President Joe Biden’s push to guard the federal workforce from political attacks has received additional heft as Election Day draws near.
The Office of Personnel Management released guidance Friday to implement its rule to strengthen protections for the civil service. The regulation is seen as a vital bulwark against a possible purge of career staff if former President Donald Trump retakes the White House.
“This final rule supports this policy and the nonpartisan, merit-based, career civil service which has been a hallmark of American government for over 140 years,” said Robert Shriver, OPM’s acting director, in the memo sent to heads of departments and agencies.
The regulation is in response to Trump’s late-stage attempt to reshape the civil service when he was last in office.
He signed an executive order in his last months as president to create Schedule F, a new class of career employee who could be fired more easily. Trump and his appointees at times faced resistance from civil servants during his prior administration, and reclassifying those staffers as essentially at-will could force them out of the government.
Yet few agencies responded to the order, and it had little effect. Soon after Biden came to the White House, he revoked the Schedule F order.
Nonetheless, Trump has pledged to dismantle agencies if he wins the election and would resurrect Schedule F to do so.
The OPM rule clarifies that federal career employees cannot lose their civil service status by forcibly reclassifying them as political appointees. In addition, it establishes procedures to move career positions into the political service and states that policymaking jobs are for political staff, not their career counterparts.
Included in the guidance is a question-and-answer section for agencies, requirements for moving employees into political positions and a form to submit if positions are transferred.
The guidance “is meant to assist agencies and employees in interpreting and applying certain requirements of the rule,” Shriver said in his memo.
Federal worker unions advocated for the personnel agency to issue a rule to guard against the return of Schedule F. OPM finalized the regulation in April, and it has been effective since May.
Still, the rule may only slow Trump’s firing spree if he is elected president again. He could launch a new rulemaking process to repeal Biden’s rule, which could take six months to a year to complete, once he is back in the White House.
