Schedule F 2.0...can it be that bad?

Most civil servants are worried about what the Trump administration is going to do with respect to a new (and potentially improved) Schedule F, especially as its appointees and associates attempt to ‘deconstruct’ the administrative state. 

Well, I’m here to tell you that Schedule F "the sequel," is coming. It’s inevitable. I can’t tell you whether it’s coming right away—that is, on Inauguration Day or the day after—or six months from now, after the While House has undone the speed bump the Office of Personnel Management put in its way. But it’s coming, and soon, to a theater near you! 

However, whether that’s good or bad depends on two things: 1. how it’s going to be implemented; and 2. where you sit in that administrative state. 

With regard to the latter, I’d worry if I were in a headline-grabbing agency, like the Education Department or the Food and Drug Administration, but even there, I’m betting that you’re going to have a chance to prove your worth to even the most draconian of rightwing reformers. However, while I know that that’s easier said than done, I’d suggest that you reach out to a good lawyer, your union or your favorite professional association, like the Senior Executives Association, or even to me, for advice on your individual case. 

That said, I’m personally even more worried about my initial concern; that is, how a new Schedule F will be wielded in Trump 2.0...and by whom. Here’s the question before those vying for that role. Is a new Schedule F going to be all about assuring policy alignment (that’s GOOD!) or will it be all about partisan political loyalty (that would be very BAD!)? That’s a very sharp two-edged sword, with the first edge benign at worst. But the second is decidedly malign, and that is what we should all be afraid of. 

And unfortunately, in my view, the potential for abuse far outweighs everything else, at least for now. So, it’s likely going to be bad. But is it as bad as some say? Is it the "end of democracy as we know it" bad? As I said, that depends, not so much because of the wording on its face (if we go by the language in the original), but because of those who could potentially implement it.

On its face, Schedule F was all about holding career civil servants accountable for faithfully executing democratically established policies, and if read that way, it was (and would be) spot on. However, its implementation remains open to interpretation, and in so doing, it creates a very sharp two-edge sword, between entirely legitimate policy alignment on one hand—something every president should expect of those in the career civil service—and blind, partisan political loyalty on the other. 

To be sure, career public servants have a duty to provide "frank and fearless" advice (as the Aussies say) to their political superiors, in other words, to ‘speak truth to power’ to elected and appointed officials. And those they speak to have a concomitant duty to listen. But at the end of the day, if the latter says ‘do what I want’ anyway, and what they want is lawful, career civil servants are duty-bound to salute, or leave. 

We work in a democracy. That means that when ‘We the People’ speak, career civil servants are duty-bound to act accordingly. 

I know this too is an oversimplification. After all, Congress makes laws that are ambiguous, sometimes deliberately so, and the Supreme Court notwithstanding, you need career experts in a particular policy or program to administer them. And therein lies the danger of the two-edged sword, the gray area between policy alignment and partisan political loyalty. 

I personally think this is all unnecessary. While all of us have personal opinions, those of us in the public service can and do manage to leave those opinions at the door. We are (or should be) there to do the people’s business. In the words of one of my colleagues (himself a career public servant who’s served in both uniform and mufti), quoting from the Band of Brothers TV series, we “salute the uniform, not the man.” Substitute "office" for "uniform" and you have what the vast majority of us think. 

However, I fear that other, equally sharp edge to a new Schedule F. By "excepting" certain career civil servants from regular, competitive civil service rules (including the too-many, too-complex protections they now enjoy), it would allow nefarious actors to recruit and retain only political loyalists in those “policymaking and policy-influencing” positions that today are filled by careerists on merit. And that doesn’t even begin to worry about those in the career SES and equivalent, who, according to OPM, aren’t even covered by all this.

Bottom line: A new Schedule F (and the mindset that comes with it) could allow partisanship to permeate the ranks of apolitical civil servants. 

In that regard, there’s the longstanding myth that most civil servants are Democrats and must be ‘cleansed’ by a GOP administration if it is to succeed. However, it is far more nuanced. In my view, the career civil service is populated by those who believe that government is the answer—after all, that’s why they’re there—not (as my namesake Ronald Reagan once said) the problem, and that bias happens to be most compatible with today’s Democratic party. But that does NOT mean that most career civil servants are Democrats. I know too many who are not. So, the White House should not buy into that myth. 

To be sure, a new president should expect policy alignment AND political loyalty from those he or she appoints. But by the same token, new presidents should not want a career bureaucracy that tells them what they want to hear, out of fear for their jobs. We saw that phenomenon in the U.S. Intelligence Community before the 2003 Iraq invasion, and it is not what the public should want. 

And if that creates tension between elected and appointed politicians and those in the career civil service, that is healthy. Because at the end of the day, civil servants still work in a hierarchy, and if a superior in the Executive Branch and/or in the Congress gives us a lawful "do it anyway" order or piece of legislation, we can either follow it...or we can leave. 

I know that’s much easier said than done—laws and lawful orders contain too many ambiguities and contradictions—but the principle is valid, so we should at least start there.

Thus, politics and partisanship are not bad things, but they are part of a larger system of checks and balances, and the career civil service is part of the latter. So, even if a new Schedule F is inevitable, it remains to be seen whether it will be used for "good" policy alignment or for "bad" political loyalty. I’ve always been told to hope for the best but plan for the worst, so while I’m hoping for the former, I’m expecting the latter. I hope I’m wrong. 

Ronald Sanders is a former career senior federal executive of more than 20 years. He is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and a member of the American Society for Public Administration’s National Council. He has served as chair of the Federal Salary Council, associate director of OPM, DOD Director of Civilian Personnel Policy, IRS Chief HR Officer, and the Intelligence Community’s first Associate Director of National Intelligence for Human Capital.