White House Unveils New Safeguards to Protect Nonpartisan Civil Servants

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Friday announced new safeguards intended to bolster job protections for career civil servants.

The new rule was issued through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which said on its website the measure both “clarifies and reinforces long-standing protections and merit system principles for career civil servants.”

In 2020, then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order that allowed thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the nation’s 2.2 million federal employees to be reclassified as political appointees under a newly created job category called “Schedule F.”

The new category applied to any federal employee who could be said to be in a policy-related position, and made it easier to fire them.

Just days after taking office, President Joe Biden revoked that executive order on the grounds that the Trump policy would strip career civil servants of long-standing protections that ensured decisions on whether to hire or fire them were based on merit rather than political considerations.

But with Trump once again on the presidential campaign trail promising his followers he will “drain the swamp” and send members of the “deep state” packing, the administration apparently decided the time had come to bolster Biden’s executive order with a rule to further advance his policy goals.

Among other things, the new rule clarifies that the status and civil service protections an employee has accrued cannot be taken away by an involuntary move from the competitive service to the excepted service, or from one excepted service schedule to another. 

Once a career civil servant earns protections, that employee retains them unless waived voluntarily, the Office of Personnel Management said. 

The rule also clarifies that the phrase “confidential, policy determining, policymaking or policy-advocating” positions — a term of art to describe positions that lack civil service protections — means non-career, political appointments. 

The idea is to prevent that exception from being misapplied to career civil servants.  

Finally, it establishes procedural requirements for moving positions from the competitive service to the excepted service and within the excepted service. 

This change both creates transparency and establishes an appeals process for federal employees when any such movement is involuntary and characterized as stripping employees of their civil service protections, the Office of Personnel Management said. 

“Today, my administration is announcing protections for 2.2 million career civil servants from political interference, to guarantee that they can carry out their responsibilities in the best interest of the American people,” Biden said in a written statement. 

“Day in and day out, career civil servants provide the expertise and continuity necessary for our democracy to function. They provide Americans with lifesaving and life-changing services and put opportunity within reach for millions,” he continued. 

“That’s why since taking office, I have worked to strengthen, empower and rebuild our career workforce. This rule is a step toward combating corruption and partisan interference to ensure civil servants are able to focus on the most important task at hand: delivering for the American people,” Biden said.

Right now, about 4,000 federal employees are considered political appointees, people who typically move out of government — or at least their former roles — when a new administration takes office.

Trump’s Schedule F would have dramatically increased the number of employees deemed to be political appointees, and it’s a policy that could return if he’s elected to a second term.

In a speech before the America First Policy Institute ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Trump said there is real need to make it “much easier to fire rogue bureaucrats” who he said were “deliberately undermining democracy.”

During the same July 2022 appearance before the right-of-center think tank and advocacy organization, Trump also called on Congress to pass “historic reforms” that included giving the president the almost unfettered ability to fire any government employee at will.

He said this would ensure that any bureaucrat deemed “corrupt,” “incompetent” or merely “unnecessary” could be told, shades of his old TV show “The Apprentice,” “You’re fired, get out.”

Opponents of Trump’s plan, mainly Democrats, argue a revival of Schedule F or something  similar during a second Trump administration would sow chaos and potentially disrupt the delivery of critical services.

Among these are Kiran Ahuja, director of the Office of Personnel Management, who said in a statement on the agency’s website that the new rule “honors our 2.2 million career civil servants, helping ensure that people are hired and fired based on merit and that they can carry out their duties based on their expertise and not political loyalty.”

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the former House majority leader, agreed, praising Biden for shielding “2.2 million nonpartisan federal workers from political interference.” 

“As someone who is proud to represent more than 80,000 federal employees, I know that they are some of the most able, dedicated and principled Americans around,” Hoyer said in a statement. “Whether upholding our national security, enforcing the law of the land or providing vital services to the American people, their work is crucial to our nation’s success. Federal employees deserve to do that essential work without fear of political retribution.

“With former President Trump determined to use Schedule F to remove tens of thousands of federal employees for political purposes, we must strengthen these protections even further so that they can continue putting people over politics,” Hoyer continued. “I’ve been proud to stand against efforts to vilify and punish our hardworking federal employees — from speaking out against House Republicans’ use of the Holman Rule to advocating for better pay and benefits for our federal workers.”

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue