House and Senate lawmakers have reintroduced the Saving the Civil Service Act which aims to blunt an expected push by the incoming Trump administration to create a new Schedule F classification for Federal agency employees in policy-making positions that would make it easier to replace them by the new administration.
The bill was reintroduced on the House side by Oversight and Reform Committee Ranking Member Gerry Connolly, D-Va., along with Reps. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Don Bacon, R-Neb., and in the Senate by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., joined by 16 cosponsors.
The same legislation introduced in 2023 failed to win approval in either chamber of Congress, although a similar measure filed by Rep. Connolly in 2022 was approved by the full House.
The legislation aims to block an expected reprise by the incoming administration of an October 2020 executive order from President Trump to create the Schedule F classification. Work to implement the order was not completed by the time Trump left office in January 2021, and the order was quickly canceled by President Biden.
The sponsors of the latest bill said the measure “would ensure the civil service system cannot be politically manipulated” by preventing “any position in the federal competitive service created after September 30, 2020, from being reclassified outside of merit system principles without the express consent of Congress.”
The legislation would also create a cap “on the number of conversions to the frozen excepted service schedule (Schedule C),” and specify that the cap cannot exceed more than one percent of the total number of employees at an agency, or five employees, whichever is greater. The bill also would require any Federal employee whose status is converted to provide consent for that change.
“The President-elect’s promise to remove qualified experts and replace them with political loyalists is a direct threat to our national security and our government’s ability to function the way the American people expect it to,” Rep. Connolly said on Jan. 16. “It threatens to create a system wherein benefits and services are delivered based on the politics, not the needs, of the recipient. Expertise, not political fealty, must define our civil service.”
“The civil servants who make up our federal workforce are the engine that keeps our federal government running,” Rep. Connolly continued. “They are our country’s greatest asset.”
“Every day, our nation’s federal employees go to work for the American people to administer Social Security, Medicare, and veterans’ benefits, protect our national security, and provide other critical services to communities across our country,” commented Sen. Kaine.
“We must ensure our federal workers continue to be hired based on their expertise and experience, not their political party,” the senator said. “I’m concerned by the President-elect’s proposed plans to target the federal workforce, and I will keep working with my colleagues to pass this legislation to protect the merit-based federal civil service system.”
