Braving pouring rain, federal employees, union leaders, and lawmakers rallied on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to protest what they called a growing threat to the merit-based civil service as the Trump administration pushes efforts to weaken job protections across the government.

President Donald Trump will address a joint session of Congress for the first time in five years on Tuesday, delivering a speech six weeks into his administration’s dramatic realignment of American policies and priorities.

The decision is a blow to the Trump administration’s effort to drastically and quickly shrink the federal bureaucracy.