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Donald Trump Could Be Forced to Get Public’s Input on Plan to Fire People
Two unions are asking the court to protect the public’s right to comment on President Donald Trump’s plan to reclassify certain government employees, which would make it easier to fire them.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) filed a lawsuit against Trump, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the office’s acting director, Charles Ezell, on Wednesday.
Why It Matters
The complaint alleges that Trump’s Schedule F Order violates the Administrative Procedure Act. Trump signed an executive order on January 20 that reclassifies career government employees involved in policymaking and strips them of civil service protections.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
The Administrative Procedure Act, enacted in 1946, establishes the process federal administrative agencies must follow when proposing and establishing regulations. The law requires agencies to allow any interested parties to submit facts, arguments and proposals for consideration.
What To Know
The AFGE and AFSCME argue that members of the public, including the plaintiffs, are “entitled to notice and the opportunity to be heard” before changes are made to regulations protecting government employees. The unions allege that the plaintiffs were not given this opportunity.
The complaint asks the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the enforcement of Trump’s executive order until it complies with the Administrative Procedure Act.
Under President Biden, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) guaranteed that moved government employees would retain civil service protections. The AFGE and AFSCME are asking for this rule to remain in operation until the plaintiffs are given notice and opportunity to comment on the Schedule F Order.
The plaintiffs are also seeking attorney’s fees and costs and other relief the court deems just and proper.
The unions allege that the Schedule F Order “makes clear on its face” that it intends to make firing government employees easier. They cite part of the order that discusses whether “supervisors are confident that they can remove an employee.”
What People Are Saying
Trump, in an executive order: “In recent years, however, there have been numerous and well-documented cases of career Federal employees resisting and undermining the policies and directives of their executive leadership. Principles of good administration, therefore, necessitate action to restore accountability to the career civil service, beginning with positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character.”
The AFGE and AFSCME, in a lawsuit: “This scheme seeks to put politics over professionalism, contrary to the laws and values that have defined our career civil service for more than a century.”
What Happens Next
The defendants have been ordered to respond to the lawsuit within 60 days.
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