Follow up to previous post – Proposed Rule on Schedule F Politicizes Career Employee Jobs – See also Government Executive: “OPM officials told agency HR leaders [November 18, 2025] that President Trump has Article II constitutional authority to remove tens of thousands of career federal workers in jobs over potential “resistance to policy.” Draft final regulations from the Office of Personnel Management will cite “accountability to the president” as grounds for stripping tens of thousands of federal employees of their civil service protections, according to excerpts reviewed by First devised late in President Trump’s first term and reissued in January, Schedule F—now renamed Schedule Policy/Career—is a new job classification within the government’s excepted service for “policy-related” positions. Employees in positions targeted for conversion would become effectively at-will employees. Last week, OPM promulgated an early copy of its final rule implementing the initiative to federal agencies for review and comment, a sign that its publication could be imminent. That followed all agencies recently turning over to OPM their proposed lists of positions for conversion, and the human resources agency making initial recommendations on those proposals. OPM estimated in its proposed rule issued in April that around 50,000 federal workers would be placed in the new job category, or around 2% of the civilian workforce. The updated regulations cite the president’s authority under Article II of the Constitution and appears to describe the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act and other laws insulating the federal workforce from politicization as “unconstitutional overcorrections” to the excesses of former President Richard Nixon, who resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal and efforts to make federal agencies more “politically responsive.”

Critical to the success of any presidency is the ability to implement an agenda endorsed by the American people free from antidemocratic, unaccountable bureaucratic resistance,” the rule states. “As explained in greater detail in the proposed rule, the federal service has matured to the point where the status quo removal restrictions are unconstitutional overcorrections over fears of a return to the spoils system of the past.” The final version of the rule still could be subject to change after agencies submit feedback.  According to an OPM email summarizing the regulations, the rule states that employees transferred into Schedule Policy/Career will no longer be protected by the removal protections in Chapter 75 of Title 5 of the U.S. Code or the right to adverse action appeals and unwinds the Biden administration’s regulations seeking to block the new job category’s resurrection. During a conference call for more than 200 agency HR leaders Tuesday, Noah Peters, a senior advisor to OPM Director Scott Kupor, argued that Congress granted the president the authority to exempt government jobs from civil service rules when it passed the CSRA…