Schedule Policy/Career is a Weapon Against America’s Deep State Leviathan

One of the Trump administration’s key tools for dismantling the federal government’s “deep state” is arriving in the next several weeks, marking a milestone in the Americans’ fight for self-governance and civil service reform.

The administration recently finalized its Schedule Policy/Career policy, a rule that reclassifies certain federal employees to make them more accountable to the president of the United States. (RELATED: As Trump’s Federal Layoffs Continue, Critics Miss This Crucial Point.)

Schedule Policy/Career essentially reimplements and builds on the former Schedule F rule, put into effect during the first Trump administration and quickly rescinded by the Biden administration. It aims to reschedule certain policy-related government employees to remove specific job protections afforded to them so that they’re more accountable for carrying out their constitutional duties.

The Schedule Policy/Career rule will allow the executive the ability to reassign or fire any federal employees who are not performing well or who are going so far as to disregard executive mandates. As stated by the Office of Personnel Management, the rule applies to non-political appointee federal officials in “career positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character (policy-influencing)” and reclassifies them as Schedule Policy/Career employees. This change makes these positions at-will roles that are no longer protected by “adverse action procedures” and can no longer appeal agencies’ moves to terminate them or enact disciplinary measures against them.

Like Schedule Policy/Career, the administration’s previous rule instructed agency heads to identify federal career positions that are “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character that are not normally subject to change as a result of a Presidential transition” and re-classify them as Schedule F — removing certain protections. Schedule Policy/Career reinstates the previous rule, along with adding multiple amendments.

One set of amendments expands the scope of federal employees who can be reclassified, adding that officials “directly or indirectly supervising employees in Schedule Policy/Career positions,” as well as officials with “duties that the director otherwise indicates may be appropriate for inclusion,” may be eligible for reclassification.

Another amendment alters the process by which employees can be re-classified. Under the prior rule, the administration gave OPM the authority to re-classify them upon petition, while the change requires agency heads to recommend individuals to the president to be re-classified. Having the president directly re-classify certain roles as opposed to the agencies themselves doing so better protects these decisions from judicial challenges. Experts predict that Schedule Policy/Career could affect up to 50,000 federal employees when it goes into effect in early March.

Government workers’ unions have claimed that the move has been made to weed out government employees who aren’t subservient to the current administration. Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) President Everett Kelley even went as far as to call the new rule “a direct assault on a professional, nonpartisan, merit-based civil service and the government services the American people rely on every day.”

However, a third amendment to Trump’s Schedule F undermines Kelly’s claim. A paragraph added to the new rule states, “Schedule Policy/Career [employees] are not required to personally or politically support the current President or the policies of the current administration. However, Schedule Policy/Career employees 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.”

The rule is intended to bring the bureaucracy to heel under the American people and their representatives, after years of lawlessness. You only need to hear the words “Crossfire Hurricane” to remember how federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies were weaponized to accuse President Trump of colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election. Though the accusations were baseless, they led to millions of taxpayer dollars wasted, undue investigations of innocent Americans, and stoked anti-Trump resistance within the government.

Or consider the behavior of National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci and comrades who undermined the president’s authority and his plan to deal with the pandemic during an election year. The consequences were disastrous, as well, causing confusion and discord among the American people.

These examples, among many others of deep state insubordination, characterized the first Trump administration. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was the first action to cut down the bureaucracy and wasteful government spending. Though the department’s work only lasted several months and faced massive opposition, DOGE gutted an entire government agency — USAID — and showed that the administration is serious about cutting fat.

Bureaucratic intransigence is sure to dwindle as more resistance leaders are forced to leave or recommit themselves to their constitutional duty. With more executive initiatives like Schedule Policy/Career, the decision-making power will surely be returned to where it belongs: with the American people.

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