Leading Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations Committees asked for a timeline on issuing specific policies to carry out the order and an estimate of how many employees could be affected. Image: DCStockPhotography/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association has filed suit against the “Schedule Policy/Career” directive—the renamed and slightly altered prior Schedule F—arguing that it would allow the Trump administration to fire employees “for the purposes of political patronage and personal loyalty.”
The suit, filed in the federal district court in the District of Columbia, is at least the third seeking to block the conversion to the excepted service of potentially many tens of thousands of employees now in the competitive service, joining separate suits filed by the NTEU and AFGE unions.
The Civil Service Reform Act “excludes political appointees from civil service protections upon a determination that their positions are “confidential, policy-determining, policy making, or policy-advocating positions”—a term of art that the CSRA uses specifically to establish an exclusion for political appointees. The CSRA does not permit the President to reinterpret that exclusion to strip civil service protections from non-political appointees in the career civil service,” it says.
The executive order creating Schedule Policy/Career further would “strip career civil servants of congressionally granted employment protections without due process” in violation of the Fifth Amendment, it says. It further argues that the order and later OPM guidance violate the Administrative Procedure Act by declaring unenforceable rules the Biden administration issued to prevent a Schedule F-type directive, without going through a formal rule-making process.
“Different individuals and groups may be impacted differently by Schedule F, so this lawsuit broadens the scope of those challenging the lawsuit,” noted John Hatton, NARFE’s Staff Vice President, Policy and Programs.
The suit, joined by the Government Accountability Project—a whistleblower advocacy organization—also argues that those converted to the new schedule would be “effectively stripped of their whistleblower protections.”
Meanwhile, leading Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations Committees have noted that the order “makes no mention of the importance of upholding the law. Is it the intent of the Administration to hire employees that disregard the law at the request of the President?” they asked in a letter to OPM.
They also asked for a timeline on issuing specific policies to carry out the order and an estimate of how many employees could be affected.
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See also,
Calculating Service Credit for Sick Leave At Retirement
FERS Supplement vs The 10% Pension Bonus
How Your FERS, Social Security and TSP Payments Get Taxed
Where Should I Put My TSP in Retirement
