Tristan Leavitt, who was the board’s sole Republican and as the agency’s de facto executive director when the agency was quorumless prior to his confirmation, is running for delegate in West Virginia’s 53rd District. MSPB
Appeals Panel for Feds No Longer Whole As Former Board Member Runs for Office
The Merit Systems Protection Board, now once again dealing with a vacancy as former member runs for state House in West Virginia, vows to continue working on its backlog.
The full contingent of board members for the agency that hears appeals of personnel actions taken against federal employees lasted less than one year.
The Merit Systems Protection Board went five years without a quorum, hampering it from issuing decisions from its central panel. It finally regained full functionality last year. In June, the Senate confirmed Cathy Harris’ nomination, meaning all three slots on the board were filled. The board maintained its complete status until last month, when Tristan Leavitt’s term expired after serving for just one year.
President Biden did not renominate Leavitt and has not named a replacement.
Leavitt, who was the board’s sole Republican and as the agency’s de facto executive director when the agency was quorumless prior to his confirmation, became president of a conservative-leaning watchdog group, Empower Oversight. This week, he announced he is running for delegate in West Virginia’s 53rd District.
“It was an incredible honor to help hold federal employees and their agencies accountable during my time on the board,” Leavitt told Government Executive. “As the new president of Empower Oversight, what I learned will be immensely useful as we work to protect those blowing the whistle on abuses within the federal government.”
His departure will not hamstring MSPB as it was from 2017 to 2022 when it had only one and the no Senate-confirmed members, but still leaves it in a difficult position. The board—now just Harris and Raymond Limon—is working its way through an unprecedented backlog, which once stood at 3,500 but was reduced by about 20% at the end of 2022. Without a third member, the pace of completion for those cases will slow. The board had hoped to complete 1,000 pending adjudications in fiscal 2023.
“We are very grateful for Tristan Leavitt’s service to the board, both as a member and previously as general counsel and acting agency head,” Harris told Government Executive. “As the board still has a quorum, Raymond Limon and I look forward to continuing to work toward reducing the inherited inventory of cases that amassed during the board’s five-year lack of quorum.”
In an email announcing his candidacy, Leavitt touted his Senate confirmation for MSPB and said he moved to West Virginia as the job allowed him to work remotely. In his role at Empower Oversight, Leavitt vowed to root out "waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement and politicization" from public institutions and "leave no stone unturned" to help protect whistleblowers.