From today's Government Executive:
State Department urged to boost hiring
If the State Department does not beef up its workforce, diplomatic programs will suffer and foreign policy will become more militarized, a new report warned.
"Today, significant portions of the nation's foreign affairs business simply are not accomplished," stated the report, released earlier this week by the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Stimson Center. "The work migrates by default to the military that does have the necessary people and funding, but neither sufficient experience nor knowledge. The 'militarization' of diplomacy exists and is accelerating... . The status quo cannot continue without serious damage to our vital interests." The report also studied staffing levels at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The report recommended that the State Department hire 4,735 more Foreign Service staffers and other key personnel between fiscal 2010 and 2014. New hires would be involved in core diplomatic efforts such as operating embassies and working with businesses and nongovernmental organizations abroad; engage in public diplomacy; administer economic assistance programs like those at USAID; and manage reconstruction and stabilization projects similar to ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those staffers would fill a 2008 shortfall of 2,400 employees, the authors said, and help State expand its activities while allowing more employees to receive much-needed training.
The authors identified USAID itself and public diplomacy programs at State as areas where more staff is critically needed. The number of public diplomacy staffers has fallen 24 percent, from 1,742 in 1986 to 1,332 in fiscal 2008. The current staffing levels are enough to sustain some traditional outreach efforts like media campaigns, the report said, but are not sufficient to allow public diplomacy officers to make extensive personal contacts and develop media efforts to reach out to younger generations.
Public diplomacy officers create and manage programs designed to inform audiences in other countries how American history, values and traditions shape the country's foreign policy.
The contrast at USAID is even more striking. In 1990, 3,500 people administered $5 billion in program funding for economic assistance; currently 2,200 staffers oversee $8 billion. The agency employs only five engineers to oversee projects worldwide, and 29 education officers are responsible for programs in 84 countries. As a result, the report said, USAID has stopped managing many programs directly and relies on 1,200 temporary contractors rather than on career staff with technical expertise directly relevant to the projects at hand.
The report was the latest salvo from the foreign affairs community in a battle to increase staff in a range of areas at State and USAID. The U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy released in June its own comprehensive recommendations for reforming the public diplomacy workforce. The academy and the Stimson Center are co-sponsoring a forum next week on their report.
Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, chairman and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Federal Workforce Subcommittee respectively, have held a series of hearings on the subject. Voinovich in particular has expressed impatience with the idea that State has been asked to "do more with less."
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Gay Bush Appointee Loses Appeal for Fair Treatment
This from The Advocate:
Richard Grenell was appointed spokesperson for the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by President Bush more than seven years ago and became the longest-serving public servant to hold that post. But when it came to having his partner of six years listed alongside the spouses of other U.N. diplomats, his dedication to the job didn't carry much weight with the State Department.
Gay Bush Appointee Loses Appeal for Fair Treatment
By Kerry Eleveld
Richard Grenell spent most of his days as spokesperson for the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations putting out fires for the Bush Administration and battling to keep issues like human rights in Burma and Zimbabwe in the public spotlight. But after working for the U.S. Mission to the U.N. for more than seven years, his final media push was publicizing a more personal struggle that he fought internally with the State Department.
Grenell, the longest-serving spokesperson for the U.S. Ambassador whose final day was Friday, September 26, started inquiring nearly four years ago about having his partner, Matt Lashey, listed in what’s known as the United Nations’ Blue Book, a reference guide of contact information for different member states of the United Nations as well as diplomatic personnel and their spouses.
Though Grenell and Lashey met in New York and have been together six years, they cannot legally marry in the Empire State. “It is not an option for us in New York, but hopefully someday soon it will be,” he says. “In my mind, and in Matt's mind, this is it. We’re married.”
Since the White House regularly included Grenell's partner by name on invitations to official events and parties, Grenell hoped the State Department would follow suit. He began by approaching the department appointee tasked with submitting additions and deletions for the Blue Book with his request -- the first step in a long line of dead ends. When the next edition printed and his partner’s name wasn’t listed, Grenell took it as “a mess-up.” He made several more failed attempts to have Lashey added before being told that “it was a U.N. issue, not a State Department issue.”
“I decided to investigate on my own,” says Grenell, “find out who was in charge of the Blue Book at the U.N.” That led him to the Protocol and Liaison Service, the department that prints the material, where a representative informed Grenell that “the U.N. takes whatever information is given to it by member states and prints it -- they make no evaluation of the correctness of the information.”
Indeed, the inside cover of the Blue Book states: “This publication is prepared by the Protocol and Liaison Service for information purposes only. The listings relating to the permanent missions are based on information communicated to the Protocol and Liaison Service by the permanent missions, and their publication is intended for the use of delegations and the Secretariat.”
Initially, Grenell took a measured behind-the-scenes approach to the situation, but his appeals grew more pointed this past spring.
“What put me over the edge was a friend and colleague who met her spouse after I was already with my partner -- they got married and subsequently were put into the Blue Book in a matter of days,” he says.
After numerous inquiries, Grenell eventually received an e-mail from Thomas Gallo, a U.S. Mission administrator, on July 25, stating, “It has been our practice to include only spouses, when requested by the employee, in our Blue Book updates, because the Blue Book description states that it lists ‘spouses’ and because the Department of State Foreign Affairs Manuel, under the heading of Members of Household (MOH), indicates that the Mission may not request privileges, immunities or exceptions for MOH.”
