John,

With one of his first acts in office, President Trump tried to quietly revive one of his most controversial executive orders from four years ago, one that would allow him to convert potentially tens of thousands of merit-based civil servants to at-will employees.

John, that would enable political appointees to fire these career federal employees and replace them with unqualified political loyalists—removing anyone who would stand up to Trump and putting the country on a path toward getting rid of merit-based hiring in our federal government.

This executive order is unlawful and exceeds the president’s authority. That’s why we’re representing Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) alongside Democracy Forward in a new lawsuit challenging this executive order.

In October 2020, three months before leaving office, Donald Trump issued a dangerous Executive Order that would have upended the federal government by creating a new job classification—Schedule F—within the federal government’s ranks. President Biden quickly rescinded it upon assuming office, but now, Trump is trying to implement it again.

His plan is simple: to use the newly created classification to remove job protections for non-partisan, career public servants as a means of firing them and replacing them with his supporters.

Donald Trump’s executive order reverses course on more than one hundred years of civil service reform meant to ensure that federal employees have the required skills and expertise to best serve the American people and protect the civil service from dangerous nepotism and cronyism. It would lay the groundwork to convert a huge percentage of the federal civil service from employees who can only be fired for cause to at-will employees, who can be fired for any reason at all…even for refusing to break the law or standing up to Trump.

John, that means thousands of employees—including those who protect our public health, the environment and our food and water—who were hired for their expertise and serve in non-partisan positions could be stripped of vested job protections in one fell swoop, in violation of their due process rights and in excess of the president’s constitutional authority.

That’s why we’re working with Democracy Forward and PEER to stop this executive order from going into effect.

Thank you,

Noah Bookbinder
President
CREW