Carper, Peters, Colleagues Request Regular GAO Briefings on Schedule F Executive Order Implementation

WASHINGTON, D.C. —Today, Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.) joined Senator Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney, Oversight and Reform Government Operations Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Gerald E. Connolly in sending a letter to the Government Accountability Office requesting regular briefings to inform Congress about the implementation status of President Trump’s Schedule F Executive Order.

“The executive order could precipitate a mass exodus from the federal government at the end of every presidential administration, leaving federal agencies without deep institutional knowledge, expertise, experience, and the ability to develop and implement long-term policy strategies,” they wrote.  “It would be a critical loss for the American people.”

On October 21, 2020, the President issued an executive order that would undermine the foundation of the federal workforce:  the civil service, which consists of non-partisan professionals who serve all Americans without regard to political party.  This executive action could multiply the number of political appointees within the federal workforce by tens of thousands and permit the mass firing of current federal employees whom agency heads determine make “substantive contributions to executive branch policy.”

In response to the executive order, on October 27, 2020, Chairwoman Maloney and Chairman Connolly introduced the Saving the Civil Service Act to prohibit the use of funds to implement the order.  The bill also would allow any position or appointment that was converted pursuant to the executive order to be converted back to the competitive service and provide anyone converted to a Schedule F who was subsequently fired to be reinstated with backpay. Senator Carper joined Ranking Member Peters and more than 40 U.S. Senators last week to introduce a bill that would also block the implementation of the President’s harmful executive order.

Click here to read today’s letter.