SUMMARY:  Legislation to prevent a future administration from implementing a policy similar to former President Trump’s Schedule F Executive Order is approved by a House Committee. 

Yesterday, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform passed H.R. 302, the Preventing a Patronage System Act (PPSA), introduced by Representative Gerry Connolly
(D-VA), which would prevent the president from implementing a policy similar to the Schedule F Executive Order (EO) issued by President Trump.  As you may recall, in October 2020, President Trump issued an EO that established a new category of excepted service employees, known as Schedule F, which could have affected tens of thousands of federal employees, stripping them of their civil service protections and allowing them to be hired and fired at will.  Although President Biden issued an EO revoking the Trump Schedule F EO shortly after taking office, a future administration could reinstate it or a similar proposal.  The PPSA would prevent this by stopping any position in the competitive service from being reclassified to an excepted service schedule created after September 30, 2020.  The bill would also limit federal employee reclassifications to the five excepted service schedules in use prior to fiscal year 2021. 

During the committee’s consideration of the bill, Representative Jody Hice (R-GA) offered a substitute amendment that would have striped the provisions of the Connolly bill and inserted language to instead codify the Trump Administration’s Schedule F EO and make it permanent.  The amendment was defeated, and H.R. 302 passed the committee along party lines.

NTEU applauds the continuing efforts of Congress to protect federal employee due process rights and will keep you posted as the bill moves through the legislative process.