From Government Executive:
Update: Since I first posted this, Government Executive has somewhat altered the article I quoted. See the link for the revised article.
The [Merit Systems Protection Board, MSPB] that determines federal employees’ challenges to adverse actions will likely to continue to be rendered impotent into next year, as the Senate appears unlikely to approve a slate of nominees to the panel before the legislative session ends.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee scheduled a vote on Wednesday for three individuals President Trump nominated to sit on the Merit Systems Protection Board, but ultimately the committee failed to advance the nominations. The senators present were deadlocked on the nomination of Andrew Maunz, the most controversial of the nominees, with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voting no by proxy. ...
Trump nominated Maunz to MSPB after he served as an attorney in the Social Security Administration’s general counsel office. His nomination troubled Democrats and some board observers, in part because his office was once found by a federal court to be “dysfunctional and under the management of supervisors whose management skills and performance were deficient in many respects, including unfavorable treatment of older women working in the office, compared with younger women and male attorneys." Maunz, representing SSA’s general counsel office in the case, launched a “vigorous attack” on an employee seeking redress for violations of the Civil Rights Act, according to the judge. The court ultimately ruled in the employee’s favor. ...There's no way to discipline Administrative Law Judges without a functioning MSPB.
Update: Since I first posted this, Government Executive has somewhat altered the article I quoted. See the link for the revised article.
4 comments:
I don't know Maunz personally, but I do know the quoted description accurately portrays SSA OGC in particular and SSA management in general. I have some protracted experience with a few of SSA's OGC attorneys. Not one of those I am familiar with has proven worthy of holding a judicial position, especially in the context of determining employment related issues. They don't understand or honor Merit System Principles. They never met a prohibited personnel practice they wouldn't defend. They have no respect for the Constitutional or privacy rights of employees. Worse, SSA's OGC seems incapable or unwilling to counsel or train any level of SSA management regarding the above. As for disciplining ALJ's (good or bad, rightly or wrongly), SSA's plan for some years now seems to be just to treat them so badly that they go away and welcome the escape from the managerial incompetence and dysfunction that is rampant in SSA.
ha, just for as long as it takes SCOTUS to get their next ALJ case and find they are all inferior officers and have no business in the competitive service or with all those APA protections.
Not nearly enough legal experience for such a position . . . only 10 years out of law school and only woked one legal job.
Wonder who referred him to start with? Maybe a good buddy of POTUS.
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