The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is weighing a vote on a resolution to hold the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator in contempt, with Chairman Jason Chaffetz leading the charge while House Democrats stand in opposition.

An early draft of a fiscal 2017 appropriations bill has passed through the House Appropriations’ subcommittee on financial services and general government with massive cuts to the IRS’ budget.

The Senate’s Defense authorization bill for fiscal 2017 currently includes a provision that would narrow veterans’ preference in hiring efforts so that it would only apply to a veteran’s first job in federal service. The new provision would not factor in veteran status for any subsequent federal jobs an eligible employee applies for.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) voted unanimously to approve a new measure that would allow federal agencies to bypass employee unions when blocking access to webmail and other websites believed to be security risks.

Legislation introduced last week would ensure all federal law enforcement officers receive enhanced retirement benefits.

The House Judiciary Committee will host two hearings in the coming weeks regarding alleged “misconduct” by IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is demanding to know where the IRS has found money to hire up to 700 new staffers for enforcement.

In effort to discover what makes some federal employees happier at some agencies, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform brought together representatives from agencies who have ranked high in the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government and one – the Department of Homeland Security – who has struggled at the bottom for some time.

Last week, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and 50 other House members issued a letter to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) regarding “fair chance hiring” in government and to continue to ease hiring for formerly-incarcerated individuals.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee unanimously approved the “Making Electronic Government Accountable by Yielding Tangible Efficiencies Act,” bipartisan legislation that would require federal agencies to maintain comprehensive software inventories and use them to track licenses and software usage to reduce duplication.

During her last year in office, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) will continue to advocate for a proposed 5.3% pay raise for federal employees, in addition to finding new money for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Former House Budget Committee staff director Thomas Kahn is the new legislative director for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs (MilCon-VA) has approved a spending bill that would exclude senior executives at the Veterans Affairs Department (VA) from receiving bonuses in fiscal 2017.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has initiated a broad investigation into the federal workforce, ss reported by The Washington Post.

In an effort to decrease the intense staff turnover and declining policy expertise on the Hill, five long-time Congressional observers sent a letter to House and Senate Republican and Democratic leaders, urging them to create a Joint Committee on the Capacity of Congress “to examine and improve congressional operation, which is suffering from understaffing and underfunding.”

Following last month’s introduction in the Senate, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has passed its own measure to curb the use of administrative leave.

As federal workers prepare for the upcoming Presidential transition, the House has passed a bipartisan bill intended remove the politics from this process.

Earlier this month, Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill to move more than 45,000 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport officers into Title 5 of the U.S. Code.