1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

Congress must act to defend the federal civil service from the Schedule Policy/Career executive order signed April 30th, which converts nearly 10,000 career employees into at-will workers who can be fired without recourse to the Merit Systems Protection Board. These aren't entry-level positions — 97% are GS-15s and senior leaders: agency division heads, program managers, regulation writers, and senior attorneys. Stripping their protections doesn't streamline government; it replaces institutional expertise with political loyalty. The damage goes beyond those 10,000 jobs. When career professionals know their tenure depends on pleasing political appointees, the best people stop applying. Decades of specialized knowledge walk out the door, and the agencies Congress funds to serve the public become instruments of whoever holds the White House. That's not a hypothetical — it's the explicit design of this policy. Reinforce the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, close the loopholes that allow executive orders to reclassify career positions, and restore independent whistleblower protections through the Office of Special Counsel rather than letting agencies investigate their own employees. The civil service exists to serve the American people across administrations. Defend it.