Trump’s new Schedule F executive order is smarter, but could still backfire 

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President Trump’s re-instatement of his “Schedule F” executive order, making it easier to fire career federal employees, includes a notable change from the version introduced in his first administration: An explicit acknowledgment that the employees do not need to support the current president or his policies, though they do have to enact the policies. 

The change was presumably made to counter likely court challenges to the executive order on First Amendment grounds. That’s not likely to prevent those critics from making the argument that the order amounts to an unconstitutional loyalty oath, but they may have a harder time convincing the courts of it.  

The section in question reads:  

“Employees in or applicants for Schedule Policy/Career positions are not required to personally or politically support the current President or the policies of the current administration. They are required to faithfully implement administration policies to the best of their ability, consistent with their constitutional oath and the vesting of executive authority solely in the President.  Failure to do so is grounds for dismissal.” 

Getting rid of civil service protections for federal employees is a blunt force attempt to reshape the federal government that creates a precedent that Republicans may regret. The next Democratic administration would have the same power to dismiss workers who “didn’t get with the program,” so to speak – and Democrats are likely to have a much easier time finding people to fill those spots. Democrats could use Trump’s order to purge the federal workforce of sticklers for the rules and replace them with liberal activists willing to bend those same rules. As my CEI colleague Ryan Young has noted, “The least-followed rule in politics is not giving yourself any power you don’t want your opponents to also have.”  

The “Schedule F” executive order is, broadly speaking, an attempt to address a long-standing problem with the federal government, namely, that civil service protections make it more bloated and sclerotic. Bureaucrats can drag their feet when it comes to executive office policies they disagree with, safe in the knowledge that they’ll probably outlast the current administration. 

This was a particular problem for Trump, who was continually frustrated by institutional resistance to his agenda. He saw it as a conspiracy within the government to undermine him. “Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state,” he said a 2023 campaign rally.  

Trump’s first “Schedule F” executive order was issued in October 2020, just three months before the end of first Trump administration, giving it no real time to take effect. It was blocked by the Biden administration once it took over. Reissuing the executive order on day one of Trump’s second administration and changes in the new version indicate that the president means business this time. 

The American Federation of Government Employees said that re-issuing the executive order was “a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons.” The ink on the order was barely dry when the National Treasury Employees Union sued to overturn it. 

The executive order could make as many as 50,000 federal employees subject to firing, something the civil service rules otherwise prevent. The figure is speculative, however. It’s unclear how many Trump would give pink slips to. A Cato Institute study by Thomas Firey published last year noted that during the first Trump administration, the president struggled just to fill the 4,000 vacant positions he has appointment power over ordinarily. The administration regularly left more than 1,000 of those positions unoccupied. It is hard to imagine the second administration having the people standing by to replace an additional 50,000 federal workers.