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Give inspectors general enforceable for-cause removal protection and guarantee whistleblower retaliation claims can still be decided even when the Merit Systems Protection Board loses its quorum.
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AI-researched, unverifiedLast Reviewed
Jul 5, 2026
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What is failing, what we would change, and the conclusion we are willing to defend.
On January 24, 2025, the White House fired at least 17 inspectors general by email, citing "changing priorities," without the 30 days' notice and case-specific rationale the Inspector General Act has required since a 2022 law Congress passed specifically to prevent exactly this. Eight of the fired IGs sued. In September 2025, a federal judge ruled the firings unlawful, then let them stand, because the law that requires a reason attaches no working penalty for skipping it. The administration could simply refile the paperwork and fire the same people again.
That gap is what this issue addresses. An inspector general's whole job is investigating the officials who can fire them. A removal standard that amounts to giving a reason, any reason, thirty days ahead of time provides a courtesy notice and no independence.
The Innovation Party's position: convert the Inspector General Act's removal standard from notice-and-reason to enumerated cause, and guarantee that whistleblower retaliation claims can still be decided even when the boards that hear them lack enough confirmed members for a quorum.
Limit IG removal to inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office, the same language Congress has used for comparable offices since 1935 (see Extended for the standard's current legal footing). State explicitly that disagreement with an IG's findings or a general loss of confidence does not qualify.
Attach a consequence to the 30-day notice window: a removed IG keeps investigative and reporting authority during that period unless a court finds a specific, statutorily recognized emergency, instead of losing the office the moment the notice goes out.
Require any investigation open at the time of an inspector general's removal, resignation, or vacancy to transfer automatically to a career deputy inspector general or, absent one, to the Government Accountability Office, so the work survives a change in who holds the title even where the removal itself cannot be stopped.
Require GAO to certify, within 30 days of any inspector general removal, whether the administration's stated cause is supported by a documented performance record, and to publish that certification regardless of what it finds.
Require the Merit Systems Protection Board to maintain adjudicative capacity by statute, so a vacancy dropping the three-member Board below a quorum cannot again freeze whistleblower retaliation appeals for years, as happened from 2017 to 2022 and again for most of 2025.
Require an automatic acting-Special-Counsel succession at the Office of Special Counsel, activating the moment the Special Counsel is removed or the office's authority is under legal dispute, so its work doesn't freeze while a fight over the top job is litigated (see Extended for why OSC needs a different fix than MSPB's).
Restore full Whistleblower Protection Act coverage to civil servants whose job duties include investigating and reporting wrongdoing, closing a gap that currently leaves some of government's own watchdogs less protected than the employees they investigate on behalf of.
Require GAO to publish a public tracker of every IG and MSPB leadership removal, vacancy, and time without a quorum; every OSC leadership removal or succession-authority dispute; and, for each removal, the status of any investigation open at the time.
This is not a defense of any individual office-holder. It is a bet that the next president, of either party, should inherit watchdogs built to survive being disliked.
Turn frustration into useful pressure.
If this position misses evidence or a lived consequence, challenge it. If it holds up, help test it locally and connect it to the issues around it.