Sen. Ernst introduced a series of bills to get federal workers out of DC

PERFECT – Sen. Joni Ernst will introduce legislation to move federal workers from Washington, DC, to other locations in the US as part of her efforts to fix what she says is a government abuse of office.

The Iowa Republican will introduce the first of those bills, exclusively obtained by FOX Business, on Thursday.

The legislation, called the “Returning SBA to 5 Main Street Act,” would move about a third or more of the staff at the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Washington, DC, headquarters (HQ), to work stations outside the DC metro area. place.

This bill reduces SBA HQ office space and the ability to “100 percent telecommute”, by moving at least 30 percent of HQ staff to various regions across the United States and reducing HQ office space by an equal amount. It comes after the SBA said that even if 100% of SBA employees came in person to Washington, DC, HQ, only 67 percent of SBA’s HQ capacity would be used.

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Ernst’s new law also follows a Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship committee hearing on the impact of phone calls on SBA services, where a witness from Iowa detailed how they had a very difficult time contacting anyone at the agency.

“Ask any small business owner — if your customers can’t reach you, your doors won’t be open for long,” Ernst told FOX Business. “The SBA should be operating on Main Street, but there may be a ‘closed for business’ registration at the agency because it is nearly impossible to reach anyone since all officials are out of office permanently.”

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He added, “I can think of no better way to help the SBA connect with the people it serves than to take some of the staff out of Washington and move them across the country.”

Ernst is the founder and chairman of the Senate caucus “DOGE”, which supports the efforts of the incoming Trump administration’s Department of Labor, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who have vowed to force federal employees who work remotely to return to the office. But the GOP lawmaker has been at war with government employees who “abuse” the phones for years.

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Last week, Ernst released a report saying the federal government has “long-term unemployment,” and called for federal workers to be moved to DC, adopt a “use it or lose it” approach to government real estate, and track individual employee productivity. and include it in their right to telecommute.