Schedule C and Schedule F

Most federal jobs are filled through competitive merit hiring and carry protection against removal for political reasons, but Congress has allowed the President to place some positions in the excepted service. President Dwight Eisenhower created Schedule C by executive order on March 31, 1953, for positions of a confidential or policy-determining character, such as special assistants, speechwriters, and schedulers, and today about 1,500 Schedule C political appointees serve throughout the government, leaving when an administration ends.

Schedule F was created by an executive order on October 21, 2020, to cover career positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating character, which would lose the usual protections against removal. It was revoked on January 22, 2021, before any positions were moved, and in 2024 the Office of Personnel Management issued a rule to protect employees from being reclassified. On January 20, 2025, a new executive order revived the category as Schedule Policy/Career and directed OPM to rewrite the rules, which it proposed in April 2025, estimating that about 50,000 positions, roughly 2 percent of the workforce, could be covered. OPM published the final rule on February 6, 2026, and on June 4, 2026 an executive order moved roughly 8,000 positions, almost all senior GS-15 and senior leader posts such as office heads, regulation writers, and grant managers, into the schedule. Unions challenged both the rule and the order in court.

Unlike Schedule C aides, employees in Schedule Policy/Career would still be hired as career staff but could be removed without the procedures that normally apply, though the order says they are not required to support the President politically. Supporters argue that career officials who shape policy must be accountable to elected leadership and that removal protections let poor performers and resisters stay in place. Critics say the change would allow mass firings of experts for political reasons and restore a version of the spoils system the Pendleton Act of 1883 was meant to end.