Biden Administration Announces Intent to Nominate Third MSPB Board Member

President Biden announced last week his intent to nominate Tristan Leavitt to serve on the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). The MSPB is one of the primary adjudicative bodies for protecting employees against partisan political interference and other prohibited personnel practices by adjudicating employee appeals.

The MSPB has lacked a quorum since January 2017. In early 2019, the Board’s final remaining board member’s term expired, leaving the board without any Senate-confirmed leadership. As a result, general counsel Tristan Leavitt served as the Board’s de-facto agency head since 2019, taking over the responsibilities of acting chief executive and administrative officer.

President Biden announced on September 2, 2021, his intent to nominate Leavitt to serve as a Board Members on the MSPB.

Prior to serving as general counsel at the MSPB, Leavitt served as Principal Deputy Special Counsel at the Office of Special Counsel. During his time at the Office of Special Counsel, Leavitt also served as Acting Special Counsel.

Leavitt also has experience working on Capitol Hill. He spent eight years conducting congressional investigations and handling federal workforce policy issues on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary under Ranking Member Chuck Grassley and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform under Chairman Jason Chaffetz.

Senior Executives Association President Bob Corsi praised the nomination in a statement, saying “[Leavitt] has a wealth of experience on federal workforce policy issues gained through eight years of work on Capitol Hill. Leavitt worked for one of the champions for federal whistleblower law, Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley and on the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform for Chairman Jason Chaffetz. It was during Leavitt’s tenure with Senator Grassley that SEA worked closely with him to advance thoughtful, bipartisan federal workforce legislation.”

An aide to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over the nomination, told GovExec in June that the Committee’s goal is set a hearing for the nominees “as quickly as possible so the MSPB can have a fully functioning board again.”

With Leavitt’s formal nomination, all three open board positions will have nominations in Congress to fill their seats. President Biden has previously nominated Cathy Anna Harris and Raymond Limon to serve as the democrats on the Board. The MSPB has a statutory requirement of bipartisanship with no more than two members being permitted to be of the same political party.

Professional Managers Association Executive Director Chad Hooper urged for the immediate confirmation of all three proposed nominees. Hooper said in a statement, “PMA has already vigorously endorsed President Biden’s two democratic nominees, Cathy Anna Harris and Raymond Limon, to serve on the MSPB. With Leavitt, the Senate will now have three extremely well-qualified and bipartisan nominees to serve on the Board. With this well-qualified, bipartisan slate of nominees, there should be no holdup. Once these nominees are confirmed, they can immediately get to work minimizing the almost 3,000-case backlog, providing agencies finality in their disputes, and mitigating backpay due to reinstated employees.”