A Trump administration proposal to make it easier to fire federal employees is drawing closer to completion.
The rule by the Office of Personnel Management to create a new category of civil servant, now called Schedule Policy/Career, entered review under the White House’s regulatory hub on Thursday, according to a notice posted online.
The policy-influencing positions in this class will remain career jobs in the federal government but become at-will, allowing agencies to quickly remove staffers for misconduct, poor performance or obstructing the president’s agenda.
President Donald Trump proposed a similar initiative late in his first term, then known as Schedule F, which agencies did little to comply with as Trump left office. His successor, former President Joe Biden, revoked the order and finalized his own regulations to block the return of Schedule F.
Nevertheless, Trump revived the effort on his first day back in the White House. He signed an executive order that rescinded Biden’s civil service rule, required agencies to identify positions as Schedule Policy/Career and launched the rulemaking process at OPM.
Democratic lawmakers and federal worker unions have fiercely opposed the creation of the new federal employee class. They argue it will reintroduce the corrupt patronage system into the civil service while forcing nonpartisan experts out of the government.
The rule could be finished soon. “Final Action” on the regulation is slated for this month, according to a notice on Reginfo.gov, which is managed by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
An OPM spokesperson declined to comment when asked about the status of the regulation.
The personnel agency is also facing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit related to the rule.
The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents employees in 38 federal agencies, filed suit on Friday after OPM ignored its request for information regarding positions agencies have petitioned OPM to transfer into Schedule Policy/Career. The union asked that the personnel office release the records and award NTEU its costs for attorney fees and expenses as part of the suit.
NTEU President Doreen Greenwald said in a statement, “The government cannot hide information that is critical to safeguarding workplace rights and protections for frontline federal employees in multiple agencies across the country.
“We expect OPM and the administration to identify as soon as possible which federal jobs are being targeted so we can do everything we can to stop the reclassifications,” Greenwald said.
The union also filed a different lawsuit in January against Trump’s order creating Schedule Policy/Career, which is still pending in federal court.
The OPM spokesperson referred questions about the FOIA lawsuit to the Department of Justice, which doesn’t comment on pending litigation as a matter of protocol.
Other agencies have not shared which of their employees could be reclassified in the new category.
EPA withheld records while the Interior Department redacted documents in response to FOIA requests by POLITICO’s E&E News earlier this year.
Contact this reporter on Signal at KevinBogardus.89.
