Trump reinstates reworked Schedule F, expanding power to fire federal workers

Days after he was sworn into office on Monday, Trump signed an executive order giving him more authority over career federal employees, formerly known as “Schedule F. ”  The shift is a cornerstone in a broader efforts to grip in the size and scope of the federal government, an matter he and his alliance, Tesla founder Elon Musk, spoke about a bit on the campaign trail.

“We’re getting free of all of the tumor — I call it tumor — the cancers caused by the Biden administration, ” Trump said as he signed the order.

The order restates one issued in the last time of the past Trump administration and immediately undone by former President Joe Biden that would make a new category of job federal workers who could be removed based on policy considerations. Formerly, they would have been labeled “Schedule F” people. This order would categorize them as “policy/career ” employees.

The order  is meant  to render government employees more adaptable to the leader and to avoid what Trump has termed “the strong state” from obstructing his plan. Critics have argued that it would destroy the quality of the government.

The purchase makes it clear that employees in query are not required to physically or socially support the current president or policies of the administration, but that they “are required to faithfully apply administration policies to the best of their ability, constant with their legal oath and the vesting of executive authority only in the president. ”

“Failure to do so is grounds for dismissal, ” it adds.

Biden rolled back Trump’s Schedule F rule shortly after entering office, and Trump will face some obstacles in imposing Schedule F because the Office of Personnel Management finalized a rule in April 2024 against reclassifying workers, part of a consolidated effort by the administration to Trump-proof the federal government.

Presidents can appoint some 4,000 officials in the federal workforce, but Schedule F would give the president control over about 50,000 federal workers. That is still a mere fraction of the 2. 2 million people employed by the federal government.

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Proponents of Schedule F see it as a way of streamlining the federal government by giving the executive more power to cut into perceived administrative state bloat, but opponents fear it could end up politicizing the federal workforce.

Just after the latest order was signed, a federal employees union, the National Treasury Employees Union, filed a lawsuit in U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the move, which is “contrary to congressional intent, ” union members said in their complaint.