Key federal employee advocates retain seats in midterms

Voters on Tuesday granted lawmakers dedicated to civil service issues and improved management of the federal government a chance to continue their work in the 110th Congress, with many gliding to reelection. Some -- notably Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md. -- will take on a new prominence. The Democratic takeover of the House gives Hoyer, minority whip for the 109th Congress, a good shot at becoming majority leader. And in contrast to current majority leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, Hoyer -- who ran without a major opponent -- represents a district near Washington that includes a lot of federal employees. Hoyer has been a leading voice in the fight for pay parity between civilian government workers and members of the military. In the latest rounds of negotiations, he joined nine colleagues in calling for a 2.7 percent 2007 pay raise for both groups (a level that now appears unlikely).

The Democrat from Maryland's 5th District has criticized attempts to curb federal employee collective bargaining rights, and has co-sponsored benefits legislation such as a bill that would offer government workers full pay for six of the 12 weeks of maternity or paternity leave they are allowed. He also has backed legislative language that proponents argue gives federal employees a fair chance against contractors in competitions for work not considered inherent to the government. Below is a rundown of the results of other congressional races for seats that could influence issues of interest to federal workers.

House

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., won his seventh term in Congress, gaining 55 percent of the vote to defeat Democratic opponent Andrew Hurst, a Springfield, Va., attorney. Davis has been a force in the GOP-run Congress since he was first elected in 1994. He currently chairs the Government Reform Committee, where he oversees federal contracting, workforce issues and the government's use of information technology.

But despite issuing a report claiming such oversight activities over the past five years had generated more than $6 billion in savings, Davis has had to defend his committee against accusations that it was lax in overseeing the war in Iraq, terrorism, the deficit, the environment and energy.

Davis also headed a special House panel investigating the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. The committee subpoenaed Pentagon records and issued a harsh indictment of the Bush administration's response to the hurricanes that devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005.

As current ranking member of the Government Reform Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman is poised to take over as chairman next Congress with the Democrats in the majority. The California Democrat cruised to his 17th term in office with 71 percent of his district's votes, defeating Beverly Hills businessman David Nelson Jones. Waxman said before the election that his top priority as leader of the panel would be overseeing government spending. Earlier this year, he said that he would investigate the prison abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib in Iraq; the intelligence used by the White House to justify the Iraq war; and no-bid contracts for work in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf Coast.

Waxman has maintained that regardless of which party controls Congress, the Government Reform Committee will continue to display the bipartisanship established by Davis.

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., narrowly beat Democratic opponent Tessa Hafen. As chairman of the Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization, Porter has backed efforts to provide a real estate fund as an option in the federal employee 401(k)-style Thrift Savings Plan. He also has helped craft proposals aimed at providing pay equity for federal law enforcement officers (though labor unions also pushing the issue have not always agreed with his approach), and has signed on to letters advocating pay parity between civilians and the military.

The current ranking member and likely future leader of Porter's subcommittee, Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., easily defeated Republican opponent Charles Hutchinson. Davis has joined Democratic colleagues in calling for a hearing to address concerns about the proposal to add a real estate fund to the TSP, and has advocated stronger privacy protections in a bill that would make the Office of Personnel Management require all insurance carriers to provide members of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program with two types of electronic health records. He also has been involved in drafting legislation to reform the Postal Service.

Rep. Todd Platts, R-Pa., beat his Democratic challenger, Phil Avillo Jr., to win a fourth term. Platts has sponsored legislation to institutionalize regular ratings of federal programs, much like those conducted using the Bush administration's Program Assessment Rating Tool, though that measure did not reach a vote on the House floor.

Platts has been a leader on federal financial management through his role as chairman of the Government Reform Subcommittee on Management, Finance and Accountability, and has generally worked well with committee Democrats. He also has worked closely with Homeland Security Department auditors and inspectors general to address accounting and financial management problems. Platts sponsored legislation to close loopholes in the 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act as well.

Platts' Democratic counterpart on the Government Reform subcommittee, Rep. Edolphus Towns of New York, swept his heavily left-leaning Brooklyn district with little challenge from his Republican opponent, Jonathan Anderson. Towns voted against legislation to make permanent the Office of Management and Budget's regular reviews of federal programs. He has supported changes to regulations governing how inspectors general are hired and fired, and has backed efforts to boost minority representation in the federal workforce.

Other House Government Reform Committee members from the Washington region held on to their seats. Maryland's Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, received 77 percent the vote to beat Republican Jeff Stein. Rep. Elijah Cummings, also a Democrat from Maryland, ran unopposed.

Federal employee advocates from the Washington area but not on the Government Reform Committee retained their seats, too. Not unexpectedly, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., defeated his Democratic opponent, Sterling Va., educator Judy Feder, to win his 14th term in Congress. Wolf is known for his strong support of increasing telework in the federal workforce, and has promoted legislation that gives him a federal employee-friendly reputation.

