Reinstate Schedule F
What the document says“It should be reinstated, but SES responsibility should come first.”
Executive Order 13957 made career employees in policy-determining, policymaking, policy-advocating or confidential positions an exception to competitive hiring rules under a new Schedule F, and directed OPM and agency heads to list such positions. The chapter records that the order was reversed by President Biden and says it should be reinstated, with the qualification that Senior Executive Service responsibility should come first. The sentence quoted runs across pp.80-81 in the original; the clause naming the reversal sits on p.80.
What the document actually says“It should be reinstated, but SES responsibility should come first.”
That rule should be brought back. But making the top career bosses answerable should come first.
Most federal workers are hard to fire. That is on purpose. It keeps them from being pushed out each time a new president takes office. This plan brings back a rule from 2020 called Schedule F. It moves workers whose jobs shape policy into a new group. Workers in that group lose most of their job protection. A president could then remove them much more easily. The book says this rule should come back.
Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce
2025-01-20 · 90 FR 8625
The chapter asked for Executive Order 13957 to be reinstated, and the Federal Register records this order as reinstating it. The chapter attached a qualification, 'but SES responsibility should come first', and this order does not sequence Senior Executive Service reform ahead of the reinstatement.
The book asked that a 2020 order on policy jobs be brought back. This order brings it back. The book added that reform of the senior service should come first. This order does not put that first.
Implementing Schedule Policy/Career in the Excepted Service
2026-06-03 · 91 FR 34893
Carries the reinstated schedule into effect and transfers positions into it. This goes beyond what the chapter asked for, which was reinstatement of the 2020 order; the chapter did not propose the transfer mechanism this order uses.
The order puts the restored job class into effect and moves positions into it. The chapter asked that the 2020 order be brought back. This goes further: the transfer method the order uses was not part of that ask.
3 agency rules
- Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil ServicePersonnel Management Office · February 6, 2026
- Exempting Certain Career Federal Employees From Ethics Reporting RequirementsGovernment Ethics Office · July 23, 2026
- Updates and Amendments to the Civil Service RulesPersonnel Management Office · August 14, 2026
Each of these names the order above in its own summary, preamble or filing. That is a fact about the document, not a finding that it carries out this proposal: it is one step further away than the order is, and what it does about the proposal is a reading nobody has made here.