Rules & Regulations

Dear Ms. Grundmann:

The Office of House Employment Counsel (“OHEC”) submits the following comments in response to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Request for Comments from Interested Parties (“NPRM”) issued by the Executive Director of the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights (“OCWR”) on April 9, 2019.’ As requested in the NPRM, these comments provide OHEC’s views on the changes to the Procedural Rules proposed by the OCWR to implement new provisions of Congressional Accountability Act, as amended by the Congressional Accountability Act Reform Act (“CAA” and “CAARA,” respectively).

OHEC’s comments are generally applicable to all OCWR proceedings. In several places, however, we highlight unique circumstances that apply to matters involving employing offices of the U.S. House of Representatives (“House”), including the expanded reimbursement requirement applicable to certain CAA claims under House Rules. Accordingly, several of our comments offer feedback that is specific to the House.

I. General Comments

A. OCWR should affirm the continuing applicability of existing OCWR precedent on procedural matters.

Because procedural rules cannot anticipate every aspect of every situation, we believe that it would be helpful to affirm that – unless otherwise required by the amended Procedural Rules, the amended CAA, or another legal authority -the interpretation and application of the Procedural Rules will continue to be governed by existing OCWR precedent, which has traditionally looked to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for guidance on procedural matters. See, e.g., U.S. Capitol Police v. FOP/U.S. Capitol Police Labor Comm. Lodge No. I, No. 15- LMR-02 (CA), 2016 WL 5943737, at *3 (OCWR Sept. 27, 2016) (relying on the pleading standards of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, as well as federal cases applying those standards, to determine whether a motion to dismiss a complaint was properly granted by a hearing officer). Such clarifying language will assist parties and hearing officers in resolving the array of procedural issues that inevitably arise during litigation.