Biden Administration Aims to Trump-Proof the Federal Work Force

If Donald Trump wins a second term, he and his allies want to revive a plan to allow a president to fire civil service workers who are supposed to be hired on merit. The Biden administration is trying to thwart it.



The proposed new rule was unveiled by the White House’s Office of Personnel Management in a lengthy filing for the Federal Register on Friday. It would allow workers to keep their existing job protections, such as a right to appeal any firing or reassignment, even if their positions were reclassified. It would also tighten the definition of what types of positions can be exempted from civil service job protections, limiting it to non-career political appointees who are expected to turn over when a presidency ends.

The regulatory proposal argued that maintaining protections for career civil servants enhances the functioning of American democracy because such federal workers have institutional memory, subject matter expertise and technical knowledge “that incoming political appointees may lack.” They should be free to disagree with their leaders — short of defying lawful orders — without fear of reprisal, the proposed rule states.

The public will now have 60 days to comment on the proposed rule, but the Biden administration expects to complete it by early 2024.
Biden officials and people supportive of their plan are projecting optimism about the significance of the new regulation to bolster protections for the civil service. Among them is Rob Shriver, the deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management, essentially the government’s human resources department.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/u...d%20on%20merit.