One of the most difficult debates right now is whether the new career civil servant classification is a good thing or a bad thing. It’s called “policy/career,” a new name for Schedule F. The Trump administration has willed it into being with an executive order. Longtime government accountability watcher Joe Spielberger, of the Project on Government Oversight, joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to make the case against this classification.
Interview transcript:
Tom Temin: And safe to say you don’t like the newly-constituted Schedule F, now known as policy/career. And why not?
Joe Spielberger: We are definitely not fans, Tom. So POGO, as I’m sure a lot of your listeners know, we’ve been following the original Schedule F from the very beginning. And as you mentioned, this is back under a new name Schedule Policy/Career. But what we’re emphasizing to people is that not only is this not just the same iteration of Schedule F, but it’s actually more dangerous than the original. So three points that I’ll just quickly emphasize are, one, this new policy actually increases the number of employees who are likely to be impacted. They do this by authorizing the director of OPM to include additional positions they feel are appropriate. It also creates more confusion about whether employees should elevate their loyalty to the Constitution or the president’s policy agenda. So one section in this executive order, it says that employees are not required to personally support the president or administration policies. But then it immediately says that they can be terminated if they don’t faithfully implement the president’s policies consistent with their oath to the Constitution and the vesting of executive authority solely in the president. And it’s deliberately confusing because there are, of course, times when your oath of office might conflict with the president’s directives, like if you’re asked to obey an illegal order or if you want to make a protected disclosure about executive branch abuse of power, for example. And so it really makes people question where and how they should place their loyalty. And the third big thing is that this new policy includes additional language that seems to be an attempt to shield it from legal challenges. And as you’re aware, this is now being challenged by at least three separate lawsuits on different issues.
Tom Temin: Yes, it is. I mean, the White House in the order itself, one of the earliest ones that came out, they cite sections 3301, 3302 and 7511 of Title 5. And I haven’t read those sections of that statute. But the question is, is it legal or not legal? And that seems to be debatable at this point.
Joe Spielberger: That’s definitely the question. So we are following these three lawsuits very carefully, all three of which implicate different legal questions. And so there are questions under the Civil Service Reform Act, questions about the Administrative Procedure Act and then there are additional constitutional concerns as well. So under the Civil Service Reform Act, of course, this is where the Trump administration exploited this loophole that excludes civil service protections from applying to so-called confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating positions. Historically, this was always understood to refer to political, non-career appointees. And of course, they’re trying to really expand this definition to go way beyond that to include, as we saw under the original Schedule F, people in positions like IT personnel, HR professionals, FOIA officers and a lot of people in positions that we would not normally consider to be policy-related. And so to the extent that the executive order and the subsequent OPM guidance without these specific categories of employees, they’re really trying to distance this policy from that historical understanding. And of course, just changing the name to policy/career also seeks to blur that line between career civil servants and political appointees.
Tom Temin: By the way, who is doing the suing so far?
Joe Spielberger: So the three lawsuits that have been filed so far. The first was the National Treasury Employees Union and they were the first to file against the original Schedule F back when that was starting to be implemented. The second is filed by Democracy Forward and CREW on behalf of PEER. And then the third, which was most recently filed, is AFGE and AFSCME.
Tom Temin: Got it. OK. We’re speaking with Joe Spielberger. He’s policy counsel at the Project on Government Oversight. And, I mean, what are people offering as an alternative to what some at least perceive as insufficient accountability over the performance of federal employees? And this is another one of these endless debates. There are a certain few 10,000 employees who are fired every year. But I think even in the federal bureaucracy, people would say, ‘Yeah, it’s really hard to get rid of poor performers.’ So is this a clumsy way of doing that? Is there an alternative that would be fairer and more accountable, do you think?
Joe Spielberger: One quick historical point that I’ll just add, if it’s helpful, is you might remember back during the first Trump administration, Congress passed a new law that provided additional authority for the Department of Veterans Affairs to discipline and fire their employees. And what we saw then is that that agency took that authority and used that not to go after corrupt senior officials, but really targeted low-level employees for really minor infractions. And so I think that’s a good example that shows the issue is not providing agencies with additional authority to discipline and fire, but really, we need a willingness on the agency’s behalf to actually target the corrupt senior officials that they’re oftentimes protecting. Additionally, POGO is a huge supporter of civil servants and especially who blow the whistle on waste, fraud, abuse of power and other corruption. We know, as do members of Congress, the critical role that whistleblowers play to provide that type of accountability that you’re asking about. And so one great way to get more accountability is to both strengthen protections for whistleblowers and to work within agencies to change the culture so that we really celebrate whistleblowing and celebrate whistleblowers for the important work that they’re doing that has a direct role in increasing accountability across the government.
Tom Temin: And if you look at this in the larger context of what people have said vaguely, but have said there is a need for some kind of civil service reform since it’s been getting on close to 50 years since the last round of civil service reform, which happened during the Carter administration. It’s another example of Congress kind of watching things happen and complaining about it between opposing megaphones and opposing lawsuits. And then another Democratic president would reverse it the other way and so on and so forth. We get this whipsawing in the absence of Congress to really take any serious debate and serious action on anything, any of the public issues facing the nation.
Joe Spielberger: We are really looking towards Congress to reassert their legislative authority, appropriations authority and certainly to conduct robust oversight of the executive branch during this term and moving forward. POGO has a strong historical reputation of working across the aisle with Republicans and Democrats in Congress. As you mentioned, it’s gotten harder and harder to really get in and work on a bipartisan way and in a way where we can actually make those fundamental reforms that we really need. Oftentimes, from the advocacy perspective, we are just trying to plug loopholes and push the ball forward as much as we can, even though everyone seems to recognize the need for these larger, more fundamental reforms that will really create much more accountability across the federal government that we all want to see.
Tom Temin: And in the meantime, what’s your handicap on these lawsuits against Schedule F for career/policy?
Joe Spielberger: I think anyone should be hesitant about making a guess about what the courts will decide on all of these issues. Like I mentioned, all three of these lawsuits indicate many different legal arguments. We’re certainly anticipating a lot more lawsuits to come, especially because none of the lawsuits that have been filed as of yet have asked for a preliminary injunction to block this policy. And that’s probably because no employee has actually been affected yet. And so, again, we’ll be watching this really closely and will be anticipating a lot more lawsuits to be filed, implicating a lot of different legal and constitutional arguments.
Copyright
© 2025 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
