High case numbers could snarl federal employees who appeal their removals

A public workers group on Monday warned that vacancies on a federal employees appeals board are poised to create, once again, a backlog in cases that could largely halt implementation of civil service laws. 

The Merit Systems Protection Board is led by a three-person panel that hears appeals to firings and other disciplinary actions that the federal government takes against civil servants.

Between 2017 and 2022, MSPB’s board either had just one Senate-confirmed member or none, leaving it without a quorum and creating a 3,800-case backlog that was only resolved in fall 2024. 

Currently, the quasi-judicial agency has only one board member after President Donald Trump fired Cathy Harris (who has sued to reverse her removal) and Raymond Limon’s retirement at the end of his term. 

In the midst of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce, MSPB reported in its fiscal 2026 congressional budget justification that, as of May 24, it has received 11,166 appeals, which is twice its typical workload in a fiscal year. 

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit group that defends governmental whistleblowers, warned that the case number could surge if a court order blocking widespread agency layoffs is lifted. 

“MSPB may be heading for the biggest legal trainwreck in history,” said PEER senior counsel Peter Jenkins in a statement. “Long delays in MSPB decisions due to big backlogs threaten to reduce most civil service laws, such as whistleblower protections, into dead letters.”

Help could be coming, however. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on June 30 advanced, 8-4, Trump’s nomination of James Woodruff to be an MSPB member. No more than two members of the board can be from the same party. The agency’s current sole member — Henry Kerner — is also a Republican. 

Zachary Kurz, MSPB’s communications director, also emphasized in a statement to Government Executive that the agency is “fully functional” at the regional and field level. 

“While there has been a significant increase in initial case filings over the last several months, we have seen virtually no increase in our backlog. Under our statutory process, these cases are adjudicated first by MSPB's administrative judges who continue to issue initial decisions,” he said. “Given that these filings are still making their way through the AJ process, there has been no backlog as a result.”

Kurz said that MSPB will be in a “good place” to begin issuing final decisions after it returns to a quorum but warned that any delays in such restoration “would risk building a new backlog, but that has not been the case to date.”