Congressional Dems urge rescission of Schedule F regulations

A group of 27 Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday urged the Trump administration to reverse course on plans to reinstate Schedule F and strip tens of thousands of federal employees of their civil service protections.

The Office of Personnel Management published proposed rules last month governing the revival of President Trump’s first-term effort to reclassify federal workers in “policy-related” roles outside of the competitive service, making them effectively at-will employees. OPM is accepting public comments on the proposal, now renamed Schedule Policy/Career, until May 23, after which the agency is expected to finalize the rules and President Trump to sign an executive order ordering the first round of job reclassifications.

In a letter to acting OPM Director Charles Ezell, a group of congressional Democrats led by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said the administration’s plan threatens to “upend” more than a century’s worth of laws aimed at insulating the civil service from partisan influence.

“The Trump administration has made clear its ambitions to undercut the nonpartisan civil service through the Schedule Policy/Career directive,” the lawmakers wrote. “Reclassifying civil service positions into the excepted service removes virtually all protections and rights currently afforded to civil servants. This includes due process and appeals rights that help ensure civil servants can conduct their duties without fear of politically motivated removal or retaliatory measures.”

The Democrats also questioned OPM’s estimate that Schedule Policy/Career would impact around 50,000 employees, or 2% of the federal workforce, citing Government Executive reporting on erstwhile Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek’s effort to convert whole offices and agency subcomponents into the new job classification.

“OPM’s directive to reschedule agency positions that have any involvement in policy will have devastating impacts not only on career civil servants and their families, but the communities that they serve,” they wrote. “OPM estimates that 50,000 positions, which account for approximately 2% of the civil service, will ultimately be moved into Schedule Policy/Career. However, OPM’s own failure to adequately define what factors constitute ‘confidential, policy-determining, policymaking or policy-advocating character’ leaves interpretation largely up to each agency and risks the policy being much more broadly implemented than initially disclosed.”

As of Wednesday, OPM had already received nearly 9,000 comments on its proposal to revive Schedule F, with more than 1,000 posted within the last 24 hours alone. The plan is also already the subject of multiple lawsuits challenging its legality.