Schedule F appointment
[4] The Civil Service Rules and Regulations do not cover employees within the Schedule Policy/Career classification,[3] including due process and possibly collective bargaining rights.
[3][7][8] The Schedule Policy/Career classification includes "positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character not normally subject to change as a result of a Presidential transition".
[4] The idea for the Schedule F appointment was devised by James Sherk, a member of the advisory Domestic Policy Council who was seeking ways to prevent career civil service employees from resisting President Donald Trump's agenda.
[20][15] Although it was included in the House's version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023,[21][22][23][24] it was removed from the final bill and did not become a law.
[25][26] A similar bill, the Saving the Civil Service Act, was introduced in the 118th United States Congress,[27] but did not pass before the end of the Congressional term.
[28] In April 2024, the Biden administration put into effect a regulation named "Upholding Civil Service Protections and Merit System Principles" (89 FR 24982) that allows employees to keep existing job protections even if their positions were reclassified, preventing most of the effects of a reinstatement of Schedule F. While the regulation could be repealed by a future administration, it would delay any implementation by several months.
[29][30][11] In mid-2022, it was reported that Trump and his allies planned to reinstate the Schedule F provisions if he were elected to a second term,[1] including identifying around 50,000 workers who could be reclassified.
[25] In March 2023, reinstatement of Schedule F was included at a top of a list of proposals from the Trump 2024 presidential campaign,[31] while Ron DeSantis had written approvingly of it in his book The Courage to Be Free.
[32][33] The next month, it was reported that Project 2025, a coalition led by The Heritage Foundation, was preparing a personnel database that could be used to fill up to 20,000 potential Schedule F appointments in a future Republican administration.
It also removed language exempting the positions from the competitive hiring process, and moved final decision-making authority for conversions to the president, instead of the OPM Director.
Critics feared a transition from a non-partisan government of subject-matter experts to one where partisan or presidential loyalty tests had a role in the hiring process.
[40] Conversely, there was concern that political appointees of Trump, whose appointments are supposed to expire at the end of his term, could "burrow in" by being converted to positions that are harder to dismiss.
[41] The six authors, all infectious disease specialists and epidemiologists, wrote: We rely on the judgment of civil service experts to lead responses against the pandemic, inform the public, drive research, update guidance and review data supporting the use and distribution of vaccines and treatments to address the impacts of COVID-19.
Writing that he was a "lifelong Republican" who prided himself on having "served three Democratic and three Republican presidents,"[44] Sanders sent a letter to John D. McEntee, Presidential Personnel Office director, characterizing Executive Order 13957, which had purported to hold federal employees more accountable, as a transparent attempt to fill the government with those loyal to the president at the expense of experts loyal to the Constitution and the rule of law.
[47] Rachel Greszler, a fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said: "I really think that the order is unlikely to affect many of those workers because the overwhelming majority of federal employees are upstanding individuals, they're providing valuable knowledge and experience that the managers in the agency heads don't want to lose.
[35][48][49] Other critics have argued that Schedule F would threaten democracy, as it would make civil servants beholden to the party in power rather than the American people as a whole.
[52] Two days after the election, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts expressed support for Trump for, among other signature campaign-promises, his pledge to, "dismantle the deep state.
