U.S. Rep. Jared Golden said he will likely attempt to force a vote early next month on a bill to reverse President Donald Trump’s decision to eliminate collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of unionized federal workers.
Golden, a Democrat who represents Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, pulled off a rare feat last week by securing the final signatures he needed on his “discharge petition” to essentially bypass Republican leaders in order to bring the bill to the floor. It’s the same process that a group used last week to force a vote on the “Epstein files,” setting the stage for the eventual release of unclassified documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
But in this case, Golden and a bipartisan group of lawmakers want to rescind Trump’s March 27 executive order seeking to end the collective bargaining rights of many federal workers.
“It’s wrong to engage in union-busting activities and take established collective bargaining rights away from existing union workers,” Golden said last week.
The president’s executive order used a national security exemption to curb collective bargaining rights for employees at more than a dozen departments, including the departments of Justice, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security, as well as many agencies with the Department of Health and Human Services. About a half-dozen unions sued to try to block the change but courts have allowed the administration to move forward with canceling agreements while cases play out.
Golden and Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania introduced the bill in April just days after Trump signed the executive order affecting as much as two-thirds of the federal workforce. But the House hasn’t acted since then, even though a majority of House members are co-sponsors.
Discharge petitions are among the few procedural maneuvers available to the minority party in the House, where the speaker and committee chairs largely control the agenda on the floor. They require 218 signatures — just over half of the House membership — to pull the bill from committee and force a floor vote. But in the past three decades, only a handful of bills have reached the House floor by a discharge petition, with several of them happening in the past several years.
“I mean I first want to take a moment to celebrate the success while acknowledging that there’s still work that needs to be done before we can call it a job well-done,” Golden said. “It’s pretty rare to get a discharge petition over the finish line — exceedingly rare.”
Golden said the process allows him to attempt to move the bill on Dec. 2, although he is still working out the timing of when he will push for that vote. And he acknowledges that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, can use other maneuvers to try to block the bill. But more than half of the House — including five Republicans — signed the discharge petition.
“I’m going to be talking with my colleagues and putting pressure on them — positive pressure — motivating them to stick with what they believe is right here and defeat any procedural votes and actually get a vote on passage on the House floor,” Golden said.
The bill is a top priority for federal labor unions.
“This bill has been called labor’s top priority in Congress and for good reason – it seeks to undo the largest loss of collective bargaining rights in U.S. history,” Everett Kelley, national president of the 800,000-member American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement last week. “The right to speak out in the workplace and have concerns fairly addressed is a human right and a democratic cornerstone. We urge the House to pass the Golden-Fitzpatrick bill without delay.”
Golden recently announced that he would not seek a fifth term representing Maine’s 2nd District.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
