Many ACOEL members have served or are serving in the Federal government either as career civil servants or as political appointees. All of us know many federal employees at EPA, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice, the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies. We regularly work with them. They are a part of our community.
These federal employees are important to our Nation’s well being. We know from first hand experience of their dedication, expertise and knowledge in the face of great challenges and often shifting political winds. We have observed them for many years, indeed for many decades. The career civil service is not immune from criticism and there are certainly worthwhile actions that can and should be taken to improve efficiency and productivity. But, despite whatever flaws may exist in the civil service, administration after administration has relied on it to implement its chosen policies.
I drafted a monograph for Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment as part of its examination of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025: Mandate For Leadership. My monograph, Project 2025 Envisions Eliminating Civil Service Protections for Thousands of Highly Experienced and Knowledgeable Career Civil Servants addresses Project 2025’s personnel policies. My research revealed that one of Project 2025’s many recommendations is to reinstate the Trump Administration’s Executive Order 13957 that created Schedule F, a new category of civil service employees. Such an Executive Action could mean that many of the civil servants we rely on for their expertise and knowledge could lose their jobs.
Schedule F allowed career federal employees to be transferred into positions that lack the normal civil service protections. This means they could be fired without cause. New hiring of Schedule F employees could be done without regard to standard competitive service position requirements and processes. Schedule F could impact many experienced and knowledgeable career civil servants with legal, management, science, technical and other specialized expertise. Tens of thousands of the most experienced career civil servants, including many agency lawyers, could be moved to less secure positions and then fired. Political loyalists could take their place.
In the short term, adopting Schedule F provides an administration with a tool to weed out career civil servants that it believes don’t share its political philosophy. However, the next time an administration with a different philosophy takes office, the prior administration’s hires will be shown out the door. There are ample tools to address civil service performance issues without such radical change. Schedule F will create a revolving door that will make it harder for any administration, liberal or conservative, to govern. As a community, we should be well informed about the direction the Heritage Foundation is recommending.
