House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, is drafting a bill to let people sue federal employees--an idea one union said could bring government to a standstill.
"If you can show in a court of law that a federal bureaucrat is menacing and harassing, you not only get to sue the agency, you get to sue the bureaucrat," Kasich said during a luncheon in Dallas last week sponsored by the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis.
Afterward, Kasich said he is finalizing details with Rep. Robert Andrews, D- N.J., and they plan to file the bill within a month.
In his speech, Kasich cited abuses by employees at the IRS, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers. But he said later the proposal would also apply to law enforcement officials at the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and other agencies.
Roy Flores, national vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said such a proposal would wreak havoc in the workplace and that the union would fight it if necessary.
"Everybody would be afraid to do their jobs. We'd be dealing with a bureaucracy where nobody could get anything done," said Flores.
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