Marianne Levine

The Senate is only scheduled to be in three weeks for the rest of 2021, with a recess set to start on December 10. There’s almost no chance that schedule holds at this point, with the Democratic majority facing a to-do list more daunting than a Black Friday sales rush. Congress has to fund the government past December 3, pass a massive defense policy bill, finish out a $1.75 trillion party-line social spending bill and potentially maneuver around a US credit default.

The Senate on Dec 19 failed to move forward on two inspectors general because 12 Senate Republicans were absent, potentially costing President Donald Trump some lame duck appointees. In back-to-back 39-48 votes, the Senate was unable to take procedural steps to confirm John Chase Johnson to become inspector general of the Federal Communications Commission and Eric Soskin to become inspector general of the Department of Transportation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) voted against the nominees, a move that allows him to bring them back to the floor whenever he wan

Federal employees worried that President Donald Trump will gut their agencies are creating new email addresses, signing up for encrypted messaging apps and looking for other, protected ways to push back against the new administration’s agenda. Whether inside the Environmental Protection Agency, within the Foreign Service, on the edges of the Labor Department or beyond, employees are using new technology as well as more old-fashioned approaches — such as private face-to-face meetings — to organize letters, talk strategy, or contact media outlets and other groups to express their dissent.

The goal is to get their message across while not violating any rules covering workplace communications, which can be monitored by the government and could potentially get them fired. At the EPA, a small group of career employees — numbering less than a dozen so far — are using an encrypted messaging app to discuss what to do if Trump’s political appointees undermine their agency’s mission to protect public health and the environment, flout the law, or delete valuable scientific data that the agency has been collecting for years, apparently.