Privileges and immunities are a certain set of rights and protections afforded to employees of different member states of the United Nations while working in their capacity as a diplomatic envoy. But Grenell takes issue with the reasoning that the Blue Book listing bestows any sort of special status. “I could go down the road and have the legal discussion about diplomatic immunity and legal spouses if we were talking about privileges and immunities,” explains Grenell, “We are not talking about P & I. We are simply talking about a reference book the U.N. prints. I find it very hard to believe that anyone would be adversely affected by printing Matt’s name.”
Grenell replied to Gallo’s e-mail reiterating that the Blue Book is nothing more than a reference and adding, “I want my partner listed in it. I am formally requesting this and I want a legal opinion. Please do not delay this so that we miss the deadline.”
The legal opinion came via e-mail on July 31 from State Department attorney Richard Visek, who shelved the discussion of privileges and immunities and turned his sole focus to the legal definition of “spouse” as it was designated by the Defense of Marriage Act. “The word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife,” Visek wrote, citing U.S. Law, 1 U.S.C. 7. He concluded the e-mail, “In interpreting the term ‘spouse’, the mission should adhere to the definition under U.S. law. We also understand that this is consistent with past practice.”
Legal opinions aside, Grenell believes the last line of that e-mail is perhaps most telling. Noting that he would have been the first known person to have his same-sex partner listed in the Blue Book, Grenell says, “I think the status quo is the enemy here. It is, We’ve never done it before; and you’re dealing with bureaucrats who can't think outside the box.”
Grenell exchanged several more e-mails with John Bellinger, the State Department’s top legal advisor, but nothing came of them.
Contacted by The Advocate, State Department spokesperson Noel Clay reiterated, “The department over the years has not included domestic partners because they are not spouses.”
After several years of inaction, Grenell decided to go public. “Some people are going to yell at me, because it's been a quiet fight,” he says. “I think a lot of people’s style is to do a quiet fight.”
As a registered Republican and a Bush appointee, Grenell has not always had an easy time waging quiet wars. He was publicly “outed” on an LGBT activist website two years ago, though Grenell says he was out to almost everyone who knew him. The main complaint leveled against him at the time was the fact that the U.S. had recently joined with Iran in a U.N. committee vote to deny accreditation to two international LGBT organizations. Accreditation, or consultative status, allows non-governmental organizations (NGOs) access to U.N. proceedings, conferences, and the right to propose agenda items.
The most common sticking point for granting consultative status to LGBT organizations, says Grenell, is whether they have any ties to the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Due to the organization’s controversial nature, groups seeking legal recognition from the U.N. must reject NAMBLA outright. “We needed an unequivocal separation from NAMBLA in order for these groups to go forward,” he says.
LGBT activists and human rights groups were outraged by the January 2006 vote, but after one of the organizations -- the International Lesbian and Gay Federation of Denmark -- changed course and distanced itself entirely from NAMBLA, the U.N. approved it for accreditation later that year along with two other LGBT NGOs. The U.S. voted in favor of all three accreditations. The following year, the U.N. approved two more LGBT NGOs for consultative status.
Despite the scrutiny, Grenell is proud of his work on facilitating LGBT accreditations and touts a couple of other accomplishments as reasons why it’s important to have LGBT people working on both sides of the aisle. He helped secure two former U.S. ambassadors to the U.N., John Danforth and John Bolton, to give keynote speeches at Log Cabin Republican conventions. “It wasn’t difficult at all, I just went and asked,” he says, “but it was the personal relationship.”
Richard Grenell was appointed spokesperson for the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by President Bush more than seven years ago and became the longest-serving public servant to hold that post. But when it came to having his partner of six years listed alongside the spouses of other U.N. diplomats, his dedication to the job didn't carry much weight with the State Department.
Gay Bush Appointee Loses Appeal for Fair Treatment
By Kerry Eleveld
Richard Grenell spent most of his days as spokesperson for the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations putting out fires for the Bush Administration and battling to keep issues like human rights in Burma and Zimbabwe in the public spotlight. But after working for the U.S. Mission to the U.N. for more than seven years, his final media push was publicizing a more personal struggle that he fought internally with the State Department.
Grenell, the longest-serving spokesperson for the U.S. Ambassador whose final day was Friday, September 26, started inquiring nearly four years ago about having his partner, Matt Lashey, listed in what’s known as the United Nations’ Blue Book, a reference guide of contact information for different member states of the United Nations as well as diplomatic personnel and their spouses.
Though Grenell and Lashey met in New York and have been together six years, they cannot legally marry in the Empire State. “It is not an option for us in New York, but hopefully someday soon it will be,” he says. “In my mind, and in Matt's mind, this is it. We’re married.”
Since the White House regularly included Grenell's partner by name on invitations to official events and parties, Grenell hoped the State Department would follow suit. He began by approaching the department appointee tasked with submitting additions and deletions for the Blue Book with his request -- the first step in a long line of dead ends. When the next edition printed and his partner’s name wasn’t listed, Grenell took it as “a mess-up.” He made several more failed attempts to have Lashey added before being told that “it was a U.N. issue, not a State Department issue.”
