In the News

When asked by a reporter in a Tuesday news conference why a shutdown would necessitate laying off federal workers if the Department of Government Efficiency had been as effective as he claimed, President Donald Trump began with a lie: “When you shut it down, you have to do layoffs.” He followed that lie with a threat: “So, we’d be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very… Read more »

A letter sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), signed by 180 House Democrats, called for Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) to be sworn in Friday. Grijalva won the special election to fill the seat in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District held by her late father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), late last month. However, the House was out of session all of last week, and Johnson… Read more »

A Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is pressing Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) to call President Trump’s budget director before the panel to explain his threat to escalate federal firings amid the government shutdown.  In a letter sent to Comer on Thursday, Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) portrayed Russell Vought, the head of the White House Office of… Read more »

House Democratic leaders are holding firm in opposition to the Republicans’ spending bill, brushing aside new threats from the Trump administration to use the shutdown to advance mass firings of federal workers and drastic cuts to programs Democrats hold dear. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said the threats — aired on Wednesday by President Trump’s budget chief, Russell… Read more »

After congressional appropriations lapsed and a government shutdown began at midnight on Oct. 1, the Trump administration now warns that further federal employee layoffs are imminent. It’s unclear which agencies will move forward with potential layoffs, beyond at least one agency — the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office — that on Wednesday issued layoff notices. Vice President JD Vance… Read more »

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Conditions at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Chantilly have improved in recent weeks, four of Northern Virginia’s federal legislators say. Sen. Mark Warner, as well as Reps. James Walkinshaw, Suhas Subramanyam and Don Beyer, visited the facility last Friday (Sept. 26) “after a month of attempting to gain access.” “We are relieved to report that as of today,… Read more »

James R. Walkinshaw picked the rich blue shade on his office walls 16 years ago, but on behalf of his then-boss, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly. Walkinshaw, who worked as the Virginia Democrat’s chief of staff for more than a decade, returned to Congress earlier this month as a member. He won a special election to finish Connolly’s unexpired term after the longtime lawmaker died in May. His… Read more »

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought wants Americans to believe that in the event of a government shutdown, he and President Donald Trump have the power to fire swaths of federal employees at will. They cannot. Vought’s vindictive memo, directing agencies to consider reductions in force (RIFs) for employees in programs whose funding would lapse under a shutdown, reads… Read more »

The D.C. region is bracing for new economic pain next week as paychecks stop coming for thousands of federal workers who took the government’s offer of deferred resignation — and the threat of a shutdown could make it worse. Since January, the region’s unemployment rate has already increased more than eight times as quickly as that of the country as a whole, according to analysis by… Read more »