President Biden has nominated Raymond Limon to serve as Vice Chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board of Directors. As the second recent nominee, this would be enough to finally restore a quorum at the agency.
The other key nominee was announced in April when Cathy Harris was nominated to be the next chairman at the MSPB.
A White House press release provided the bio for Raymond Limon:
Raymond A. Limon is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Capital and Diversity, and Chief Human Capital Officer, and he is a career member of the Senior Executive Service at the Department of the Interior (DOI). His Directorate provides strategic human capital; safety/health; and training policies and services for the Department’s 70,000 plus employees serving in over 350 occupations and 2,400 locations. Before joining DOI, Limon led the State Department’s Civil Service HR Management office. Ray has also served as the Chief Human Capital Officer at AmeriCorps (or the Corporation for National and Community Service), and chaired the Small Agency Human Resources Council, representing approximately 100 Federal agencies and organizations. He was also an attorney at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Office of General Counsel specializing in employment litigation and policy review; and he served as OPM’s Director of the Office of Administrative Law Judges (ALJs), where he managed the government-wide personnel system for ALJs. Limon received his J.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington, and he is a former Peace Corps Volunteer (Honduras).
Assuming both nominees are confirmed by the Senate, it would restore a quorum at the MSPB. This will be especially relevant for federal employees who may be waiting for resolutions to their cases stuck in the backlog at the agency. As of late January, there was a backlog of over 3,000 cases at the MSPB.