“I decided to investigate on my own,” says Grenell, “find out who was in charge of the Blue Book at the U.N.” That led him to the Protocol and Liaison Service, the department that prints the material, where a representative informed Grenell that “the U.N. takes whatever information is given to it by member states and prints it -- they make no evaluation of the correctness of the information.”
Indeed, the inside cover of the Blue Book states: “This publication is prepared by the Protocol and Liaison Service for information purposes only. The listings relating to the permanent missions are based on information communicated to the Protocol and Liaison Service by the permanent missions, and their publication is intended for the use of delegations and the Secretariat.”
Initially, Grenell took a measured behind-the-scenes approach to the situation, but his appeals grew more pointed this past spring.
“What put me over the edge was a friend and colleague who met her spouse after I was already with my partner -- they got married and subsequently were put into the Blue Book in a matter of days,” he says.
After numerous inquiries, Grenell eventually received an e-mail from Thomas Gallo, a U.S. Mission administrator, on July 25, stating, “It has been our practice to include only spouses, when requested by the employee, in our Blue Book updates, because the Blue Book description states that it lists ‘spouses’ and because the Department of State Foreign Affairs Manuel, under the heading of Members of Household (MOH), indicates that the Mission may not request privileges, immunities or exceptions for MOH.”
Privileges and immunities are a certain set of rights and protections afforded to employees of different member states of the United Nations while working in their capacity as a diplomatic envoy. But Grenell takes issue with the reasoning that the Blue Book listing bestows any sort of special status. “I could go down the road and have the legal discussion about diplomatic immunity and legal spouses if we were talking about privileges and immunities,” explains Grenell, “We are not talking about P & I. We are simply talking about a reference book the U.N. prints. I find it very hard to believe that anyone would be adversely affected by printing Matt’s name.”
Grenell replied to Gallo’s e-mail reiterating that the Blue Book is nothing more than a reference and adding, “I want my partner listed in it. I am formally requesting this and I want a legal opinion. Please do not delay this so that we miss the deadline.”
The legal opinion came via e-mail on July 31 from State Department attorney Richard Visek, who shelved the discussion of privileges and immunities and turned his sole focus to the legal definition of “spouse” as it was designated by the Defense of Marriage Act. “The word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife,” Visek wrote, citing U.S. Law, 1 U.S.C. 7. He concluded the e-mail, “In interpreting the term ‘spouse’, the mission should adhere to the definition under U.S. law. We also understand that this is consistent with past practice.”
Legal opinions aside, Grenell believes the last line of that e-mail is perhaps most telling. Noting that he would have been the first known person to have his same-sex partner listed in the Blue Book, Grenell says, “I think the status quo is the enemy here. It is, We’ve never done it before; and you’re dealing with bureaucrats who can't think outside the box.”
Grenell exchanged several more e-mails with John Bellinger, the State Department’s top legal advisor, but nothing came of them.
Contacted by The Advocate, State Department spokesperson Noel Clay reiterated, “The department over the years has not included domestic partners because they are not spouses.”
After several years of inaction, Grenell decided to go public. “Some people are going to yell at me, because it's been a quiet fight,” he says. “I think a lot of people’s style is to do a quiet fight.”
As a registered Republican and a Bush appointee, Grenell has not always had an easy time waging quiet wars. He was publicly “outed” on an LGBT activist website two years ago, though Grenell says he was out to almost everyone who knew him. The main complaint leveled against him at the time was the fact that the U.S. had recently joined with Iran in a U.N. committee vote to deny accreditation to two international LGBT organizations. Accreditation, or consultative status, allows non-governmental organizations (NGOs) access to U.N. proceedings, conferences, and the right to propose agenda items.
The most common sticking point for granting consultative status to LGBT organizations, says Grenell, is whether they have any ties to the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Due to the organization’s controversial nature, groups seeking legal recognition from the U.N. must reject NAMBLA outright. “We needed an unequivocal separation from NAMBLA in order for these groups to go forward,” he says.
LGBT activists and human rights groups were outraged by the January 2006 vote, but after one of the organizations -- the International Lesbian and Gay Federation of Denmark -- changed course and distanced itself entirely from NAMBLA, the U.N. approved it for accreditation later that year along with two other LGBT NGOs. The U.S. voted in favor of all three accreditations. The following year, the U.N. approved two more LGBT NGOs for consultative status.
Despite the scrutiny, Grenell is proud of his work on facilitating LGBT accreditations and touts a couple of other accomplishments as reasons why it’s important to have LGBT people working on both sides of the aisle. He helped secure two former U.S. ambassadors to the U.N., John Danforth and John Bolton, to give keynote speeches at Log Cabin Republican conventions. “It wasn’t difficult at all, I just went and asked,” he says, “but it was the personal relationship.”
Friday, October 03, 2008
AFSA Statement on Iraq Assignments
The following message is from AFSA State VP Steve Kashkett:
AFSA issued the following press release on Thursday, October 2, 2008:
The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) welcomes Secretary Rice's announcement that the Department of State has now filled all of its positions at the U.S. missions in Iraq and Afghanistan for the summer 2009 assignment cycle with qualified, willing volunteers -- as
has been the case every year since those two diplomatic missions came into existence. It is a tribute to the courage and sense of duty of the people of the Foreign Service that our members, as well as a number of Civil Service colleagues, have stepped forward without hesitation every year to staff the embassies and provincial reconstruction teams in those two war zones. These are our largest diplomatic missions in the world, and they present unique dangers and challenges to the thousands of our members who have volunteered since 2003.
