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Inspectors General Independence Act
To amend title 5, United States Code, to prohibit the appointment of political appointees as Inspectors General, and for other purposes.
Summary
The Inspectors General Independence Act prohibits the President from nominating individuals as Inspectors General if they are currently serving as political appointees or have previously served as political appointees under that same President. The bill defines political appointees according to existing law and applies this restriction to protect the independence of the Inspector General position. The legislation clarifies that Inspectors General themselves are not considered political appointees. This change prevents the appointment of individuals with recent political allegiances to lead federal agency oversight offices responsible for investigating misconduct and waste.
AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.
Sponsor (1)
- Sen. Duckworth, Tammy [D-IL] (D-IL)
7 cosponsors
- Sen. Blumenthal, Richard [D-CT] (D-CT)
- Sen. Durbin, Richard J. [D-IL] (D-IL)
- Sen. Gillibrand, Kirsten E. [D-NY] (D-NY)
- Sen. Merkley, Jeff [D-OR] (D-OR)
- Sen. Padilla, Alex [D-CA] (D-CA)
- Sen. Schiff, Adam B. [D-CA] (D-CA)
- Sen. Welch, Peter [D-VT] (D-VT)
Actions (2)
- Jan 15, 2026 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. · senate
- Jan 15, 2026 Introduced in Senate
Similar bills (6)
Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.
Text versions (1)
Bills are re-published as they move (Introduced → Reported → Engrossed → Enrolled …). Each stage below is a separate text; pick two to see what changed. Data from Congress.gov.
Full text
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
January 15, 2026
Ms. Duckworth (for herself, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Schiff, Mrs. Gillibrand, and Mr. Welch) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
A BILL
To amend title 5, United States Code, to prohibit the appointment of political appointees as Inspectors General, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Inspectors General Independence Act”.
SEC. 2. APPOINTMENTS.
Section 403(a) of title 5, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the first sentence the following: “The President may not nominate an individual to serve as an Inspector General if the individual is serving as a political appointee, as defined in section 9803, as of the date of the nomination or if the individual has previously served as a political appointee under such President. The position of Inspector General shall not be considered a political appointee for purposes of this subsection.”. <all>
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