President Trump issued an executive order today that revokes civil service protections for about 8,000 senior-level federal employees.
The new “schedule” for designated employees, called “Schedule Policy/Career,” strips protections for “adverse action procedures” and makes it easier to remove them.
The move follows earlier efforts by President Trump to establish a “Schedule F,” which would have effected the same result, but likely for many more employees. The move also follows regulations recently implemented by the Office of Management and Budget that authorize the President to designate employees for the new Schedule Policy/Career.
The Trump Administration describes the move as necessary to “increase accountability” for certain senior-level employees and allow their easy removal if they decline to follow the President’s directives.
Opponents say, among other things, that the move is part of the Trump Administration’s efforts to consolidate plenary control over the federal bureaucracy in the White House–that is, to politicize the federal bureaucracy–without regard to statutory protections for the civil service.
In other words, the move is part of the Administration’s efforts to promote, implement, and codify a strong version of the unitary executive theory (UET). UET is the constitutional theory that the President, as unitary head of the Article II branch, has plenary control over its officers and, for some, even its employees, irrespective of statutory protections that Congress enacts pursuant to its own constitutional powers.
Litigation will surely follow. Stay tuned.
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