The White House announced that President Trump intends to nominate the third Member to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
B. Chad Bungard of Maryland, will be nominated for a term of seven years expiring March 1, 2025.
Mr. Bungard currently serves as the Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Analytics, Review, and Oversight (OARO) at the Social Security Administration (SSA). He is responsible for providing executive leadership to more than 2,000 employees, including leading the Office of Anti-Fraud Programs and the Office of Appellate Operations, where SSA’s Administrative Appeals Judges adjudicate appeals from SSA’s Administrative Law Judges.
Previously, Mr. Bungard served as the General Counsel for the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) and Chief Counsel to the SSA Inspector General. He earlier served as the General Counsel for the United States Merit Systems Protection Board and also spent several years on the Hill in leadership roles, where he focused on oversight and government reform.
He started his career in private practice, where he primarily focused on Federal civil litigation. In addition to attaining his B.S., cum laude, from Liberty University and J.D. from Regent University School of Law, Mr. Bungard received an LL.M. in Law and Economics from George Mason University School of Law.
Status of MSPB Nominations
The MSPB currently has no sitting members and operated without a quorum for over two years before March 1, 2019.
The Senate has said that it would not advance the nominations of the other two members until a third was nominated, so now that has happened, presumably this process will begin to finally move forward in the Senate.
Administrative Judges (AJs) have continued to issue initial decisions on cases even though there is not a quorum at the agency. If a petition for review has not been filed, the AJ’s decision becomes the final decision of the Board and may be appealed to an appropriate court.
However, if either party files a petition for review to the MSPB, a Board decision cannot be issued until a quorum of at least two Board members is restored. This means that these types of cases have been growing in a backlog since a quorum was lost at MSPB.
Presumably with the nomination of the third member, the process will begin to move forward and the case backlog at MSPB will start to slowly be alleviated.
