Permanently Ban Schedule F

Schedule F, reintroduced in 2025 under the name Schedule Policy/Career, reclassifies approximately 50,000 career federal workers from the competitive service into an at-will category. Once reclassified, employees can be dismissed for failing to implement administration policies. The underlying executive order was rescinded in 2021, reinstated in 2025, and remains vulnerable to reversal by any subsequent administration. Only statutory prohibition provides durable protection.

What Schedule F does

In January 2025 the administration reinstated the 2020 executive order (EO 13957) and renamed the affected category Schedule Policy/Career. OPM estimates approximately 50,000 career positions, roughly two percent of the federal workforce, are eligible for reclassification. The affected positions are concentrated in policy-influencing roles: attorneys, scientists, economists, program managers, and inspectors. Once reclassified, employees lose access to the adverse-action procedures and appeals process established under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.

The 2025 order adds “failure to faithfully implement administration policies” to the grounds for dismissal. The order also states that employees “are not required to personally or politically support” the sitting president. The faithful-implementation standard applies whenever an employee’s professional conclusion conflicts with stated administration policy, regardless of whether the employee has expressed political views.

The statute

Executive orders do not provide durable protection for merit-system rules. EO 13957 was issued in 2020, rescinded in 2021 by EO 14003, reinstated in 2025, and is currently in federal litigation. Each change has occurred by executive action alone. A permanent prohibition requires statute.

The Saving the Civil Service Act (S. 134 / H.R. 492, 119th Congress) provides the legislative vehicle. Enacted with the provisions below, it would prevent future reclassification:

• Prohibit reclassification of competitive-service positions into new schedules that remove existing adverse-action protections, with no presidential waiver authority.
• Require OPM concurrence and the employee’s written consent before any transfer between schedules.
• Guarantee due process for every career federal worker facing dismissal: written charges, a hearing before an independent examiner, and appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
• Fund whistleblower rewards and anti-retaliation enforcement to match the size of the federal workforce, including full-time investigators, statutory damages, and the option of a jury trial for retaliation claims.
• Grant Congress standing to sue when executive orders attempt unlawful reclassification, and require payment of attorneys’ fees when employees prevail.

Precedent

Statutory protection of the federal merit system has two direct precedents. The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 established competitive hiring and prohibited dismissals for political reasons. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 codified the merit system principles now at 5 U.S.C. § 2301 and established the Merit Systems Protection Board. Both Acts moved personnel protections from executive prerogative into statute.

State-level implementations of at-will civil service provide comparative data. Georgia’s Act 816 (1996) removed civil service protections for new state hires and delegated personnel authority to agency heads. In a subsequent Partnership for Public Service review, more than 30 percent of Georgia HR professionals reported politically motivated terminations in their agencies. Annual attrition in Texas’s at-will state workforce is approximately 16 percent; federal civil service attrition was 5.9 percent in 2023. No published research finds that at-will employment improves agency performance.

First 100 days

Day one. The administration revokes the 2025 executive order, pauses all pending Schedule Policy/Career reclassifications, and directs OPM to reinstate the 2024 protective rule as an interim measure.

Day thirty. The Department of Justice files to reinstate every career employee dismissed under Schedule F during the previous administration, with back pay and make-whole relief. OPM publishes a registry of every reclassified position, including the signatory and the stated justification.

Day ninety. The President signs the Saving the Civil Service Act into law. A companion executive order requires each agency to publish quarterly reclassification transparency reports. Any future reclassification is disclosed at the time it occurs.

Effect of the protections

Career civil service protections at 5 U.S.C. § 2301 insulate the technical and enforcement work of federal agencies from direct political supervision of personnel decisions. The protections allow career employees to produce findings, enforce regulations, and conduct investigations without tying continued employment to the political preferences of the current administration. Schedule F and Schedule Policy/Career remove that insulation from the positions most directly involved in producing those findings.