Thread by @revolvingdoorDC

If polls are to be believed, Trump’s time as president is likely approaching its end. But, as his latest Executive Order has helped to underline, President Trump is unlikely to depart without having left as many obstacles and landmines as possible in his wake

1/21

His latest is an E.O. attacking basic protections that let civil servants do their jobs without fear of political reprisal. If Trump wins, it’s the end of the civil service. And even if he loses, this lets him do serious damage to the civil service on the way out

2/21

The Executive Order tells the Office of Personnel Management to create a new “Schedule F” covering civil service jobs that have important policy determining roles or that supervise senior civil servants. Think Dr. Fauci or line supervisors who make prosecution decisions.

3/21

The purpose of the new Schedule F is to make it easier to fire people in these roles by stripping them of their civil service protections and to hire replacement flunkies by waiving the merit hiring requirements for these jobs.

4/21

So the administration can move any job where the current occupant is a thorn in its side into Schedule F, pack that person off to some lateral job where they’re less visible, and put a hack in place to toe the party line.

5/21

If someone later grows a spine or turns out to be a competent civil servant, they can be fired for lack of judgment or an inability to meet the needs of an agency, with no appeal rights.

6/21

The order also moves fast. It requires agency heads to complete an initial review and start moving positions into Schedule F within 90 days. That’s January 19, 2021 -- the day before inauguration.

7/21

Why so fast? Because while Schedule F employees are easier to fire individually, they’re still protected from removal for partisan political reasons aka a change in administration. They need to be removed individually for failing to do their jobs.

8/21

And the Trump administration is going to leave the Biden administration a gift: hundreds of these jobs newly filled with Trump loyalists devoted to slowing down workings of government. It’s as if Biden has to keep on Trump’s political appointees

9/21

Can they be fired? Sure. Will every firing come with a lawsuit alleging it was for an impermissible political reason, and a chorus of media allegations asserting that the Biden administration is politicizing the civil service? That depends on us.

10/21

The rules putting this in place are personnel rules and don’t need to go through the usual public participation process. While the Biden administration can roll them back just as quickly, Congress needs to act to keep the rot from setting in.

11/21

Since midnight rules like this are coming from every agency, the December appropriations bill should freeze all rulemakings at every agency until January 21st. But House Dems aren’t ready for that conversation.

12/21

At a minimum, the next appropriations bill should prevent any agency from spending appropriated funds on Schedule F positions. That will freeze things in place until the Biden administration can roll back this assault.

13/21

Protecting the civil service from Trump’s politicization got bipartisan support when an appropriations bill blocked a plan to eliminate OPM. Democrats should use this consensus to keep Trump’s latest attack from succeeding.

14/21

This all raises another question: if this is what Trump is doing in the open, what is he breaking out of the public eye?

15/21

His efforts to destroy the Office of Personnel Management, weaken government unions, contract out more functions, & politicize key hiring processes all point the way to disaster. But we have yet to fully contend with the scope of the damage or its lasting consequences.

16/21

Through FOIA requests the Revolving Door Project is working to uncover the extent of the problem.

17/21

therevolvingdoorproject.org/revolving-door…

But it will be essential that Congress commit to uncovering the full extent of the problem. In @PublicSeminar this week, the project’s @yevshrag & @MariamaEversley detailed how Congress responded to the Bush administration’s politicization of DOJ

18/21

publicseminar.org/essays/donald-…

With the Trump administration apparently expanding on Bush’s example, congressional oversight will need to go even further this time around.

19/21

But it’s not enough just to reverse the damage. If elected, a Biden admin must put real energy into reinvigorating the civil service. As our @yevshrag
outlined for @monthly today, that should include injecting new life into OPM

20/21

washingtonmonthly.com/2020/10/22/unc…

An independent, well-resourced civil service is the backbone of good governance. Failing to recognize & act on that fact will severely limit the potential for all future administrations to use the federal government as a vehicle for the public good

21/21

therevolvingdoorproject.org/building-a-fed…