Congress
A federal union pushes back after congressional leaders and DOGE call out teleworking
The nation’s biggest federal union is pushing back against claims by President-elect Donald Trump’s supporters over teleworking for civil servants.
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 federal and Washington city workers, said assertions that staffers are abusing work-from-home flexibility are serving as cover for Republican lawmakers to try to tear down the government.
The clash over telework is expected to be one of the major battles for the incoming Trump administration as conservatives push for the civil service to return to the office.
“Exaggerating the number of federal employees who telework and portraying those who do as failing to show up for work is a deliberate attempt to demean the federal workforce and justify the wholesale privatization of public-sector jobs,” AFGE said on its website.
The union added, “AFGE believes that facts matter, and that lawmakers should be guided by the facts when making decisions that affect the lives of their constituents.”
At issue is a report on telework released by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) last week, which she shared with other senators. The report is expected to bolster efforts by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, an outside group led by tech mogul Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, to have federal employees back in the office five days a week.
“For years, I have been tracking down bureaucrats relaxing in bubble baths, playing golf, getting arrested, and doing just about everything besides their job,” Ernst said in a statement. “Federal employees need to return to work, but if they don’t want to, I will make their wish come true.”
In her report, the Iowa senator said 90 percent of federal employees telework, while only 6 percent report to the worksite full time. In addition, close to one-third of staffers work remotely.
“If you exclude security guards & maintenance personnel, the number of government workers who show up in person and do 40 hours of work a week is closer to 1%!” Musk said on social media last week, referring to Ernst’s report.
Those figures, however, don’t match findings from an Office of Management and Budget report that telework was not as nearly as widespread among the federal workforce as Ernst’s study implies.
OMB found 54 percent of the government’s 2.28 million civilian employees were on-site full-time due to their job requirements. Meanwhile, 46 percent were eligible to telework, while 10 percent were in remote positions.
In addition, those telework-eligible staffers spent 61.2 percent of their working hours in the office. For all federal employees, 79.4 percent of their working hours were in person, according to the report, which was released in August and required under an appropriations package passed by Congress earlier this year.
Press officials in Ernst’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.
The Biden administration also has been pushing federal employees to return to the office. They set a threshold of staffers spending 50 percent of their working hours on-site.
Some energy and environmental agencies surpassed that bar. The Department of the Interior’s telework-eligible employees spent 74.5 percent of their regular hours doing in-person work, while it was 57.1 percent for the Energy Department.
EPA did not meet that goal. Its telework-eligible staff were in the office for 35.8 percent of their working hours, according to the OMB report.
Also at stake in the telework debate is federal office space going unused. Employees worked from home during the Covid-19 pandemic, and many have not returned to the worksite.
EPA is in the process of assessing its own real estate in its sprawling downtown Washington headquarters. The agency plans to release buildings left empty once that review is done next year.
The General Services Administration is also disposing of federal offices.
The government’s landlord announced last week that it would dispose eight properties in a bid to “right-size” its holdings. That move will reduce the federal real estate portfolio by 1.5 million square feet and save more than $475 million over 10 years.
House Democrats’ campaign arm is expanding its target list just three weeks ahead of Election Day, going on the air for the first time in four more districts with coordinated ad buys with the candidates.
The move, part of $13 million in coordinated ads launching this week across 39 districts and first shared with Blue Light News, is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s largest reach of investments this cycle as Republicans are working to defend a slew of redder seats in the final stretch.
The new districts include a toss-up race in Florida’s newly redrawn 22nd District, which Trump would have won by 10 points in 2024, as well as for Democrats’ uphill fight to defend Maine’s 2nd District, which President Donald Trump carried by nine points and where Democratic Rep. Jared Golden is retiring.
They’re also launching coordinated ads in New Jersey’s swingy 7th District, squarely within New York City’s expensive media market, where Democrats are working to unseat GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr.
The coordinated ad buys also include Texas’s redrawn 35th District, where Democrat Johnny Garcia is running neck and neck with Republican Carlos De La Cruz in a suburban San Antonio district Republicans drew to win that Trump would have carried by 10 points.
The DCCC’s move comes as President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc.-aligned super PAC and a leading House GOP super PAC are planning to ditch spending in a group of House races in the coming days, as they race to shore up other House seats and salvage the Senate GOP majority.
“As Republicans pull out of media markets and cede that they are no longer competitive in multiple districts, the DCCC is continuing to go on the offensive,” DCCC National Political Director Brooke Butler said.
The NRCC has been up with ads in the four districts for weeks.
“While Democrats are just now scraping together the cash to bail out their radical socialists in critical battleground districts, House Republicans have been dominating the airwaves in those same districts and dozens more for weeks,” NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said. “The DCCC is desperately playing catch-up where Republicans have already lapped them.”
The DCCC didn’t share the exact size of the specific coordinated ad buys, only saying they were six-figure commitments.
