President Donald Trump has just issued an executive order converting about 8,000 civil service positions to the “new” Schedule Policy/Career, which actually is just a version of the old Schedule F that Trump issued in October 2020. But despite all the hue and cry about that new Schedule, it will NOT politicize the civil service, at least NOT any more than any other long-existing personnel policy tool can.

So, as someone who once presided over a similarly “excepted service” workforce of over 100,000 government employees in the intelligence community, I say, “Stop all the thinly disguised partisan carping and handwringing about it,” and just take a deep breath. It does NOT automatically mean that covered civil servants will become politicized, so let’s all wait and see what happens before we criticize, speculate and/or conjure up the worst possible case to argue for its repeal.

For those who don’t know, and I suspect there are many, I resigned as chairman of the Federal Salary Council, an obscure political appointment if there ever was one, in October 2020, over the initial issuance of what was then called Schedule F. I did so after almost four decades as a career civil servant — over 20 of those years in the Senior Executive Service or its equivalents, as well as three years as a political appointee — because my interactions with its original authors back then suggested that it was specifically designed to populate the senior civil service with loyalists of President Trump.

In other words, that original Schedule F could have been, and more than likely, would have been, used to politicize what had been a nonpartisan, politically neutral civil service, one that had been so since at least the Pendelton Act of 1883. That may have been a possibility even back then — it certainly was when the original Schedule F was issued in October 2020 — and that latter potential led to my resignation. But what I did so willingly in 2020, with far more publicity than I had intended, including mention on MSNOW’s Rachel Maddow Show — of all things! — is something I may not have needed to do today.

Why not? Because the now-renamed Schedule Policy/Career has largely been “fixed” by two successive guidance documents issued by the Office of Personnel Management — one in January 2025 and one more recently on June 8. That most recent guidance, plus the public promises of OPM Director Scott Kupor, indicates that the new Schedule P/C cannot be used as the partisan “blunt instrument” that it may have been initially designed to be.

So, we should stop all the handwringing about that remote possibility!

In that regard, OPM first issued guidance in January 2025 that eased much of my initial concerns about the 2020 version of Schedule F. That 2025 guidance stated that federal civil servants were NOT required to support a particular president or political party — as I had initially feared. However, as civil servants, they were duly sworn to implement a duly elected president’s policy agenda “faithfully” and to “the best of their ability.” To me, that’s pretty much the status quo, and fixes much of my concerns about Schedule F.

OPM issued additional guidance on June 8 to accompany an executive order implementing the new Schedule, and that guidance tries to answer lots of questions and criticisms about it, in part via the various templates it provides. But more importantly in my view, it doesn’t backpedal or equivocate on the initial January 2025 OPM guidance — candidates and incumbents of positions covered by the renamed Schedule Policy/Career are still to be treated as apolitical and nonpartisan, hired and fired solely on the basis of merit, just as that original 2025 guidance suggests.

I should note that that same executive order also drastically reduces the number of those employees (and/or positions) to be moved under the new Schedule. At least so far, it’s only about 8,000, a far cry from the more than 50,000 employes once estimated by some. Interestingly, that’s about the same size as the number of career employees in the SES.

Why is that important? Because like so many of their civil service colleagues, those to be covered by the new Schedule P/C will be in the excepted civil service. And that means that covered employees can only be appointed based on their qualifications and NOT their politics — so says the president in Executive Order 14173 — and cannot be removed for partisan political reasons.

Covered employees will still be at will of course, and thus, they can still be fired without any due process whatsoever; that is, they will no longer get advanced notice of an adverse action, as well as the reasons for that adverse action, a final written decision, et cetera. That’s not good. So, that needs to be fixed, and not just in guidance. But I must add that that due process does not, by definition, include independent third-party review, which has become quite problematic over the years. Indeed, that third-party review has become way too legalistic, too time-consuming, too easily abused by recalcitrant appellants and overall, just too complex. So, it needs to be revisited.

Banishing it altogether is one way to skin the cat. So, I’m supportive of the end result. However, there are other ways to do so that are far less controversial — for example, purely administrative review by OPM — that need to be considered.

And my reading of the June 8 OPM guidance suggests that agency heads can still provide some due process if they choose to do so, and I would strongly encourage them to. Otherwise, they may find slim pickings amongst candidates for those positions covered by the new Schedule, or unhappy, self-muzzled incumbents who won’t speak truth to power, even privately, out of fear for their jobs. But at least that due process door is open. Whether agency heads choose to go through it or not is left up to them.

To be sure, there’s a lot of other things to criticize about the details of the implementing executive order, including its many inconsistencies and errors, and some of my professional colleagues have already done so. However, those critiques notwithstanding, one thing that the new Schedule and its accompanying executive order do NOT do is automatically politicize the civil service. as many have argued, at least no more or less than other long-existing and otherwise legal policy tools do.

So, I say let’s all stop all the hyperbole about politicization notwithstanding. Period, end of sentence. And that’s what really matters.

By the way, for those readers who are as old as I am, you may recall similar concerns about the so-called Malek Manual, or the potential politicization of the then-new SES amongst so-called “super-grade” employees (that is, GS-16s, 17s and 18s) when the SES was first created in 1979. But the vast majority of those super grades went on to become SES members, and they remained as politically impartial, and just as uninhibited in their advice, after their conversion as they were before it.

However, those prescriptions and protections are still only in OPM guidance, and that guidance can be rescinded by the stroke of a pen. Thus, in my view, that guidance needs to be codified in statute, so its repeal is that much harder. But a cynic would argue that a stroke of the pen recission is just what opponents want; that is to easily and quickly repeal it once a different (Democratic?) presidential administration is in place. But that’s what a cynic would see. As a career civil servant, I’d be happy to just see existing OPM guidance in law.

But that said, the new Schedule will NOT lead to automatic politicization of the civil service, no more so than the creation of the SES in 1978, nor no more so than other otherwise-legal policy tools already permit. So, I would urge my professional colleagues to stop their doomsaying and just take a deep breath.

Ron Sanders is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and a retired member of the civil service with more than 20 years as a member of its Senior Executive Service. Among other posts, he served as director of civilian personnel at the Defense Department, chief human resources officer for IRS, associate director of OPM and CHCO for the U.S. intelligence community. The opinions expressed in the above post are his and his alone.

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