Defending the First Amendment Rights of Civil Servants (Government Accountability Project v. Office of Personnel Management)
At a Glance
Government Accountability Project (GAP) and National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) challenged executive actions creating a new employment category that reclassified certain “policy-influencing” government employees and stripped them of key procedural protections. Campaign Legal Center filed a brief in support of GAP and NARFE’s position, alerting the court that these executive actions are subject to judicial review, undermine congressional intent and threaten to chill the speech of federal employees.
Back to topAbout this Case
Congress established the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) of 1978 and other civil service protections to ensure that the United States had a nonpartisan, merit-based civil service. These protections are intended to prevent the executive from placing undue political pressure on career civil servants.
At the beginning of his second term, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order creating a new category in the excepted-service category for career positions with “policy-influencing” functions: Schedule Policy/Career (Schedule P/C). Schedule P/C strips career civil servants of the procedural protections that Congress established to insulate America’s nonpartisan, merit-based civil service from political control.
The new structure would make it easier to politicize the civil service by enabling the firing of employees, removing their ability to challenge those firings, and replacing civil servants with partisan actors.
On February 6, 2025, GAP and National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) filed a lawsuit against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and President Trump, alleging that the creation of Schedule P/C unlawfully stripped career civil servants of employment protections; violated the CSRA; were noncompliant with notice and comment procedure under the Administrative Procedures Act; and infringed on their Fifth Amendment due process rights. They later challenged the implementation of Schedule P/C, including a regulation by OPM and an Executive Order moving approximately 8,000 civil service positions to Schedule P/C.
Campaign Legal Center’s client, Justice Connection, is an organization that works to raise the voices of former U.S. Department of Justice employees and advocate for a nonpartisan civil service.
In our amicus brief, Campaign Legal Center argues on behalf of Justice Connection that the district court should allow the case to move forward and exercise judicial review over the case, rather than channeling its claims to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), an adjudicatory body designed to hear individual personnel disputes.
The brief argues that the administrative process was never meant to review broad questions about whether the executive has exceeded their power, and that the district court should immediately decide GAP and NARFE’s case to prevent a chilling effect on the First Amendment rights of civil servants.