Donald Trump has made many campaign promises, and the replacement of career bureaucrats with political loyalists is far from the most vocal. The Republican candidate has drawn more attention for his promises to round up and deport large numbers of immigrants, take rivals to court and deploy soldiers against the “enemy within.”

But officials’ concerns should not be ignored, some Democratic lawmakers say.

“The idea of ​​turning federal officials into political loyalists is frightening, whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, who helped lead the charge against a possible return of “the Appendix F.”

Trump has sworn to revive this controversial plan, which he established during his presidency with a decree. To rid the executive branch of “rogue bureaucrats,” he says, it needs greater authority to hire and fire.

Issued in October 2020, the executive order defined Schedule F as a new employment category for federal workers in “confidential, determining, decision-making, or policy-advocating” positions, stripping them of their civil service protections and making it easier to exercise. fire. The order, which was revoked by President Joe Biden days after taking office, could have affected tens of thousands of career civil servants, according to some estimates.

Trump wants to continue this momentum. »First day» if he reclaims the White House, as part of his mission to “clean out the deep state,” according to his campaign website. While all presidents recruit their own class of political appointees to fill top agency positions, he envisions a much broader “overhaul” aimed at weeding out “corrupt or poorly performing federal workers.”

The Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025, which offers a playbook for the next Republican administration, also calls for reinstating Annex F. (Trump has sought to distance himself from the project, whose authors include some of his former collaborators.) Neither the Trump campaign nor the Heritage Foundation responded to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, at least one outside group has stoked fears among federal staff by compiling what it describes as a “watch list.” The American Accountability Foundation, a conservative research group led by former Republican Senate member Tom Jones, released a list last week purporting to identify “America’s most subversive immigration bureaucrats” within the Departments. of Internal Security and Justice. He also launched a tip line where suggestions for bureaucratic “goals” could be submitted. The group received a $100,000 scholarship from the Heritage Foundation earlier this year.

Jones said the investigation was not launched with Schedule F in mind, although he said many of those named would likely fall under that umbrella if it were revived.

“The people we have highlighted cannot occupy a position of trust and influence within a conservative administration in the area of ​​immigration. How to get them out of that space is the question that someone else has to answer,” Jones said.

Jacqueline Simon, political director of the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing about 750,000 federal and D.C. employees, condemned the watchlist, as well as broader efforts to eliminate the federal workforce.

“At the very least it shows you that no one is overreacting. They have the money, they have the intention and they have the list,” Simon said. “It’s McCarthyism all over again.”

“The regulations are good, the legislation is better”

Others used the same Cold War comparison, highlighting the late Joseph McCarthy and his quest to root out those he called subversives.

“Here they are just bringing back old tactics. It’s MAGA-McCarthyism,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a former constitutional law professor who often defies Trump. “The whole point of public service is that people can work for government and do their jobs without being intimidated and politically harassed. »

The Biden administration has taken steps over the past year to avoid a new Schedule F if Trump is elected again.

The Office of Personnel Management in April, issued a rule stating that an employee’s protections in the public service cannot be removed by an involuntary move of the competitive service – which includes most members of the federal workforce, who go through a competitive hiring process – to the excluded service. The rule also sought to clarify key definitions and establish an appeals process for any involuntarily reclassified employee.

“It was certainly very well-intentioned, and it will create some obstacles at first,” Simon said.

But Kaine also said more needs to be done to guard against any return of Annex F. “At the end of the day, regulations are good, legislation is better.”

In early 2023, Kaine introduced legislation which seeks to prohibit the re-creation of a Schedule F credential and protect the federal merit-based workforce system. The bill has 18 co-sponsors but has struggled to gain momentum. He said he would continue to pursue this path regardless of the outcome of next week’s presidential election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

A companion Invoice in the House, introduced by Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, D-Va., has 72 co-sponsors, only four of whom are Republicans. As Virginians, Kaine and Connolly count many federal employees among their constituents.

“Schedule F is a major concern for federal employees, who have already endured four years of hiring freezes, shutdowns, furloughs and vicious personal attacks from Donald Trump,” Connolly said in a mailed statement electronic. “We know Donald Trump’s total contempt for public servants. He is not worried about their lives and livelihoods. Rather, he sees them as obstacles to his own quest for power.”

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee heard similar concerns during a meeting in September. audience. Chairman Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan, said a plan like Annex F would be “disastrous for the American people” and would “erode public trust in government.”

Earlier this year, just 22 percent of Americans said they trust the government in Washington to do what’s right “almost always” or “most of the time,” according to poll conducted by the Pew Research Center. This represents a slight increase from the 2023 results, but remains well below polling averages from the early 2000s.

“There’s kind of a myth and belief, I think, that there are a lot of problem employees and they’re not being dealt with,” said Jenny Mattingley, vice president of government affairs at the Partnership for Function. public, about the negative opinion of the government. government.

Mattingley, a former Office of Management and Budget employee who testified at the HSGAC hearing, said there are ways to improve the federal workforce. She suggested, among other things, creating stronger performance management standards for managers and holding employees accountable for legitimate performance issues. But politicizing staff or trying to “blow your way to success” would be counterproductive, she says. argued.

According to Simon, the prospect of such an attempt by Trump has cast a pall over much of the federal workforce. Part of the concern is the potential loss of jobs. But even more, Simon says, they fear that cutting federal agencies will hurt the country.

“You’re not going to get a job at the EPA if you don’t care about clean air and clean water. You don’t get a job at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration if you don’t want to do research on climate change and its impact,” Simon said. “All these people who are doing this kind of work and being targeted are terrified of the impact of this.”