Prison director gets power to hire staff without normal federal job tests.
H.R. 3342 — BOP Direct-Hire Authority Act · Filed by Glenn Grothman (R-WI) · 9 cosponsors · Introduced May 13, 2025 · Reported out
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
The bill gives the Director of the Bureau of Prisons new hiring power. The director can hire qualified people without the normal federal process. Normally, the government holds tests and ranks people by score. This bill skips those steps. The power ends once 96 percent of prison jobs are filled.
Who it affects
Prison workers, people in prison, and the public are affected. The bill changes how the government hires people to work in federal prisons.
One thing to notice
The bill removes the competitive exam and ranking process. It does not require the government to tell the public who gets hired.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
9 cosponsors: 9 Republicans.
- May 13, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- May 13, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Oversight and Government…”
- Sep 16, 2026 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- Sep 16, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 16 - 7”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- Bureau of Prisons — The federal agency that runs prisons for the U.S. government.
- competitive exam and ranking — Tests and scoring used to pick the best people for federal jobs.
- qualified — Having the skills and training needed for a job.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (629 characters) on Sep 18, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,358 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-09-19.
“Prison director gets power to hire staff without normal federal job tests.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr3342/simple Report an error