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During a marathon markup session that dragged into the Thursday night and Friday morning, the House Government Reform Committee voted to ensure civil service protections for federal employees slated to move into the proposed Department of Homeland Security.

Committee Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., offered an amendment to restore collective bargaining rights, health and retirement benefits and whistleblower protections that the new homeland security secretary would have been allowed to waive under the president's bill (H.R. 5005).

Burton's amendment also would modify the bill's procurement provisions and ensure that certain sunshine laws, such as the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act would apply to the new department.

The panel also approved an amendment offered by Rep. Connie Morella, R-Md., to preserve the union rights of federal employees who would transfer to the new department under the bill, but whose job responsibilities would remain the same.

Most Republicans opposed Morella's amendment, noting that current law gives the president the discretion to waive federal employees' collective bargaining rights under certain circumstances pertaining to national security. Burton argued that Morella's amendment would "make the president's authority over the homeland security department weaker than his authority over any other department."

Nevertheless, Morella's amendment cleared the committee by a 21-19 vote.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 12,000 employees at the Customs Service who would move into the new department under the bill, applauded the move. Kelley said approval of the Morella amendment "means more than just continued civil service rights for tens of thousands of federal employees, and called it "a significant step forward in strengthening the Homeland Security Department itself."

Republicans and Democrats on the Government Reform Committee clashed repeatedly during the debate over the bill.

"I doubt any major agency ... has been constructed in such a short period of time, and that presents a lot of problems," said Burton. "But we don't have the luxury of time. We're in a war. And the war has a lot of faces we don't recognize."

Democrats agreed on the need for homeland security legislation, but they said Bush's plan would take the wrong approach. "Unfortunately, the bill proposed by the president has serious flaws," said the ranking Democrat, Henry Waxman of California. "In fact, I think it may well cause more problems than it solves."

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