Trump’s plan to gut civil service protections was harsher than estimated

Trump’s plan to gut civil service protections was harsher than estimated

If Donald Trump becomes president again, his attack on the federal civil service could be much harsher than expected.

Just before the former president lost the 2020 election to President Biden, Trump issued an executive order designed to gut civil service job protections for workers across the government. It would have paved the way for the workers to be replaced with others, including political partisans, subject to termination at will — a move the Republican president backed because he felt nonpartisan bureaucrats were hampering many of his policies.

Trump has promised to reinstate the directive, which Biden quickly revoked after his inauguration. It created a new federal employment category, Schedule F, that would make federal jobs vulnerable to partisan political whims by weakening guardrails meant to ensure a nonpartisan bureaucracy.

Trump’s order in 2020 was supposed to be limited in scope, only applying to employees “in positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character” — a category projected to affect about 50,000 workers.

But one agency’s documents, obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), indicate that in fact the Trump administration’s plans were far bigger.

At its annual legislative conference Tuesday, NTEU released more than 200 pages of records it obtained demonstrating how Russell Vought, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director, planned to include a huge swath of his agency’s workforce in the order.

Vought “absurdly stretched the definition of policy work to cover the vast majority of the OMB workforce, from attorneys to GS-09 assistants and specialists who have nothing to do with setting government policy,” NTEU said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Vought did not respond to a request for comment.

Civil service protections provide due process for feds who are disciplined or dismissed, leading critics to argue that they make it too hard to fire them. Ultimately, however, it is the American public that benefits from these rules.

Due process prevents the White House and its political appointees from dumping employees for partisan reasons. While top-level agency employees are political appointees who advance a president’s agenda, civil servants are charged with implementing those policies in a nonpartisan manner. Due-process procedures for the civil service are designed to protect the public by ensuring it is served by a nonpartisan, nonpolitical bureaucracy. The 1883 Pendleton Act was passed to promote a federal workforce based on merit, not partisan bias.

Federal labor leaders are on offense now in case they must play defense next year if Trump is reelected and follows through on his promise to resurrect Schedule F. That’s one of several GOP policies — including Republican legislation that would roll back telework programs — that worries leaders at NTEU and other unions.

With Trump fully dominating the Republican primary season and strongly challenging Biden in presidential polls, the unions want to safeguard the protections while they can.

“Resurrecting Schedule F in the next Republican administration is designed to get rid of even more federal employees than anyone realized,” said NTEU President Doreen Greenwald. “That number could be much higher [than the 50,000 estimate] and sweep up all kinds of employees around the country,” she told reporters.

In fact, a 2022 Government Accountability Office report found that Schedule F would have applied to 68 percent of OMB’s small but powerful workforce. Although OMB is more of a policy-making shop than many agencies, anything near that percentage government-wide would severely upend the civil service, rendering it unrecognizable.

The OMB documents released by NTEU indicate that not only high-level OMB policymakers would be subjected to Schedule F. Mid-level administrative support assistants, office managers, program examiners and program specialist positions as low as GS-9 on the 15-level General Schedule employment scale also would be affected, according to the union.

Trump’s campaign did not reply to request for comment on the labor organization’s statements, but his intentions are clear.

When he released his “plan to dismantle the deep state” last year, Schedule F was item No. 1.

“First,” Trump said in the plan, “I will immediately reissue my 2020 executive order restoring the president’s authority to remove rogue bureaucrats. And I will wield that power very aggressively.”

But Biden administration plans could temper Trump’s aggression.

NTEU, which represents employees in 35 federal agencies and offices, filed a petition in December 2022 asking the Office of Personnel Management to issue regulations that would ensure employees shifted to a future Schedule F would retain their civil service protections. NTEU’s proposal also would establish procedures for OPM and other federal agencies to follow before moving workers from competitive civil service positions.

Five months later, fear of another Trump administration fueled union urgency.

“I ask you to direct OPM to act on NTEU’s petition promptly, so that regulations can be finalized before the 2024 election,” then-NTEU President Anthony Reardon wrote to Biden in May.

OPM’s proposed regulations would do what NTEU requested and define high-level policy positions “to mean noncareer, political appointments.” OPM also would provide employees the right of appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board if an action “purportedly strips employees of their civil service status and protections.”

The creation of new non-civil service employment categories “would be unnecessary and contrary to good administration principles,” says NTEU’s petition. “But if new schedules are created … such shifts must be done consistent with civil service laws and merit system principles.”

OPM expects the regulations will be final in April. “OPM is committed to protecting the rights of federal workers who deliver critical services for Americans in every community,” said Viet Tran, OPM’s press secretary.

Legislation introduced last year by Rep. Gerry Connolly and Sen. Tim Kaine, both Virginia Democrats, would prevent employees from being reclassified out of the civil service without congressional approval. The House bill has Republican co-sponsors, including Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.).

“Civil service employment should always be based upon merit and expertise, not political connections,” Fitzpatrick said when the bill was introduced. “… This legislation would ensure that political loyalties play no significant role in hiring federal employees.”