AFSA hopes that those journalists, media outlets, and commentators who erroneously reported last October that the Department of State had been unable to fully staff the Iraq mission will now show as much zeal in reporting that, in fact, every one of these positions in both Iraq and Afghanistan for summer 2009 has been filled more than eight months in advance. Those journalists did a great disservice to the Department of State and its employees -- who have never shied away from hardship service in some of the most dangerous places on earth -- and we hope that these journalists will now set the record straight."
AFSA issued the following press release on Thursday, October 2, 2008:
The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) welcomes Secretary Rice's announcement that the Department of State has now filled all of its positions at the U.S. missions in Iraq and Afghanistan for the summer 2009 assignment cycle with qualified, willing volunteers -- as
has been the case every year since those two diplomatic missions came into existence. It is a tribute to the courage and sense of duty of the people of the Foreign Service that our members, as well as a number of Civil Service colleagues, have stepped forward without hesitation every year to staff the embassies and provincial reconstruction teams in those two war zones. These are our largest diplomatic missions in the world, and they present unique dangers and challenges to the thousands of our members who have volunteered since 2003.
AFSA hopes that those journalists, media outlets, and commentators who erroneously reported last October that the Department of State had been unable to fully staff the Iraq mission will now show as much zeal in reporting that, in fact, every one of these positions in both Iraq and Afghanistan for summer 2009 has been filled more than eight months in advance. Those journalists did a great disservice to the Department of State and its employees -- who have never shied away from hardship service in some of the most dangerous places on earth -- and we hope that these journalists will now set the record straight."
Thursday, October 02, 2008
AFRICOM: DOD's New "Soft Power"?
Diplopundit has an interesting piece today about AFRICOM, which was stood up today.
Diplopundit writes:
Pittman writes that "from the beginning, AFRICOM was cast as a different kind of command, one that would focus American military might not on fighting wars, but on preventing them through "soft power." And that as part of the new approach, a civilian deputy equal to Moeller was appointed to coordinate humanitarian operations with other U.S. agencies. AFRICOM's "interagency" makeup was trumpeted as a better way to meet the continent's development needs."
The civilian deputy equivalent to Moeller has the official title, "Deputy to the Commander for Civil-Military Activities," and that is Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates. She will reportedly direct the command's plans and programs associated with health, humanitarian assistance and de-mining action, disaster response, security sector reform, and Peace Support Operations. She also directs Outreach, Strategic Communication and AFRICOM's partner-building functions, as well as assuring that policy development and implementation are consistent with U.S. Foreign Policy.
That makes me feel better. I guess I should say, congratulations for coming into being. But now this is getting me a tad confused. I thought State has the "soft power" while Defense has the "hard" part. Hmmn....that must have changed during the commercial. I hate it when they do that, don't you?
Militarization of our foreign policy? Now don't you believe what you read. In individual countries, U.S. Ambassadors will continue to be the President's personal representatives in diplomatic relations with host nations. State will continue to be the primary foreign policy arm; USAID will continue to be the development arm. Yup! Yup! Except that State is counting pennies and paper clips (don't know about AID, too many stubbed toes under one confusing roof right now) and DOD has the money.
You can read the entire post here.
Diplopundit writes:
Pittman writes that "from the beginning, AFRICOM was cast as a different kind of command, one that would focus American military might not on fighting wars, but on preventing them through "soft power." And that as part of the new approach, a civilian deputy equal to Moeller was appointed to coordinate humanitarian operations with other U.S. agencies. AFRICOM's "interagency" makeup was trumpeted as a better way to meet the continent's development needs."
The civilian deputy equivalent to Moeller has the official title, "Deputy to the Commander for Civil-Military Activities," and that is Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates. She will reportedly direct the command's plans and programs associated with health, humanitarian assistance and de-mining action, disaster response, security sector reform, and Peace Support Operations. She also directs Outreach, Strategic Communication and AFRICOM's partner-building functions, as well as assuring that policy development and implementation are consistent with U.S. Foreign Policy.
That makes me feel better. I guess I should say, congratulations for coming into being. But now this is getting me a tad confused. I thought State has the "soft power" while Defense has the "hard" part. Hmmn....that must have changed during the commercial. I hate it when they do that, don't you?
Militarization of our foreign policy? Now don't you believe what you read. In individual countries, U.S. Ambassadors will continue to be the President's personal representatives in diplomatic relations with host nations. State will continue to be the primary foreign policy arm; USAID will continue to be the development arm. Yup! Yup! Except that State is counting pennies and paper clips (don't know about AID, too many stubbed toes under one confusing roof right now) and DOD has the money.
You can read the entire post here.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
More on the Exodus
Dead Men Working had a post about the Mother Jones article detailing the exodus of mid-level officers from the Foreign Service.
DMW comments: "Most of my age-mates are in the senior ranks, and one thing I can say for certain. More than half of the FSOs who entered on duty when I did have retired, most on the very first date they were eligible to do so.
They speak not only of promises broken to them, but of a failure by the current administration to use their expertise properly. This has been the first administration in years that, rather than treat FSOs as experts and expert advisers, treats them instead virtually as servants, as pawns whose sole function is to follow orders and carry out policies devised, in many cases, by people with far less Foreign Policy expertise than even a junior-level FSO would possess."
