential to the management of this large, multilevel, resistant, and bureaucratic challenge. If “personnel is policy” is to be our general guide, it would make sense to give the President direct supervision of the bureaucracy with the OPM Director available in his Cabinet. A REFORMED BUREAUCRACY Today, the federal government’s bureaucracy cannot even meet its own civil service ideals. The merit criteria of ability, knowledge, and skills are no longer the basis for recruitment, selection, or advancement, while pay and benefits for com- parable work are substantially above those in the private sector. Retention is not based primarily on performance, and for the most part, inadequate performance is not appraised, corrected, or punished. The authors have made many suggestions here that, if implemented, could bring that bureaucracy more under control and enable it to work more efficiently and responsibly, which is especially required for the half of civilian government that administers its undeniable responsibilities for defense and foreign affairs. While a better administered central bureaucracy is crucial for both those and domestic responsibilities, the problem of properly running the government goes beyond simple bureaucratic administration. The specific deficiencies of the fed- eral bureaucracy—size, levels of organization, inefficiency, expense, and lack of responsiveness to political leadership—are rooted in the progressive ideology that unelected experts can and should be trusted to promote the general welfare in just about every area of social life. The Constitution, however, reserved a few enumerated powers to the federal government while leaving the great majority of domestic activities to state, local, and private governance. As James Madison explained: “The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the state.”31 Modern progressive politics has simply given the national government more to do than the complex separa- tion-of-powers Constitution allows. That progressive system has broken down in our time, and the only real solution is for the national government to do less: to decentralize and privatize as much as possible and then ensure that the remaining bureaucracy is managed effectively along the lines of the enduring principles set out in detail here. AUTHORS’ NOTE: The authors are grateful for the collaborative work of the individuals listed as contributors to this chapter for the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. The authors alone assume responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual. — 84 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise ENDNOTES 1. U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 2, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii#section1 (accessed February 1, 2023). 2. 5 U.S. Code §§ 1101 et seq. and 1103(a)(5), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/part-II/chapter-11 (accessed February 1, 2023). 3. 5 U.S. Code § 1201, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/1201 (accessed February 1, 2023). 4. 5 U.S. Code § 7101, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7101 (accessed February 1, 2023), and § 7117, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7117 (accessed February 1, 2023). 5. S. 1871, An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, Public Law No. 76-252, August 2, 1939, https:// govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/53/STATUTE-53-Pg1147.pdf (accessed February 1, 2023). 6. H.R. 995, Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, Public Law No. 103-353, 101st Congress, October 13, 1994, https://www.congress.gov/103/statute/STATUTE-108/STATUTE-108-Pg3149. pdf (accessed February 1, 2023). 7. 5 U.S. Code § 1206, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/1206 (accessed February 1, 2023). 8. 42 U.S. Code § 2000e, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e (accessed February 1, 2023). 9. 40 U.S. Code § 581, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/40/581 (accessed February 1, 2023). 10. U.S. National Archives, “Milestone Documents: Pendleton Act (1883),” last reviewed February 8, 2022, https:// www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/pendleton-act (accessed February 2, 2023). 11. S. 2640, Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, Public Law No. 95-454, 95th Congress, October 13, 1978, https:// www.congress.gov/95/statute/STATUTE-92/STATUTE-92-Pg1111.pdf (accessed February 2, 2023). 12. Donovan Sack and Bill Theobald, “Veterans Affairs Pays $140 Million in Bonuses Amid Scandals,” USA Today, November 11, 2015, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/11/11/veterans-affairs-pays-142- million-bonuses-amid-scandals/75537586/ (accessed March 15, 2023). 13. U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Federal Workforce: Distribution of Performance Ratings Across the Federal Government, 2013,” GAO-16-520R, May 9, 2016, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-16-520r.pdf (accessed March 15, 2023); U.S. Government Accountability Office, Results-Oriented Management: OPM Needs to Do More to Ensure Meaningful Distinctions Are Made in SES Ratings and Performance Awards, GAO-15- 189, January 2015, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-15-189.pdf (accessed March 15, 2023); U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Measuring Federal Employee Performance,” WatchBlog, posted October 18, 2016, https://www.gao.gov/blog/2016/10/18/measuring-federal-employee-performance (accessed March 15, 2023); Lisa Rein, “The Federal Workforce, Where Everyone’s Performance Gets Rave Reviews,” The Washington Post, June 13, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/06/13/heres-the-news-from-the- federal-government-where-everyone-is-above-average-way-above/ (accessed March 15, 2023). 14. Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944), https://ia902300.us.archive. org/17/items/mises-pdfs/1944-01-01_LudwigVonMises_Bureaucracy.pdf (accessed February 2, 2023). 15. Figure 1, “Permanent, Non-Senior Executive Service Employee Performance Rating Outcomes (All Rating Systems, Calendar Year 2013),” in U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Federal Workforce: Distribution of Performance Ratings Across the Federal Government, 2013,” p. 6. 16. President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13839, “Promoting Accountability and Streamlining Removal Procedures Consistent with Merit System Principles,” May 25, 2018, in Federal Register, Vol. 83, No. 106 (June 1, 2018), pp. 25343–25347, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-06-01/pdf/2018-11939.pdf (accessed February 2, 2023). 17. President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Executive Order 14003, “Protecting the Federal Workforce,” January 22, 2021, in Federal Register, Vol. 86, No. 16 (January 27, 2021), pp. 7231–7233, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR- 2021-01-27/pdf/2021-01924.pdf (accessed February 2, 2023). 18. Rachel Greszler and James Sherk, “Why It Is Time to Reform Compensation for Federal Employees,” The Heritage Foundation, July 27, 2016, https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/why-it-time-reform- compensation-federal-employees. 19. Andrew G. Biggs and Jason Richwine, “Comparing Federal and Private Sector Compensation,” American Enterprise Institute Working Paper No. 2011-02, revised June 2011, https://www.aei.org/wp-content/ uploads/2011/10/AEI-Working-Paper-on-Federal-Pay-May-2011.pdf?x91208 (accessed February 2, 2023).
