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For Immediate Release
May, 26 2026, 02:17pm EDT
Contact:
Cheston McGuire,Phone:,202-639-6453,Email:,cheston.mcguire,@afge.or,g
AFGE Blasts Administration’s Proposed NDA Rule as Yet Another Attack on Non-Partisan Federal Employees
New rule from Office of Personnel Management would require employees at participating agencies to sign non-disclosure agreements as condition of employment
American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley issued the following statement in response to a proposed rule by the Office of Personnel Management, to be published tomorrow in the Federal Register, that would require current and prospective employees at participating agencies to sign non-disclosure agreements as a condition of employment:
“OPM continues its efforts to silence federal employees. This proposed NDA is another attempt by the administration to purge the civil service of nonpartisan career employees and replace them with loyalists who won’t speak out against waste, fraud, and abuse. Federal employees do not surrender their First Amendment rights when they accept federal employment, and the public has a right to know about this administration’s abuses.
“OPM claims the form will be ‘optional’ for agencies to use and merely restates existing law. We know that will not be true. OPM will pressure agencies to make the NDA mandatory and then fire employees who refuse to sign it.
“Moreover, federal agencies already have extensive policies and procedures in place for preventing the unauthorized release of classified or privileged information. This proposed rule sweeps in an extraordinarily broad category of information, extending restrictions to the very material the public relies on to learn when an administration is causing harm. AFGE will submit comments on the proposed rule and urges OPM to withdraw it.”
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union proudly representing 700,000 federal and D.C. government workers nationwide and overseas. Workers in virtually all functions of government at every federal agency depend upon AFGE for legal representation, legislative advocacy, technical expertise and informational services.
(202) 737-8700LATEST NEWS
Rights Groups Warn of Disaster as Trump-GOP Work Requirements Risk Mass Medicaid Loss
“These work requirements address a problem that doesn’t exist," said one researcher. "They just strip healthcare from millions of low-income people by making it harder for them to prove they qualify.”
May 26, 2026
A pair of leading humanitarian groups warned Tuesday that millions of people will soon be "at risk of an avoidable loss of healthcare coverage" as states move to implement new Medicaid work requirements, which were at the center of the reconciliation package enacted by congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump last year.
Oxfam America and Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned in a joint letter to top federal health officials that the work requirements—which mostly target adults in states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act—will result in a massive surge in the uninsured population if concrete steps aren't taken to mitigate coverage losses.
The groups point to a Congressional Budget Office analysis projecting the Trump-GOP budget law "will cause roughly 10 million people to lose health insurance coverage by 2034," increasing "the number of uninsured people in the US by nearly 50%, exposing millions of people to high drug and hospital costs, and forcing many to forgo or ration healthcare."
Under the 2025 law, people subject to the work requirements must document 80 hours per month of work or another qualifying activity.
"Work requirements are sold as sensible, pragmatic reforms, but the lived reality couldn’t be more different."
Analysts have warned that the new work reporting mandates—which account for around $326 billion of the Trump-GOP law's total cuts to Medicaid—will create massive administrative hurdles and burdens for Medicaid recipients and for states. Given that most Medicaid recipients already work, experts say coverage loss from the new mandates will largely be attributable to enrollees' failure to comply with byzantine reporting procedures.
“Work requirements are sold as sensible, pragmatic reforms, but the lived reality couldn’t be more different,” said Jackson Gandour, senior policy advisor for economic justice at Oxfam America. “In practice, evidence shows they can create unfair and effectively insurmountable barriers for people who need coverage and are making every effort to meet the requirements.”
The federal work requirements are set to formally take effect in most states by January 2027—though some states are rushing forward with the mandates ahead of schedule, heightening fears of chaos and large-scale coverage loss. By June 1, federal agencies must issue guidance to states on how to implement the new Medicaid work requirements.
Oxfam and HRW urged the Trump administration to do all it can to mitigate coverage loss, including by "reducing documentation requirements, broadly interpreting exemptions, and recognizing a wide range of qualifying activities that reflect real labor conditions, including gig work, unpaid caregiving, and seasonal employment."
