It’s long felt personal between federal workers and President Donald Trump.
Trump entered his second term promising to shrink and reshape the federal workforce, casting civil servants as embedded and unaccountable.
Federal buildings tend to look standard-issue and utilitarian. And for many Americans, the federal workforce is easier to picture as a bureaucracy — an anonymous sort of monolith — than actual people.
So Trump and the workers’ representatives offer competing portraits of federal employees, each side hoping its characterization will resonate with the public.
It all feels personal because the descriptions aren’t just about the work, but about the workers themselves.
Current and federal former workers have created informal groups, offering fellowship, emotional support and hugs following firings and a record 43-day government shutdown ending last November.
“After a lifetime of unelected bureaucrats stealing your paychecks, attacking your values, and trampling your freedoms, we are stopping their gravy train,” the president said at a Michigan rally last spring.
The plan, he said, was to tell “thousands of corrupt, incompetent, and unnecessary deep-state bureaucrats: ‘You’re fired. Get the hell out of here. You’re fired. Get out of here,’ ” he said, according to a transcript.
Last week, Maryland and Virginia lawmakers formed a new congressional caucus to try to protect federal employees from further cuts and “political interference” from Trump’s administration.
A specific new threat to the workers is coming, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen said at a Capitol news conference last week announcing the Federal Workforce Caucus.
Van Hollen went on to describe Schedule F, a personnel initiative reclassifying thousands of career civil-service workers into a new category with fewer procedural safeguards and less job security.
The Office of Personnel Management issued a final rule last week, meaning the changes could take effect within a month unless blocked by a court.
OPM wrote in the Federal Register that the rule is designed “to increase career employee accountability. Agency supervisors report great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduct.”
The change will allow the government to be run more like a business, Trump wrote on Truth Social when the rule was introduced last year. He wrote that if the workers “refuse to advance the policy interests of the President, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job.”
Worker advocates say the rule would undermine longstanding civil service protections.
Van Hollen said at Wednesday’s news conference that Schedule F “is their effort to get rid of merit-based federal employees and replace them with political hacks. In other words, get rid of people who were hired based on what they know and replace them with people who are brought in based on who they know.”
Maryland is home to more than 250,000 federal workers, and many agencies, such as the Social Security Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Institutes of Health, are based in the state.
Wednesday’s news conference wasn’t only about Trump’s policy, but about public relations, as advocates sought to add definition to the federal workforce’s portrait. Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said the workers “help keep our communities running.”
“Our federal employees and institutions are under relentless attack, with their protections, credibility, and character being eroded with each passing day by this administration,” said Rep. April McClain Delaney, a Western Maryland Democrat.
Upcoming in Annapolis:
- The State of the State address by Gov. Wes Moore is scheduled for Wednesday.
- Talks continue over whether Maryland will approve a redrawing of the state’s congressional district maps. A new map has passed the House, but not the Senate.
Have a news tip? Contact Jeff Barker at jebarker@baltsun.com