DMW continues:
[...]
"Every Foreign Service Officer is sworn to serve our nation, and not just our president. We need the resources and leadership to allow us to do that.
Every departing FSO that I have ever seen expresses anger and frustration among their reasons for departing the service. But without exception, every one also honestly regrets that they have been prevented from using their skills to serve our country; which was, for nearly all of us, our primary desire and motivation in joining the Service in the first place."
You can read his entire post here.
Hat Tip to Consul-At-Arms for catching this piece.
DMW comments: "Most of my age-mates are in the senior ranks, and one thing I can say for certain. More than half of the FSOs who entered on duty when I did have retired, most on the very first date they were eligible to do so.
They speak not only of promises broken to them, but of a failure by the current administration to use their expertise properly. This has been the first administration in years that, rather than treat FSOs as experts and expert advisers, treats them instead virtually as servants, as pawns whose sole function is to follow orders and carry out policies devised, in many cases, by people with far less Foreign Policy expertise than even a junior-level FSO would possess."
DMW continues:
[...]
"Every Foreign Service Officer is sworn to serve our nation, and not just our president. We need the resources and leadership to allow us to do that.
Every departing FSO that I have ever seen expresses anger and frustration among their reasons for departing the service. But without exception, every one also honestly regrets that they have been prevented from using their skills to serve our country; which was, for nearly all of us, our primary desire and motivation in joining the Service in the first place."
You can read his entire post here.
Hat Tip to Consul-At-Arms for catching this piece.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
More on the DPBO hearing
HRC ran this story on Wednesday's hearing. I am including it because of the links to different testimonies as well as pdfs on states and companies with benefits.
Senate holds first hearing on need for federal employee partner benefits
September 24, 2008
Chris Johnson
This morning at 10 AM EST, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held the first-ever U.S. Senate hearing exclusively on federal employee partner benefits. Titled “Domestic Partner Benefits for Federal Employees: Fair Policy and Good Business,” the hearing was coordinated by Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Ranking Member Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). Today's hearing is an important and necessary step toward enactment of equal employment benefits for LGBT federal civilian employees. HRC worked closely with the Senate staff in crafting the legislation and was a lead coalition partner in lobbying for the hearing.
In his written testimony submitted for the hearing, Joe Solmonese said:
"This legislation, which is long overdue, would bring the federal government up to the standards of America’s leading employers, who provide these benefits in order to recruit and retain the most talented workforce possible. Equal pay for equal work is a value fundamental to American opportunity. The federal government should be the standard bearer for fair workplace practices. As long it denies gay and lesbian employees the comprehensive family benefits that their heterosexual colleagues receive, the federal government will fall short of that standard, and continue to lag behind the nation’s top employers."
Read Joe's complete written testimony here. (PDF)
Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who authors the companion bill, H.R. 4838, in the House, said:
"I welcome this Senate hearing and consider it one more step in our march toward full equality. Only when we eliminate discriminatory practices in the workplace will we allow both employees and businesses to reach their full potential. As an employer, the federal government must not only set an example, but must compete with corporate America for the best-qualified workforce. Offering domestic partner benefits is a means toward both ends."
HRC worked with employers in the private sector to endorse the legislation and reached out to all Congressional offices with up-to-date resources such as the Corporate Equality Index, demonstrating support and need for DP Benefits. The benefits for federal employees would include family health insurance, pension and survivor benefits and relocation expenses for families who are transferred. And for State Department employees abroad it would include access to anti-terrorism and language training, medical facilities, and evacuation services. The need for federal domestic partner benefits was also incorporated in HRC’s "7 Days to a Better Financial You," with stories from former Ambassador Michael Guest and other federal civilian employees explaining how the lack of benefits hurts LGBT families.
Related Documents:
Factsheet on Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act (DPBO) (PDF)
States with domestic partner benefits - 2008 (PDF)
Coalition endorsement letter to Chairman Lieberman in support of DPBO (PDF)
Fortune 500 companies with domestic partner benefits (PDF)
Senate holds first hearing on need for federal employee partner benefits
September 24, 2008
Chris Johnson
This morning at 10 AM EST, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held the first-ever U.S. Senate hearing exclusively on federal employee partner benefits. Titled “Domestic Partner Benefits for Federal Employees: Fair Policy and Good Business,” the hearing was coordinated by Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Ranking Member Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). Today's hearing is an important and necessary step toward enactment of equal employment benefits for LGBT federal civilian employees. HRC worked closely with the Senate staff in crafting the legislation and was a lead coalition partner in lobbying for the hearing.
In his written testimony submitted for the hearing, Joe Solmonese said:
"This legislation, which is long overdue, would bring the federal government up to the standards of America’s leading employers, who provide these benefits in order to recruit and retain the most talented workforce possible. Equal pay for equal work is a value fundamental to American opportunity. The federal government should be the standard bearer for fair workplace practices. As long it denies gay and lesbian employees the comprehensive family benefits that their heterosexual colleagues receive, the federal government will fall short of that standard, and continue to lag behind the nation’s top employers."
Read Joe's complete written testimony here. (PDF)
Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who authors the companion bill, H.R. 4838, in the House, said:
"I welcome this Senate hearing and consider it one more step in our march toward full equality. Only when we eliminate discriminatory practices in the workplace will we allow both employees and businesses to reach their full potential. As an employer, the federal government must not only set an example, but must compete with corporate America for the best-qualified workforce. Offering domestic partner benefits is a means toward both ends."