Wolf has called for pay parity between the military and civilian sides of the federal workforce and has used his sway as chairman of the Appropriations Science-State-Justice-Commerce Subcommittee to present agencies under the subcommittee's jurisdiction with a choice: boost the number of employees eligible to work away from the office or face financial penalties.

Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., defeated Republican Tom O'Donoghue, a Springfield, Va., lawyer, Iraq and Afghanistan veteran and major in the Army Reserves. As a former defense contractor, Moran represents thousands of government contractors and federal employees that live and work in his Northern Virginia congressional district.

The 12-term congressman consistently backs higher pay and benefits for public servants and has introduced legislation that would require agencies to give their Washington area employees tax-free transportation benefits. Moran also is working with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to establish a civilian public service academy in the mold of West Point or the Naval Academy.

House members important in veterans' affairs and homeland security also were reelected. Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, defeated his Democratic opponent David Sanders, a Purdue University professor. Buyer was instrumental in conducting aggressive oversight of the Veterans Affairs Department's May loss of computer equipment containing the personal information of 26.5 million people.

The Indiana representative followed by sponsoring legislation to strengthen the 2002 Federal Information Security Management Act, the law that governs agency information technology security practices, further centralize information technology authority at VA, and require the department to provide credit protection and fraud resolution services upon request in the event of another data breach.

Both leaders of the Homeland Security Committee will be back for another term as well. Chairman Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., and ranking member Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., entered Tuesday under markedly different circumstances. King was fighting off Nassau County legislator David Mejias, who had reduced King's lead to single digits, according to some polls. Thompson, on the other hand, had opened a sizeable lead over Tchula Mayor Yvonne Brown, and cruised to victory.

As committee chairman, King clashed with President Bush over the controversial Dubai ports deal. He was no darling to the left, however, and called for New York Times reporters and editors to be tried for treason after classified information was published in the paper. He also serves on the International Relations Committee.

Thompson, who has repeatedly sought documents from and called for widespread changes within the Federal Emergency Management Agency, also pushed for improvements in bomb detection and security on U.S. transit systems.

Senate

Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut won his high-visibility race against Ned Lamont, who snagged the Democratic nomination in the primaries and prompted Lieberman to run as an independent. Lieberman won with about 50 percent of the vote. He currently serves as ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where he has worked closely with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the panel's chairwoman.

Lieberman has said he will caucus with the Democrats in the 110th Congress. He also says party leaders have promised he will retain his seniority and committee assignments, though Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has not publicly confirmed that. While Lieberman has been widely criticized among Democrats for his support of the war in Iraq, the close post-election split in that chamber probably will prompt the party to court his vote in the coming Congress.

Lieberman was instrumental in the formation of the Homeland Security Department and used his position to focus attention on management and program implementation at DHS. He has been particularly active on port security and bioterrorism issues. If he becomes committee chairman, Lieberman is expected to conduct investigations into waste and abuse in spending for Iraq reconstruction and the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, currently the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee devoted to government management and the federal workforce, defeated Republican Cynthia Thielen. He has pushed training for federal managers as a way to improve performance under the General Schedule pay system, and introduced a bill to boost training. Akaka also is an advocate for veterans. He has expressed concern over potential loopholes in policies requiring agencies to give veterans preference for federal jobs, for instance. The Hawaii Democrat is also the ranking member on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Delaware's Sen. Thomas Carper, will serve another term after easily defeating Republican challenger Jan Ting. Carper is the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security. He has called for additional funding for transit systems. The first-term senator also co-sponsored a bill President Bush signed into law in September that requires the creation of a Google-like search engine and database that will track almost $1 trillion in federal grants, contracts, earmarks and loans.

Closer to the Washington area, retiring Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., will be replaced by fellow Democrat and current House representative for Maryland's 3rd District Benjamin Cardin, who beat the state's Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, 55 percent to 44 percent with all but 2 percent of precincts reporting. As a House member, Cardin has backed pay parity.

In recent years, Sarbanes has supported legislation that expanded government workers' ability to compete with private sector contractors. He also co-sponsored legislation that provided retired federal law enforcement officers with cost-of-living adjustments commensurate with active officers, which reversed a decades-old automatic link that was eliminated in 2000.

In Virginia, Democrat Jim Webb appears to have beaten Republican Sen. George Allen, though the outcome remained too close to call Wednesday afternoon. Allen has backed putting more agents and detention centers on the U.S.-Mexico border. He introduced "paycheck penalty" legislation, which docks lawmakers' pay beginning Oct. 1 of every year if appropriations bills are not completed. He and Webb disagreed on when U.S. troops should be removed from Iraq.

Webb, by contrast, said the border should first be secured before other decisions pertaining to illegal aliens are made. Webb would vote for bans against permanent bases in Iraq and has called for a commitment to end the U.S. occupation there, according to his campaign Web site.

Amelia Gruber, Jenny Mandel, Jonathan Marino and Daniel Pulliam contributed to this report.