Virginia lawmaker takes over advocacy for federal workforce bills

Newly elected Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., this week formally took over for his predecessor, the late Rep. Gerry Connolly, in leading advocacy for an array of bills aimed at improving the pay and civil service protections of federal workers.

Walkinshaw was elected to Connolly’s seat earlier this month, defeating Republican Stewart Whiston in a special election by a 50-percentage point margin. Connolly died in May following a battle with esophageal cancer.

The House on Tuesday granted Walkinshaw’s unanimous consent request to become lead sponsor for four bills that Connolly had previously introduced, all relating to federal personnel policy.

On the pay front, Walkinshaw is now lead sponsor of the Federal Adjustment of Income Rates Act (H.R. 493), an annual bill Connolly introduced alongside Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, aimed at providing a “market rate” annual pay raise. Under this year’s iteration of the bill, federal employees would receive an average 4.3% pay increase in 2026, well above the 1% reserved for most federal workers by President Trump’s alternative pay plan, as well as the 3.8% set aside for the military and as-yet unspecified federal law enforcement jobs.

Walkinshaw also took over bills aimed at boosting federal workers’ health and retirement benefits. The Equal COLA Act (H.R. 491) would standardize federal retirees’ annual cost-of-living adjustments across both the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System—FERS beneficiaries’ yearly annuity increases are based on an extrapolation of annual inflation data that reduces their value by as much as one-third.

And the Family Building FEHB Fairness Act (H.R. 1670) would expand federal workers’ insurance coverage of in-vitro fertilization and other assisted reproductive technologies as part of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

The Saving the Civil Service Act (H.R. 492) seeks to block the Trump administration’s bid to politicize portions of the federal civil service by establishing new job schedules without congressional approval. Trump in his first term proposed a new Schedule F—since renamed Schedule Policy/Career—to strip tens of thousands of federal employees in so-called “policy-related” positions of their civil service protections, making them effectively at-will employees. The Office of Personnel Management is expected to issue final regulations implementing the renamed Schedule F some time this fall.

“From administering Social Security checks to safeguarding our national security to delivering our mail, civil servants are the backbone of our federal government, providing the essential services that Americans rely on every day,” Walkinshaw said in a statement. “The late Gerry Connolly was their fiercest champion, reminding us that protecting federal workers means protecting the American people they serve. I am honored to carry forward his legacy by advancing these bills to defend the rights, pay, reproductive health care and retirement security of those who dedicate their lives to public service.”