A 36-year-old woman in Atlanta, Georgia—which has state-level work requirements that predate the Trump-GOP mandates—told the humanitarian groups that she lost Medicaid and nutrition assistance after her child was born late last year, despite working sufficient hours to comply with Georgia's requirements.
“After I had the baby, my Medicaid and food stamps were turned off,” she said. “[They] said that I failed to report that I was working."
The woman said she's spent months trying to restore her coverage, encountering chaos and administrative barriers.
“It’s hectic,” she said. “You’re not able to reach anybody.”
The Urban Institute has estimated that even if strong mitigation measures are put in place, around 3 million people could lose Medicaid coverage due to the new federal work requirements.
“These work requirements address a problem that doesn’t exist since most Medicaid recipients are already working,” said Matt McConnell, economic justice and rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They won’t fix the budget. They just strip healthcare from millions of low-income people by making it harder for them to prove they qualify.”
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Tax Refunds From GOP’s Big Ugly Bill ‘Largely Erased’ Thanks to Illegal Iran War: Expert
"By our reckoning, wage growth has steadily lost ground relative to the pace of inflation since the middle of last year," said one economist.
May 26, 2026
Congressional Republicans had been hoping their political standing would improve this spring when American voters received larger refunds thanks to changes in US tax law made under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
However, The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that much of the projected fiscal stimulus from the larger refunds has already been swallowed up by the rise in gas and energy prices caused by President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran, and the financial situation could grow even worse in the coming months.
Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY Parthenon, told The Financial Times that "the tax refunds have been largely erased by the increase in Middle East price pressures," and warned that "the longer the conflict lasts, the more we move to an adverse scenario where inflation proves more persistent and erodes consumer spending growth."
Nathan Sheets, global chief economist at Citigroup, told The Financial Times that the Iran war has only accelerated problems for US consumers who were already facing high pressures from the cost of living.
"By our reckoning, wage growth has steadily lost ground relative to the pace of inflation since the middle of last year," Sheets said. "First President Trump’s tariffs and, more recently, Iran-related pressures on oil and commodity prices have pushed up prices relative to wages."
US retailers have been expecting the positive impact of the tax refunds to dwindle, with Target CFO Jim Lee telling The Financial Times that they "will be fading over the rest of the year" as Americans are using larger shares of their incomes to pay for basics such as food and energy.
Lee's concerns were echoed by Walmart CFO John David Rainey, who told CNBC last week that while tax refunds have been helping Americans buffer the costs associated with the Iran war, that financial cushion is shrinking by the day.
“I think higher tax returns muted some of the pressure related to higher fuel prices," said Rainey, "and as we’re in a period of time right now where those tax refunds are largely not coming in, I think consumers are going to feel more of that pressure from higher fuel prices."
Walmart's stock price on has fallen sharply over the last week despite strong quarterly earnings, as investors express concerns that low-income consumers are feeling squeezed financially.
As reported by The New York Times, Walmart noted in its most recent earnings call that "sales continued to be driven by its low-price private label goods and higher-income households trading down to stretch their budgets," suggesting that consumers are under increasing distress.
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Citing 'Intentional Race-Based Discrimination,' Court Blocks Alabama's GOP-Rigged Electoral Map
“We reject in the strongest possible terms the state’s attempt to finish its intentional decision to dilute minority votes with a veneer of legislative regularity," said the panel of three judges—two of them Trump appointees.
May 26, 2026
A three-judge panel on Tuesday temporarily blocked Alabama from using a Republican-drawn congressional map created to effectively disenfranchise Black people, who make up more than one-quarter of the population of a state that, by GOP design, has just one majority-Black House district.
United States Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus, a nominee of former President Bill Clinton, and District Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer—both of whom were nominated by President Donald Trump—granted a motion by Alabama state Sen. Bobby Singleton (D-24); Black voters, and groups including the national and state ACLU, the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, Legal Defense Fund, and Southern Poverty Law Center to block the state from using a racially rigged congressional map approved by the GOP-led Legislature in 2023.