AI Analysis:
"The bill addresses USPS supervisory pay and collective bargaining procedures, whereas the Project 2025 DHS section focuses on immigration enforcement, USCIS policy reforms, merit-based immigration, and related measures; there is no substantive policy overlap."
— 145 — Department of Homeland Security l Management Directives and policies should realign to ensure that the workforce, while adaptable and able to handle the bulk of the USCIS mission, is not allowed to be pulled off mission work to focus on unlawful programs (DACA, mass parole for Afghans, Ukrainians, Venezuelans, etc.), which divert resources away from nuclear family and employment programs. The regulatory agenda should include the immediate submission of notices of proposed rulemaking for the Trump Administration’s public charge rule (includ- ing aspects from its original notice of proposed rulemaking), temporary work visa reform, employment authorization reform rules, asylum bars rule, and a third-country transit rule. At a minimum, an enhanced regulatory agenda should include rules strengthening the integrity of the asylum system, parole reform, and U visa reform that prioritizes relief for victims of heinous crimes and ensures that we protect the truest and most deserving victims of crime. Not all policy changes require formal rulemaking, however, as internal guidance documents are generally exempt under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).7 In this subregulatory space, USCIS policy memos and operational guidance should reduce the validity of employment authorization documents and end the COVID flexibilities, including the reliance on biometrics reuse. USCIS should also enforce existing regulations by rejecting incomplete applications and petitions, ensuring both that they are completed before accepted for filing and that FDNS signs off on all approved applications and petitions before approval notices are sent to the alien or petitioner. Other efforts should be focused on adjudication standards returning to nearly 100 percent interview requirements for all appropriate cases. The incoming Administration should spearhead an immigration legislative agenda focused on creating a merit-based immigration system that rewards high- skilled aliens instead of the current system that favors extended family–based and luck-of-the-draw immigration. To that end, the diversity visa lottery should be repealed, chain migration should be ended while focusing on the nuclear family, and the existing employment visa program should be replaced with a system to award visas only to the “best and brightest.” Internal efforts to limit employment authorization should be matched by con- gressional action to narrow statutory eligibility to work in the United States and mitigate unfair employment competition for U.S. citizens. The oft-abused H-1B program should be transformed into an elite program through which employers are vying to bring in only the top foreign workers at the highest wages so as not to depress American opportunities. Additionally, Congress should: l Improve the integrity of the temporary work visa programs; l Repeal Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations; — 146 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Permanently authorize and make mandatory E-Verify; and l End parole abuse by legislating specific parole standards. USCIS should make it clear that where no court jurisdiction exists, it will not honor court decisions that seek to undermine regulatory and subregulatory efforts. Finally, USCIS still requires access to all relevant national security and law enforce- ment databases in the same vein as any other agency in the intelligence space. This is a key concept that should be addressed as USCIS is returned to functioning primarily as a vetting agency. Budget USCIS is primarily fee-funded, operating on revenue derived by those who are seeking immigration benefits, work permits, and naturalization. The total agency budget requested for fiscal year (FY) 2023, including both fees and a small appropri- ation, is slightly less than $6 billion.8 The bulk of funds are derived from application fees through the Immigrant Examinations Fee Account. As a general principle, adju- dication of applications and petitions should be paid by applicants, not American taxpayers. It is critical that any changes in the budget, even in the wake of a realigned agency combined with ICE and CBP, should retain a fee-funded model. Given the Obama and Biden Administrations’ lack of will, fees should be increased agencywide to keep in step with inflation and the true cost of the adju- dications. The incoming Administration should immediately submit a fee rule that reflects such an increase. Aside from an increase in all fees, the rule should drastically limit the availability for fee waivers and should implement a fee for asylum applications. Additionally, Congress should allow for a 10 percent across- the-board increase in all fees for all fee rules to account for the fact that new fee rules always lag behind budget requirements. USCIS should strive to increase opportunities for premium processing, a ben- efit by which applicants can expedite their processing times. While this places time burdens on adjudicators, it provides an opportunity for a significant influx of money into the agency, which is not currently available. While simply raising fees to the necessary levels to make the agency run efficiently would be prefera- ble, without the need for expanded premium processing, this short-term measure should be utilized, particularly if longer-term fee rules are unsuccessful. At least until USCIS is caught up on all case backlogs, all applicants rejected for any benefit or status adjudication should be required to leave the U.S. immediately. Ordinary process can resume once all case backlogs have been adjudicated. Finally, USCIS should pause the intake of applications in a benefit category when backlogs in that category become excessive. Once USCIS adjudicators can decrease that caseload to a manageable number, application intake should resume.
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.