HRC worked with employers in the private sector to endorse the legislation and reached out to all Congressional offices with up-to-date resources such as the Corporate Equality Index, demonstrating support and need for DP Benefits. The benefits for federal employees would include family health insurance, pension and survivor benefits and relocation expenses for families who are transferred. And for State Department employees abroad it would include access to anti-terrorism and language training, medical facilities, and evacuation services. The need for federal domestic partner benefits was also incorporated in HRC’s "7 Days to a Better Financial You," with stories from former Ambassador Michael Guest and other federal civilian employees explaining how the lack of benefits hurts LGBT families.
Related Documents:
Factsheet on Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act (DPBO) (PDF)
States with domestic partner benefits - 2008 (PDF)
Coalition endorsement letter to Chairman Lieberman in support of DPBO (PDF)
Fortune 500 companies with domestic partner benefits (PDF)
Friday, September 26, 2008
OPM opposes domestic partnership benefits bill
I can't even begin to describe how offensive this is. M and I have been together for nearly nine years. We were married in our church six years ago, and would be married legally if the law allowed. So again we have the circular argument. You can get the benefits because you aren't married. But you aren't allowed to be married. And how insulting to compare our relationship, and the relationships of thousands of committed same-sex couples to a homophobic movie with an incredulous plot (seriously, we do NOT live on a planet where "I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry" could ever happen)! It seriously makes me question why I serve a government that feels this way about me.
OPM opposes domestic partnership benefits bill
By Alyssa Rosenberg
A top official at the Office of Personnel Management told a congressional panel on Wednesday that extending federal health and retirement benefits to the domestic partners of same-sex couples could lead to insurance fraud.
Howard Weizmann, OPM deputy director, said the agency opposes a bill (S. 2521) offering such benefits to gay and lesbian federal employees' partners because OPM requires state-issued marriage certificates to prove that heterosexual couples are married in case of a question or dispute -- and no comparable documentation exists for many same-sex couples. He said OPM would have to rely on sworn affidavits from couples in long-term committed relationships, and that some might not report the end of a relationship to keep insurance benefits.
The legislation also would ensure gay and lesbian employees abide by federal laws on nepotism and financial disclosure.
Other witnesses before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee disputed OPM's rationale for opposing the legislation. "I think it's really unfair of OPM to suggest there's some kind of increased fraud risk by adding this benefit," said National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley. "I'm totally missing why that would be stated, much less thought of."
Yvette Burton, a business development executive for IBM Corp., which offers same-sex partner benefits said that affidavits had proved more than adequate, and the company requires couples to obtain legal documentation of their relationship when state law makes it possible, for example, in states like California and Massachusetts where same-sex marriage is legal.
Members of the committee were skeptical that fraud would be widespread, pointing to the large number of private sector companies -- including more than half of Fortune 500 companies -- that have domestic partnership benefits. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said verification systems those companies and the state of Maine in its wide-ranging domestic partnership program use should provide models for the federal government and eliminate concerns about fraud.
"In looking at the firms at which you worked, Aetna has DP benefits and has retained those benefits for a number of years," Collins said to Weizmann. "If, in fact, these were not advantageous benefits for the private sector to have, don't you think they would have done away with those benefits?"
But Weizmann insisted that the threat of fraud is real, saying wrongdoing could go undetected because companies do not pay very much attention to domestic partnership programs.
"I don't know that anyone in this room knows the degree to which companies monitor relationships that go forward," he said. "I know that when benefits don't cost very much and aren't utilized very much, they don't get a lot of attention... . The federal government is much larger, and has a much stronger fiduciary obligation to the taxpayer to ensure that those benefits are delivered accurately."
Weizmann suggested that the 2007 movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, about two heterosexual New York firefighters who pretend to be a gay couple to ensure that one of them will be able to pass his pension benefits down to his children, indicated that fraud could be widespread.
But others at the hearing argued that the fraud debate was a distraction from real questions of fairness and equality.
Frank Hartigan, a deputy regional director for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said he personally had experienced the difficulties of being a gay federal employee. Among the benefits same-sex partners are not eligible for are relocation payments, making it much more expensive for gay couples to move elsewhere for a new federal job.
"If I was starting out in today's job market, would I take a job with the federal government knowing what I know about domestic partnership benefits? I believe I would look elsewhere," Hartigan said.
OPM opposes domestic partnership benefits bill
By Alyssa Rosenberg
A top official at the Office of Personnel Management told a congressional panel on Wednesday that extending federal health and retirement benefits to the domestic partners of same-sex couples could lead to insurance fraud.
Howard Weizmann, OPM deputy director, said the agency opposes a bill (S. 2521) offering such benefits to gay and lesbian federal employees' partners because OPM requires state-issued marriage certificates to prove that heterosexual couples are married in case of a question or dispute -- and no comparable documentation exists for many same-sex couples. He said OPM would have to rely on sworn affidavits from couples in long-term committed relationships, and that some might not report the end of a relationship to keep insurance benefits.
The legislation also would ensure gay and lesbian employees abide by federal laws on nepotism and financial disclosure.
