
Donald Trump is, for a second time, trying to revive the political spoils system, this time with a new Schedule F executive order in which he is attempting to reclassify tens of thousands of federal employees as political hires, which would make it easier for him to fire them for being insufficiently loyal.
Oh, yeah, this is going to slog through the courts for a while.
The idea is Andrew Jackson’s spoils system on steroids.
Trump first tried this at the end of his first term, in 2020, with an order that sought to reclassify around 50,000 federal employees that didn’t get anywhere before he was swept out of office.
ICYMI
Joe Biden issued his own executive order in 2021 undoing the Trump effort, but Trump – in line with the Project 2025 blueprint that the fact-checkers kept insisting to us had nothing to do with Trump – is taking what the marauders tried to do the first time many steps further.
The new executive order includes an inquiry as to whether “additional categories of positions” should be included in Schedule F beyond the ones considered in the first executive order.
Reaction
We got two comments on this from top Virginia Democrats.

First, Gerry Connolly, a Northern Virginia congressman who is the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee:
“Donald Trump has used his first day in office to begin the purge of the nonpartisan civil service of experts, use the federal workforce as a piggy bank for billionaire oligarchs like Elon Musk, and politicize the services that the federal government provides to the American people each and every day. With a stroke of his pen, he has threatened to return us to the spoils system, putting us on a dangerous path toward a world in which government services and benefits are allocated based on the politics, not the needs, of the recipient.
“In Donald Trump’s vision for America, your social security check goes to the bottom of the pile because you disagree with him. In his vision for America, disaster aid is allocated to red states first and to blue states only if they sufficiently bend the knee. In his vision for America, nonpartisan civil servants are punished or fired if they don’t put the needs of his billionaire friends above the needs of you, the American people.
“I will not stand for that vision for America. Democrats on the Oversight Committee will not stand for it, and the American people will not stand for it. As these draconian orders inevitably make their way through the courts, my colleagues and I will man the ramparts in defense of our civil service and the American people they so proudly serve.”
Next, Abigail Spanberger, a former NoVa congresswoman who is running for the Democratic Party nomination for governor in the 2025 election cycle:
“Virginia is home to thousands of federal employees who work tirelessly each day to keep America’s communities strong, safe, and connected. They are nonpartisan professionals who have devoted their careers to serving our nation. When the President threatens to fire these federal workers and redesignate their jobs as appointee positions, he’s not only threatening the jobs and livelihoods of our Virginia neighbors and their families — he’s prioritizing political allegiance over nonpartisan expertise and experience in some of our country’s most consequential roles.
“Over the past few years, I’ve been unequivocal about the dangers of bringing back this reckless, misguided policy. Not only does it disrupt Virginia’s economic stability, but it disrespects the contributions of America’s nonpartisan public servants. This executive order paves the way for replacing these principled public servants with partisan loyalists.
“Across our Commonwealth, I’ve heard directly from federal employees, small business owners, local officials, contractors, and business leaders who’ve shared their concerns about Schedule F’s potential damage to Virginia’s workforce and economy. Like them, I believe that our lawmakers should be focused on creating jobs — not creating chaos.”
U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, D-Va., issued the following joint statement.
“It’s in the best interest of our national security and the quality of the services Americans rely on—including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food inspections, and natural disaster relief programs—that our federal workforce is hired based on experience and expertise, and receives the support needed to effectively deliver. Donald Trump’s executive order is designed to starve and undermine the federal workforce and shows he is prioritizing his obsession with yes-men over the well-being of the American people and workers. We appreciate the steps the Biden Administration took to complicate Trump’s ability to put this order into motion and will continue to push for our legislation to halt it altogether.”