Congressman Haskins & Congressman Mfume (Ds-MD)
These interviews took place just after the federal shutdown of October 1, 2025, and clarify the party position, including actions being taken.
Representative Kweisi Mfume (D-7th District-Maryland)
Q Fifty Stars: You seemed really fired up when you were speaking. What are the next steps for you as an individual Democrat, and what are the next steps for the party in dealing with the shutdown?
Rep. Mfume: The main thing for us now, since the Republicans are not here, we don’t know when we are going back into session–the main thing for us now is to reach out to financial institutions, to government agencies, to others, to try to get forbearance for this period of time right now, and when we come back, for people that are unable to pay their bills, that are late paying their bills. We need to make sure that that forbearance is something that we can try to guarantee. And that starts today, by reaching out to banks, credit unions, and everything else.
Q Fifty Stars: Do your offices directly get involved with that?
Rep. Mfume: Yeah. Well we did that during Covid. We wanted to make sure that we reached out to those institutions to provide forbearance to people who didn’t have any more income, and keep trying to pay their bills. I think that’s the responsible thing to do.
Q Fifty Stars: Historically during federal shutdowns, the salaries that federal employees miss is retroactively paid. Are you concerned that’s not going to happen if they get fired wholesale?
Rep Mfume: Well, I think if that happens there’s going to be riots across this country from people who are angry, because they have earned that. And they are not (out of) work through any fault of their own. They deserve to get any back-pat there is. We’ve always operated that way in this country, and I think we’ve had 15 or 16 shutdowns. This would be breaking that precedent, if something like that were to happen.
Q Fifty Stars: How do you think this one might be different than the last one? I think that one was pre-Covid (epidemic).
Rep. Mfume: I think there’s a meaner spirit at work now. among MAGA Republicans, who have taken their marching orders, and are mimicking the words of Donald Trump. And that is the real difference. It’s a much meaner spirit. I talked about him draping his flag of his picture over the (U.S. Department of) Labor building, which is kind of Insulting. Today, the head of the Social Security Administration sent out a letter, saying, OK, we’re going to shut down, and we’re going to see how this goes, but he begins the letter by saying, this is a Democratic shutdown. Democrats are responsible for you not getting paid. That’s just…
Comment: Fifty Stars: That’s not professional. Or it’s not objective.
Rep. Mfume: It’s a non-partisan position. The Commissioner (of the Social Security Administration) serves a six-year term. So they would serve under one President. If there’s a new President they would serve under another. So, it’s not very professional at all.
Representative Jamie Raskins (D-7th District-Maryland)
Q Fifty Stars: (Omitted accidentally)
Rep. Raskins: Well, there have been 400 lawsuits brought against this reign of lawlessness since January, and Trump has lost more than ninety percent of the cases in the district courts. He’s lost overwhelmingly on the U.S. Appeals courts. Of course he’s got his friends on the U.S. Supreme Court, so when he gets it (legal cases) into the emergency shadow docket, they’ve been able to get a bunch of them reversed. But still, the vast majority of the cases he’s lost.
So if they decide they want to engage in some more illegal mass firings of federal workers, we’ll be there to meet them in court.
Q Fifty Stars: So basically Congress has the power of the purse, but there’s a friction point where the executive has some ability to affect who works where?
Rep. Raskins: Well, under Article 2 of the Constitution, the President’s core job is to quote “take care that the laws are faithfully executed”. So he has no right to fire workers outside of the civil service provisions, or to violate people’s contracts. And that’s the big Constitutional showdown that we are approaching perhaps. He’s going to claim that he has the right to fire whomever he wants, whenever he wants, and that the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 is unconstitutional. And we are going to be there to defend it.
Q Fifty Stars: This could come down to contract law then, with individual federal contracts?
Rep. Haskins: What the civil service provides for is for giving due process before they’re fired. They can only be fired for failure to meet the responsibilities of their job, or some other kind of professional misconduct. They don’t have that on any of these people. They just want to fire them for completely political reasons.
Q Fifty Stars: Is there a timeframe for stuff to get legally worked out with that? Is there a precedent now, with all the lawsuits?
Rep. Haskins: Well, it’s been going on for months. You know, they claim the right to fire whomever they want for political reasons, of course, that is the essence of the civil service, that you can’t be fired for political reasons. It’s to protect people from being fired because of party patronage.
Q Fifty Stars: The judiciary has been pretty-much fast tracking this stuff?
Rep. Haskins: Yeah, and the courts have overwhelmingly been siding with the workers
Q Fifty Stars: So whatever happens, if people do get laid off, it might not be for very long?
Rep. Haskins: Right. Also under the RIFS (Reductions-in-Force), which they have apparently called for, they have to be given 60 days notice.
Q Fifty Stars: Comment: Oh, OK. So, a lot of paper work.
Rep. Haskins: Yeah. (chuckles a little)
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