Former civil servants aim to shape policy as members of Congress

After Donald Trump was re-elected in 2024, Chris Backemeyer urged the federal employees he supervised not to leave their jobs. 

“I was trying to encourage them to stay in government and to continue their public service,” he said. “I tried to explain how, even when parties change, we're nonpartisan civil servants who are supposed to be implementing their policies, you’ll still find rewarding work, we need your expertise — all that sort of thing.” 

Soon after, however, the senior State Department official realized that this administration change would be different from the several other transfers of power he had previously experienced. 

“The [Department of Government Efficiency] came in, and they just wanted me to fire a lot of people. We were asked to basically pick 15%, and that's when I realized that I was playing by different rules,” he said. “I was trying to be faithful to the oath that I took to the Constitution. But there wasn't any mission or purpose left when DOGE came in. It was just about destruction and retribution. That's when I decided to leave.” 

But Backemeyer could be returning to the federal government soon; this time as a member of Congress. He is one of dozens of former civil servants who left or were pushed out under Trump who are now running for political office. 

Backemeyer, a Democrat, is a candidate for a House seat in Nebraska, where he was born and raised. 

He argued that his experience in government, which included overseeing billions in foreign assistance, advising Vice President Kamala Harris on national security and participating in nuclear negotiations with Iran, would bolster his ability as a lawmaker to identify waste, fraud and abuse. 

“A lot of the inefficiencies in federal agencies are a result of reporting requirements and appropriations that are required to be made for pet projects,” Backemeyer said. “In Congress, I want to work really hard to identify places where we can find more efficiency and try to get rid of some of the special interest projects that gum up the works and make our government less efficient.”

Backemeyer switched careers after 9/11, which resulted in him spending about two decades at the State Department. Today, however, he cautions people interested in public service about working for the federal government. 

“I certainly have not discouraged people from considering public service, either through the civil service or otherwise in the federal government, but it is a hard place to be,” he said. “I have warned people that it's a difficult time to be in those jobs. As a general matter, I encourage everybody to figure out how they can find their own corner to fight in right now, because the only way that we reunite our country and move forward is through an active public debate and civic activism.” 

Likewise, Lauren Reinhold, a Democrat running for a congressional seat in Kansas, originally intended to remain working in government during Trump’s second term. Both of her parents were federal employees, and she had enjoyed serving in several different roles at the Social Security Administration as well as the National Labor Relations Board. 

But she chose to leave after the Trump administration began implementing Schedule Policy/Career, which would remove civil service job protections for tens of thousands of federal employees. 

“I realized the job would become loyalty-based, patronage-based and not about serving the public anymore and [instead] about serving essentially a potentially authoritarian government,” she said. 

Rather than go into the private sector, she decided to run for Congress in response to the Trump administration’s reforms and cuts to agencies across the federal government, including at SSA. 

“It was so upsetting to me that I've felt driven to run for this office to fight for Kansans and our federal services,” she said. “And I wanted to keep serving, so that's why I didn't go into a for- profit or corporate environment.” 

Similarly, Terry Jackson, who left his Justice Department job under a settlement that resolved claims of disability discrimination with respect to the Trump administration’s crackdown on telework and remote work, is running for a House seat in Maryland. 

“I want to take these experiences that I have had — being in the military, being a federal employee, seeing how government works — I have the lived experience that I can take with me to Congress, and I can advocate for people who experience these types of situations,” he previously told Government Executive for an article about federal employees with disabilities being ordered to work in-person despite exceptions for them from the return-to-office directive. 

Former feds are also competing in Republican primaries. For example, Kim Farington, who served in the federal government for more than 30 years, is running to challenge Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. She mostly worked in agency finance roles and says on her campaign website that her first priority is to “expose and eliminate inefficiencies, waste, and fraud in government spending, and reduce the national debt.” 

A New York Times analysis found at least 36 first-time political candidates who left their federal jobs in 2025. 

Reinhold hopes that she — and other former feds running for elected office — can increase trust in government, which has been at a historical low for years. 

“I want to be an ambassador to restore trust in our federal services. Get people to recognize the importance of federal services — the ways they depend on it, even if they don't agree with everything the way it's done,” she said. “For the most part, people see my experience as good. I'm so excited, not just for myself, but all these other candidates who are running for offices at the state, local and federal level because we're going to really be able to impact government and bring trust back to government and make it more effective.”