"Big Beautiful Bill" Would Punish New Federal Employees Who Want to Keep Civil Service Protections

At least since the Presidency of Chester Arthur, a key feature of the federal government is a set of civil service protections that aim to insulate federal employees from politics. Administrations come and go, but the civil servants remain in place thanks to these protections. in his first term, Trump took steps to end these protections by creating a new class of federal employees not subject to these protections, but this imitative was ended by President Biden. And Project 2025 made this “reform” of the civil service—by making it more accountable to the political whims of each Administration—a key part of its recommendation.

I am therefore surprised that a section in the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by the House that strips some future Federal employees of their civil service protections is not getting much attention.

I noted this provision briefly in my post about the bill. Section 90004 of the Bill provides that at the end of their probationary period, most federal employees can voluntarily elect to be employed as an at-will employee not protected by the civil service law protections. As an inducement to get employees to accept at-will status, the Bill provides that employees who do not have elect this status will have their contribution to the federal pension program increased by 5 percentage points. The FERS contribution rate is now at 4.4%, which means that the penalty is a doubling of the contribution rate. For a new federal employee this would be a huge inducement to accept at-will status.

What does at-will status mean? As the language of the Bill provides, an at-will federal employee “may be subject to an adverse action up to and including removal, without notice or right to appeal, by the head of the agency, at which the individual is employed for good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all”.

In other words, being at-will means no protection at all—even protection against being fired for a bad reason. The only exception to this harsh rule is for listed prohibited personnel actions, which are largely laws that bar the discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability or national origin.

Notably, discrimination on the basis of political affiliation or belief is not a prohibited personnel action. Those federal employees who elect this status will indeed be subject to being fired for political disloyalty. Even worse, they might simply be fired to make room for a political crony of the President in power—a return to the spoils system of the past. While it is voluntary, the large increase in pension contributions may cause many new federal employees to elect at will status.

This provision only applies to new federal employees, and it is a voluntary election to take the at-will status. The immediate impact, therefore will be limited. Nonetheless, it ultimately result in a sea change in the non-partisan nature of federal employment. A doubling of the FERS retirement contribution—a full 5% loss in income—is a powerful inducement to accept at-will status.

The average federal employee is 47 years old and one out of 20 were over 65 in 2023 and 28% were 55 and older. This is an aging work force, which means that the number of new employees that will be subject to this provision will be large in the coming decade. Over time, therefore, if this provision is enacted, very soon a large percentage of the federal work force will be subject to the political whims of Presidential Administrations.

Civil service reform was a huge cause in the late 19th Century, and we have benefited greatly by a civil service protected from politics. This is a huge step backwards to the discredited spoils system. It deserves more attention than it is getting.