Employee groups challenge ‘favorite EO’ question as agencies begin rollout

As federal agencies begin to propagate a controversial new series of essay questions to accompany most federal job announcements, one employee group has already challenged their legality.

Last month, the Office of Personnel Management published its "merit hiring plan," which comprised a mix of long in-development bipartisan reforms to the federal hiring process alongside anti-diversity measures and a new questionnaire for all applicants for federal positions GS-5 and above asking, among other things, for their favorite Trump administration policy or executive order.

“How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role?” the question states. “Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”

Those questions already are becoming a requirement of the hiring process; a job listing posted last week by the Interior Department for the superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial includes the questionnaire. However, responses are limited to “200 characters,” far short of OPM’s recommended 200-word maximum.

But Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an employee association made up of federal, state and local government workers, on Wednesday called on acting U.S. Special Counsel Jamieson Greer to take action against the questionnaire. The group argued that the executive order question in particular violates federal hiring laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of “non-performance-related factors” and political affiliation, and that it conflicts with merit system principles.

“In this instance, the identified question clearly appears designed to advantage Trump loyalists and disadvantage, or even disqualify, federal job applicants who are indifferent to or do not care for President Trump,” wrote PEER Executive Director Timothy Whitehouse. “In short, this required question functions as an illegal litmus test for federal job applicants.”

PEER called on OSC to warn federal hiring officials of their legal obligations under Title 5 of the U.S. Code and merit systems principles and to issue an advisory opinion encouraging OPM to withdraw its hiring plan to “conform with the legal requirements of the Civil Service Reform Act.”

“The principal point of the civil service system is to have a workforce insulated from political influences, which can serve presidents of different parties with different priorities equally well,” Whitehouse wrote. “The OPM hiring plan obviously undermines this foundation of a non-partisan federal civil service.”

National Treasury Employees Union National President Doreen Greenwald similarly decried the hiring plan, calling it a “solution in search of a problem.”

“Contrary to OPM’s overblown rhetoric, the frontline federal workforce has been built on merit and skill for more than a century,” she said. “Federal employees are hired through an intensive, competitive process that focuses on their qualifications and experience in their chosen field. This OPM plan substitutes that with a political loyalty test that the American people fully rejected in the late 19th century.”