(USNewsMag.com) – Perhaps in preparation for a possible loss in November, the Biden administration just approved a new rule to prevent former President Donald Trump from cleaning house in the federal government if he returns to the White House in 2025.
The new rule would make it more difficult for Trump to simply fire federal workers on a whim and reshape the workforce with mass firings, which Trump promised he would do if elected again.
In a press release about the changes, U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) director Kiran Ahuja said the “final rule” action would be established to honor the federal government’s “2.2 million career civil servants,” and to help “ensure” that hiring and firing is “based on merit” and not on “political loyalty.”
The new rule is most likely a direct response to Trump’s threats to clean house and “drain the swamp” if he returns to the Oval Office. In 2020, just a few weeks before the presidential election that year in which he lost to Biden, the former president issued “Schedule F,” an executive order that would’ve placed federal employees into a new category of classification allowing the president to hand-pick large portions of civil servant positions. One of Biden’s first moves when he took office was to rescind this executive order.
The new rule imposed by the Biden administration would need to go through the OPM to have new rules drafted, and that process includes having to seek public comment on any changes Trump may propose in the event of retaking office in 2025. The OPM process could drag the process out for months and even present legal challenges to any proposed hiring and firing policies.
Even before announcing his candidacy, Trump was already floating the idea of bringing back Schedule F, promising to “pass critical reforms” that would make “every executive branch employee fire-able by the president.”
The new rule would put into place protections for workers who may be reclassified into a job category with less security, ensuring that their protections remain in place and that they can’t be fired on a whim for political reasons. It also puts into place an appeals process for employees who have been recategorized and may face the loss of these job protections.
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