The panel unanimously found that Alabama could not use the map because it “represents an intentional effort to crack the Black population in Alabama.”
“Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” the judges wrote.
🧵 The Supreme Court's Callais ruling made it harder to prove in court that a legislative map dilutes minority voting strength.But a three-judge panel today confirmed that intentional racial gerrymanders can still be struck down by federal courts.Here’s what you need to know about Alabama 👇
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— Democracy Docket (@democracydocket.com) May 26, 2026 at 10:31 AM
“Cracking” is the splitting of communities of color to dilute their power in a given district. The related practice of "packing" refers to placing people of color in the same district in order to prevent them from having greater political power in surrounding districts.
The same three-judge panel had blocked a previous attempt by Alabama Republicans to implement a congressional map lacking a second Black opportunity district in defiance of a US Supreme Court ruling affirming a lower court's order to create such a district.
"We do not lightly intrude in state affairs, but our previous review of the undisputed evidence left us in no doubt that Alabama’s legislatively enacted plan (the “2023 Plan”) intentionally discriminated based on race in violation of the Constitution," the three judges wrote in Tuesday's decision. "Our re-examination in light of Callais yields the same conclusion."
Last month, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines in Louisiana v. Callais that the Southern state's congressional map is “an unconstitutional racial gerrymander" because race—specifically, ensuring representation for Black voters—was the predominant factor in redistricting. The decision ironically voided the last remaining provision of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which allows voters of color to challenge racially discriminatory electoral maps in court.
Citing Callais, Alabama and other Southern states rushed to redraw their congressional maps to dilute Black voting power and satisfy requests from President Donald Trump for GOP-controlled state legislatures to rig districts for partisan gain ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Callais was followed by another 6-3 US Supreme Court ruling earlier this month, which found that Alabama could use the 2023 map, prompting liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor to dissent and point out that the high court previously found that “Alabama violated the 14th Amendment by intentionally diluting the votes of Black voters.”
That ruling came two days after Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey had signed legislation authorizing new primary elections if federal courts agreed to rescind the creation of the second Black opportunity district. Ivey's signature came despite ongoing primaries in Alabama.
Black voters sought a temporary restraining order against the 2023 map, arguing that the 14th Amendment still banned redistricting that was deliberately discriminatory, regardless of Callais.
“Alabama cannot use Callais to legitimize its pre-Callais decision to double down on the discriminatory vote dilution that we and the Supreme Court found,” the three judges wrote Tuesday. “And it cannot use Callais to legitimize the series of specific and unusual decisions it made to entrench that dilution."
Republican Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the state would immediately appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court.
“Know this—in my mind, it is not a matter of whether we win this case, only when," he asserted.
US Rep. Shomari Figures (D-Ala.), whose House seat would almost certainly be usurped by a Republican under the GOP-redrawn map, said in a social media post following Tuesday's ruling that "this is a significant step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go before this fight is settled."
NAACP Legal Defense Fund litigation director Deuel Ross told The Associated Press that Tuesday's ruling “again vindicated the constitutional rights of voters in the Black Belt, and our clients look forward to voting under a fair map this fall.”
Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation—an advocacy group supporting fair maps—said in a statement, "Justice prevailed today; Alabama must use its 2023 court-adopted map—a map with two Black opportunity districts—in this year's elections."
"Make no mistake, the fight for justice is far from over in states across the country where politicians are enacting gerrymanders on top of gerrymanders to erase equal representation for communities of color," she continued. "The message from this panel is clear: Courts must fulfill their independent duty to protect voters’ rights, not just rubber-stamp state officials’ efforts to use the Supreme Court’s Callais decision as an excuse to draw Black voters out of a say in our democracy."
"Politicians aiming to enact new gerrymanders in South Carolina, Georgia, and elsewhere should take note," Jenkins added.
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