Former Rep. Mary Peltola raked in $17 million over the last three months, her campaign shared first with Blue Light News, a sizable haul for the Democratic challenger in one of the biggest Senate battlegrounds.
It’s Peltola’s largest quarterly fundraising total in her bid to oust GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan. Her campaign also said it’s a record third-quarter sum for a Senate candidate in Alaska.
“Alaskans are sick and tired of DC politicians making life more expensive for everyone while they keep lining their own pockets, and they know it’s time for a change,” Peltola said in a statement thanking her supporters.
That total includes nearly $3 million in Peltola raised in July, before Alaska’s all-party primary in August, which was previously reported to the Federal Election Commission. Peltola’s campaign did not release her cash on hand for the quarter that ended Oct. 1.
Sullivan’s campaign has not yet released his third-quarter numbers. Sullivan had just under $7.3 million in cash on hand as of July 29, while Peltola had $4.6 million at that point.
Alaska has emerged as a core battleground this cycle as both parties reorient around redder states while Georgia and North Carolina tilt toward Democrats. Recent polls show a tight race.
Republicans are racing to shore up Sullivan in the four-way, ranked-choice general election in which the senator is also facing a same-name challenger in retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan. Some in the party fear he could siphon votes from the incumbent.
President Donald Trump is heading to Alaska for a rally later Tuesday in Wasilla that Sullivan is slated to attend, the senator’s campaign confirmed. Vice President JD Vance swung through the state last week.
Peltola’s fundraising prowess has helped her hold her own on the airwaves. Republicans hold a slim spending advantage on the TV ad reservations for the final three weeks of the campaign, with both parties posting over $9 million in reservations, per tracker AdImpact.
Republicans’ dreams of a productive lame-duck session are dimming.
Members returning to Washington post-election will have a mere 24 legislative days to get through a considerable list of must-pass bills and possibly messy internal leadership fights. That’s if they can overcome a potential transition of power on Capitol Hill and a foul national mood.
Lawmakers’ must-do list includes: an extension of government funding past Dec. 11 and the annual Pentagon policy bill. Major legislation to reauthorize farm, transportation and surveillance programs are also on deck.
Then there are pending bipartisan bills overhauling energy permitting and the college sports industry that many members are itching to get done.
And finally, leaders had deferred some GOP priorities — such as another party-line reconciliation bill or debt-limit increase through the end of President Donald Trump’s term.
All of the measures face their own potential political minefields individually, as well as a number of obstacles across the board:
— ATTENDANCE: There will be little incentive for lawmakers who just lost their seats — “free-range chickens,” some call them — to grind out legislative wins, if they come back at all.
“The question becomes: Who shows up for work after the elections?” Rep. Austin Scott said in an interview. “Attendance is an issue right now.”
— NEW LEVERAGE: If Democrats win control of either chamber, they’ll likely seek greater influence on legislation to push back on Trump’s actions.
For example, Democrats are fuming over the Trump administration’s recent decision to block roughly $1 billion in congressionally approved funding, which could complicate any deal on spending legislation. They’ve also blocked the annual Pentagon policy bill amid a standoff over the Iran war; and they may push for more concessions on the permitting deal.
“The lame duck will be quite different if we win the Senate,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a recent interview.
— GOP DISPUTES: While some Republicans believe that losing a chamber would jump-start the reconciliation process, others privately believe the exact opposite would happen, with incentives waning for exiting lawmakers, according to three GOP aides granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Other GOP senators, like Sen. Cynthia Lummis, are skeptical of a debt-limit increase.
A Democratic flip of the House could also spark a potentially chaotic cascade of GOP leadership elections (more on that below).
Sen. John Kennedy speculated Congress’ agenda would all come down to the vibes of the GOP conference when they returned.
“You have no idea what the mood is going to be,” Kennedy said.
What else we’re watching:
— JOHNSON SCRAMBLES LEADERSHIP OUTLOOK: Republicans are reassessing the dynamics of potential leadership races after Speaker Mike Johnson‘s comments Monday that he would run for minority leader if the GOP loses the House — just days after he floated leaving Congress altogether in that scenario. Many Republicans had predicted Johnson would step aside with a House flip, likely setting off a race between Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan for the top GOP spot. If Johnson stays put, his success may depend on the severity of the party’s loss and if Trump weighs in for a certain candidate. “I hope he’s smarter than that,” one House Republican said of Johnson’s consideration of the minority leader role. “It would end very badly and cause unnecessary damage to the conference.”
— DEMS GEAR UP ON TRADE OVERSIGHT — Democrats on the House Ways and Means, Senate Finance and other panels say Trump’s trade deals were corrupt, and they’re already lining up targets to probe. The party knows it can’t repeal Trump’s tariffs as long as he’s in the White House, but if they win control of Congress, they plan to haul in top administration officials and possibly executives to explain how Trump picked his targets in his trade war — and if others got a pass through suspected quid pro quos.
Jordain Carney, Daniel Desrochers and Oliver Ward contributed to this report.
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