Other witnesses before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee disputed OPM's rationale for opposing the legislation. "I think it's really unfair of OPM to suggest there's some kind of increased fraud risk by adding this benefit," said National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley. "I'm totally missing why that would be stated, much less thought of."
Yvette Burton, a business development executive for IBM Corp., which offers same-sex partner benefits said that affidavits had proved more than adequate, and the company requires couples to obtain legal documentation of their relationship when state law makes it possible, for example, in states like California and Massachusetts where same-sex marriage is legal.
Members of the committee were skeptical that fraud would be widespread, pointing to the large number of private sector companies -- including more than half of Fortune 500 companies -- that have domestic partnership benefits. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said verification systems those companies and the state of Maine in its wide-ranging domestic partnership program use should provide models for the federal government and eliminate concerns about fraud.
"In looking at the firms at which you worked, Aetna has DP benefits and has retained those benefits for a number of years," Collins said to Weizmann. "If, in fact, these were not advantageous benefits for the private sector to have, don't you think they would have done away with those benefits?"
But Weizmann insisted that the threat of fraud is real, saying wrongdoing could go undetected because companies do not pay very much attention to domestic partnership programs.
"I don't know that anyone in this room knows the degree to which companies monitor relationships that go forward," he said. "I know that when benefits don't cost very much and aren't utilized very much, they don't get a lot of attention... . The federal government is much larger, and has a much stronger fiduciary obligation to the taxpayer to ensure that those benefits are delivered accurately."
Weizmann suggested that the 2007 movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, about two heterosexual New York firefighters who pretend to be a gay couple to ensure that one of them will be able to pass his pension benefits down to his children, indicated that fraud could be widespread.
But others at the hearing argued that the fraud debate was a distraction from real questions of fairness and equality.
Frank Hartigan, a deputy regional director for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said he personally had experienced the difficulties of being a gay federal employee. Among the benefits same-sex partners are not eligible for are relocation payments, making it much more expensive for gay couples to move elsewhere for a new federal job.
"If I was starting out in today's job market, would I take a job with the federal government knowing what I know about domestic partnership benefits? I believe I would look elsewhere," Hartigan said.
More on Reforming Public Diplomacy
Diplopundit comments on the testimony by Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley, the Vice Chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs. This is the testimony Mountain Runner discussed earlier in the week. Diplopundit offers some more details and some interesting points.
Reliance on Soft Power: Reforming Public Diplomacy
Earlier this week, Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley, the Vice Chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy gave a testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs’ (Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia) on Reliance on Soft Power: Reforming the Public Diplomacy Bureaucracy.
This is part of what she said in her opening statement: [...]“...in the final analysis, people are the key to the success of our Nation’s public diplomacy. Over a one-year period, the Commission met with scores of State Department officials and outside experts on PD human resources issues and we learned a great deal in the process.
In sum […], we found that the State Department:
recruits smart people, but not necessarily the right people, for the PD career track,
tests candidates on the wrong knowledge sets,
trains its officers in the wrong skills, and
evaluates those officers mostly on the wrong tasks.
In terms of personnel structures:
State has a PD bureaucracy in Washington that hasn’t been critically examined since the 1999 merger and that may or may not be functioning optimally, its overseas public affairs officers are spending the majority of their time administering rather than communicating with foreign publics, and meaningful integration of public diplomacy into State Department decision-making and staffing remains elusive.
In short, Mr. Chairman, we’re not “getting the people part right.”
[...]
"On recruitment, very simply, the Department of State makes no special effort to recruit individuals into the public diplomacy (or “PD”) career track who would bring into the Foreign Service experience or skills specifically relevant to the work of communicating with and influencing foreign publics. No serious presidential or Congressional campaign, or private-sector company, would hire communications personnel who have no background in communications, but to a large degree, that is exactly what the United States Government is doing."
Diplopundit notes: In fairness to the State Department, the agency makes no special effort to recruit folks into the PD track or any other track based on experience or skills relevant to the work in the other four career tracks (political, economics, management, consular). I do think that State prides itself with growing its own people which has its merits. But whereas in the past we have the luxury of time to grow and teach new graduates on how the world works, in this new universe of constant change, we don’t have that luxury. Why spend two years training an Arabic speaker, if you can hire somebody who already speaks Arabic, or Chinese, or Urdu?
[...]
Bagley continues: "In terms of public diplomacy training, though there have clearly been some improvements in recent years, a number of conspicuous, and serious, blind-spots persist. For one, we make virtually no effort to train our PD officers in either the science of persuasive communication or the nuts and bolts of how to craft and run sophisticated message campaigns. The Commission believes we need to rectify this. We would like to see more substantive PD offerings at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, including a rigorous nine-month course analogous to the highly regarded one currently offered to economic officers."
Diplopundit comments: We have some missions where entry level officers on their first tour are sent out to perform public outreach in print/online media, tv, and radio with close to no training. Well, actually as I’ve heard it told, one boss saw it fit to work with the PD officer to give one batch of officers some training, including apparently “murder boards,” but after that outreach program received an award, the next batch of officers got zero guidance (short term goals are terribly popular in some parts of this universe) but the public outreach nonetheless continued. I can understand why an officer, even a smart one who’s never been on television would lose sleep and sweat bullets over this one. Public diplomacy is not the area where you want to throw your staff members into the water to see who sinks or floats! Good grief! If we don’t send a soldier to war without training them how to shoot, we definitely should not send any of our officers to fight the war of ideas without "weapons" training. In a war zone, bullets are fired and spent and you die, in this other war, ideas, even the unkind ones have the tendency to live on and thrive. Seriously, if our officers have to be effective warriors of ideas, we cannot afford to let them simply wing it -- no matter how smart they may be.
