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Democracy Docket: How to Combat the Dangers of Project 2025
Democracy Docket - How to Combat the Dangers of Project 2025
By Matt Cohen
November 19, 2024
/snip/
Now nonprofit organizations, federal unions, pro-democracy thinktanks and scores of other groups that could be affected by the propositions in Project 2025 are coming together to figure out how to protect the people and communities most threatened by the plans.
“Everything about it is very concerning,” Jacqueline Simon, the public policy director of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which is the biggest federal employees union, told Democracy Docket. “We could sit here all day talking about what is concerning, but I think that federal employees are concerned, not only for their own jobs, but also for the work that their agencies do, and that they know American people rely upon.”
For Simon and the nearly 750,000 federal employees that AFGE represents, one of the most pressing proposals of Project 2025 is the reintroduction of Schedule F — a late-term executive order during Trump’s first presidency to reclassify tens of thousands of civil service employees. The order essentially stripped their employment protections so they could more easily be dismissed from their jobs if perceived as disloyal to the administration.
More than 2 million people make up the bulk of the civil service — federal government employees who are hired based on the merit of their job experience and expertise. These federal workers are protected by the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB), which ensures that their hiring, firing and any promotions or raises are determined strictly through merit, and not by political retaliation. But Schedule F would reclassify a bulk of civil service workers who, for decades, were protected by the MSPB.
Simon points to the career employees in departments like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA), who are at risk if Schedule F is reintroduced. It’s not just their careers on the line — but the function and progress of crucial federal agencies working to make different aspects of life better for the country.
/snip
By Matt Cohen
November 19, 2024
/snip/
Now nonprofit organizations, federal unions, pro-democracy thinktanks and scores of other groups that could be affected by the propositions in Project 2025 are coming together to figure out how to protect the people and communities most threatened by the plans.
“Everything about it is very concerning,” Jacqueline Simon, the public policy director of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which is the biggest federal employees union, told Democracy Docket. “We could sit here all day talking about what is concerning, but I think that federal employees are concerned, not only for their own jobs, but also for the work that their agencies do, and that they know American people rely upon.”
For Simon and the nearly 750,000 federal employees that AFGE represents, one of the most pressing proposals of Project 2025 is the reintroduction of Schedule F — a late-term executive order during Trump’s first presidency to reclassify tens of thousands of civil service employees. The order essentially stripped their employment protections so they could more easily be dismissed from their jobs if perceived as disloyal to the administration.
More than 2 million people make up the bulk of the civil service — federal government employees who are hired based on the merit of their job experience and expertise. These federal workers are protected by the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB), which ensures that their hiring, firing and any promotions or raises are determined strictly through merit, and not by political retaliation. But Schedule F would reclassify a bulk of civil service workers who, for decades, were protected by the MSPB.
Simon points to the career employees in departments like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA), who are at risk if Schedule F is reintroduced. It’s not just their careers on the line — but the function and progress of crucial federal agencies working to make different aspects of life better for the country.
/snip