WASHINGTON – President Trump signed an executive order this week that could significantly increase his ability to hire and fire thousands of federal workers during his second term, possibly as a “deep state” bureaucracy working to condemn him. Sees. Him.
The executive order, issued late Wednesday and described by a leading federal union leader, as “the most profound control of the civil service in our lifetime,” would allow federal agencies to go through their employee rosters and re-classify certain workers in a way that would be stripped. . Them job security that now covers most federal employees.
The White House said in a statement with the executive order that the new employee’s classification was justified because under current rules “removing weak performers from these critical positions is also time consuming and difficult.”
As a practical matter, until Mr. Trump is re-elected, the new order is unlikely to have far-reaching implications, giving him a second term in government to pursue a new approach. If it was his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Should Biden be defeated by Jr., the new president can vacate it.
Currently, of the more than 2 million federal employees, only 4,000 have so-called political appointments, which are usually replaced by each presidential administration. It includes officials from senior agencies that oversee the development of federal policies.
The vast majority of federal workers are considered career civil servants, both of whom have specific protections in the way they are hired – especially the issue-based system that makes hiring competitive – and the time-consuming, appealing process that should be required. Use it if the agency manager wants to fire someone.
Federal auditors have long complained that the process of removing weak federal workers is too complicated and slow. The government’s liability office concluded in a 2015 report that, for example, “legal issues can also reduce a supervisor’s willingness to consider poor performance.”
Mr. Trump’s new executive order will create a new class of federal worker, known as a “Schedule F” employee, consisting of career staff members who work “confidential, policy-making, policy-making, or policy-advocating.”
This probably includes the thousands of federal employees who write the rules that translate federal law into formal rules, as well as economists, scientists, lawyers and managers, labor lawyers who have examined the new order.
The new classification will not apply to federal workers who are part of a senior executive service that helps oversee federal agencies, according to the White House.
Trump administration officials have been debating for months how to cleanse the “bad guys,” who are part of the “deep state,” Xios reported in February. These efforts gained momentum earlier this year after Mr. Trump appointed John McCanty, the new head of the White House Office of the Office of Presidential Staff, who served as Mr. Trump’s campaign assistant in 2016.
Under the executive order, federal agencies will have seven months to review their workforce to determine if existing employees can be reclassified in this new position. Reviews will then be repeated annually. Because this will be done by the agency on an agency basis, it is difficult to predict how many employees may be reclassified, and any future president may rescind the order.
Employee protections are a law enacted 177 years ago, called the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, passed by President James A. Was framed after the murder of Garfield, who was shot by a frustrated federal job seeker. The goal was to remove politics from the day-to-day operations of the federal government by implementing policies determined by political appointments to career employees.
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Labor leaders and other leading experts on federal employee standards condemned Mr. Trump’s order.
“This career is a declaration of war on the civil service,” said Richard C. Loeb, senior policy adviser to the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal workers who also served in White House Office Fee Management. Two decades of budgets during the Republican and Democratic administrations. “This is an attempt to politicize the process and hire cronies and fire enemies. It’s really a 19th century concept. ”
Mr Loeb said the union would investigate if the executive order could be legally challenged.
Democrat Gerald E., a Democrat from Virginia, who serves as chairman of the House panel overseeing the government’s work. The proposal has already been criticized by some Democrats in Congress, including Connolly.
“This executive order is another attack on federal employees who do not take into account issues that could effectively hinder federal recruitment and recruitment.” “Allowing the Trump administration to replace talent and skills with notoriety and self-dealing is a cheap thing to do.”
But other Republicans have backed the move. Republican Kentucky, Rep. James R. “Our founding fathers never imagined a largely elected, unaccountable federal government with the power to make policies that affect the daily lives of Americans,” Kramer said in a statement.