[...]
You can read the rest of this post here.
In a comment I wrote to Mountain Runner on this topic, I noted that even in the instances where they have people with a background conducive to Public Diplomacy work, the Department often does not take note. I am a PD-coned officer. I have a B.A. in English/Journalism, and I have worked as a reporter and copy editor for several dailies. I have been an assignments editor for an NBC-affiliate. I also have an M.A. in anthropology and will soon have a PhD in it. All of these things should make me a better PD officer. However, I have yet to do a PD tour, and when I am in the midst of bidding (as I am now), prospective supervisors don't even consider my experience pre-State Department. A three-month "bridge" assignment I did as a press officer "counts" for more than all of my education and experience. A shame when you consider just how important Public Diplomacy is in today's world and how much a partner it could be in advancing our Foreign Policy goals if used properly by the right people.
Reliance on Soft Power: Reforming Public Diplomacy
Earlier this week, Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley, the Vice Chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy gave a testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs’ (Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia) on Reliance on Soft Power: Reforming the Public Diplomacy Bureaucracy.
This is part of what she said in her opening statement: [...]“...in the final analysis, people are the key to the success of our Nation’s public diplomacy. Over a one-year period, the Commission met with scores of State Department officials and outside experts on PD human resources issues and we learned a great deal in the process.
In sum […], we found that the State Department:
recruits smart people, but not necessarily the right people, for the PD career track,
tests candidates on the wrong knowledge sets,
trains its officers in the wrong skills, and
evaluates those officers mostly on the wrong tasks.
In terms of personnel structures:
State has a PD bureaucracy in Washington that hasn’t been critically examined since the 1999 merger and that may or may not be functioning optimally, its overseas public affairs officers are spending the majority of their time administering rather than communicating with foreign publics, and meaningful integration of public diplomacy into State Department decision-making and staffing remains elusive.
In short, Mr. Chairman, we’re not “getting the people part right.”
[...]
"On recruitment, very simply, the Department of State makes no special effort to recruit individuals into the public diplomacy (or “PD”) career track who would bring into the Foreign Service experience or skills specifically relevant to the work of communicating with and influencing foreign publics. No serious presidential or Congressional campaign, or private-sector company, would hire communications personnel who have no background in communications, but to a large degree, that is exactly what the United States Government is doing."
Diplopundit notes: In fairness to the State Department, the agency makes no special effort to recruit folks into the PD track or any other track based on experience or skills relevant to the work in the other four career tracks (political, economics, management, consular). I do think that State prides itself with growing its own people which has its merits. But whereas in the past we have the luxury of time to grow and teach new graduates on how the world works, in this new universe of constant change, we don’t have that luxury. Why spend two years training an Arabic speaker, if you can hire somebody who already speaks Arabic, or Chinese, or Urdu?
[...]
Bagley continues: "In terms of public diplomacy training, though there have clearly been some improvements in recent years, a number of conspicuous, and serious, blind-spots persist. For one, we make virtually no effort to train our PD officers in either the science of persuasive communication or the nuts and bolts of how to craft and run sophisticated message campaigns. The Commission believes we need to rectify this. We would like to see more substantive PD offerings at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, including a rigorous nine-month course analogous to the highly regarded one currently offered to economic officers."
Diplopundit comments: We have some missions where entry level officers on their first tour are sent out to perform public outreach in print/online media, tv, and radio with close to no training. Well, actually as I’ve heard it told, one boss saw it fit to work with the PD officer to give one batch of officers some training, including apparently “murder boards,” but after that outreach program received an award, the next batch of officers got zero guidance (short term goals are terribly popular in some parts of this universe) but the public outreach nonetheless continued. I can understand why an officer, even a smart one who’s never been on television would lose sleep and sweat bullets over this one. Public diplomacy is not the area where you want to throw your staff members into the water to see who sinks or floats! Good grief! If we don’t send a soldier to war without training them how to shoot, we definitely should not send any of our officers to fight the war of ideas without "weapons" training. In a war zone, bullets are fired and spent and you die, in this other war, ideas, even the unkind ones have the tendency to live on and thrive. Seriously, if our officers have to be effective warriors of ideas, we cannot afford to let them simply wing it -- no matter how smart they may be.
[...]
You can read the rest of this post here.
In a comment I wrote to Mountain Runner on this topic, I noted that even in the instances where they have people with a background conducive to Public Diplomacy work, the Department often does not take note. I am a PD-coned officer. I have a B.A. in English/Journalism, and I have worked as a reporter and copy editor for several dailies. I have been an assignments editor for an NBC-affiliate. I also have an M.A. in anthropology and will soon have a PhD in it. All of these things should make me a better PD officer. However, I have yet to do a PD tour, and when I am in the midst of bidding (as I am now), prospective supervisors don't even consider my experience pre-State Department. A three-month "bridge" assignment I did as a press officer "counts" for more than all of my education and experience. A shame when you consider just how important Public Diplomacy is in today's world and how much a partner it could be in advancing our Foreign Policy goals if used properly by the right people.
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