AFPF Submits Public Comment in Support of Trump Administration “Schedule Policy/Career” Rule

AFPF Submits Public Comment in Support of Trump Administration “Schedule Policy/Career” Rule 

Ahead of a June 7 deadline, Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF), submitted a public comment in support of the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) civil service reform rule referenced as Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service, (RIN 3206-AO80), as published at 90 Fed. Reg. 17,182 (Apr. 23, 2025).  

While the implementation of the rule would provide OPM with leeway on which positions and employees to ultimately reclassify in a new “Schedule Policy/Career” designation, AFPF’s Lee Steven and Austen Bannan shared support for the rule, which would restore more accountability for federal employees by putting more key positions under direct employment by the President of the United States who needs to have federal employees faithfully execute the missions they are tasked with.  

The proposed rule would “increase career employee accountability” by allowing “policy-influencing positions be moved into Schedule Policy/Career. These positions will remain career jobs filled on a nonpartisan basis. Yet they will be at-will positions excepted from adverse action procedures or appeals.” Id. at 17,182. The key effect of the proposed changes, which will amend relevant sections of Title 5 of the Code of Federal Regulations, is that agencies acting under the direction and authority of the president will be allowed “to quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or undermine the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives.” 

AFPF argues that it “consistently advocates against executive overreach and for restraining the scope of federal power to uphold proper Constitutional checks and balances across the three branches of government,” but in this instance “the proposed changes are a correct exercise of the unified executive authority that the Constitution grants to the president. The rule changes will properly limit privileges that should never have been granted to an extraconstitutional “Fourth Branch” of government and help locate accountability and oversight of the federal workforce in its proper place.” 

Steven and Bannan further argue: “The civil service employment system—strongly influenced by government union bargaining and the MSPB—is defined by difficult hiring, discipline, and termination procedures. The result is a bureaucracy that is insufficiently responsive to either the president or Congress. This has contributed to the rise of the “administrative state,” an extraconstitutional “Fourth Branch” of government where agencies and their entrenched employees exert too much power and influence, on the one hand, and yet also are crippled by inefficiency and negligence, on the other hand.” 

For more information, you can read AFPF’s full comment here.   

You can read more on AFP’s perspective on civil service reforms overall here.