Civil Service Reform is Here – What Does President Trump’s SES Accountability Order Mean for the Civil Service

President Donald Trump is pushing forward with plans to remake the civil service, in what could be a dramatic rethink of the way the federal government classifies and protects its senior executives. 

In the day one presidential memorandum, Restoring Accountability for Career Senior Executives, the Trump Administration explains that, “because SES officials wield significant governmental authority, they must serve at the pleasure of the President.”

The order goes on to explain that since SES members wield authority and make decisions that impact Americans, they should be subject to the President’s Executive power vested by Article II of the Constitution, which requires the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” 

The order further states that “Only that chain of responsibility ensures that SES officials are properly accountable to the President and the American people.” It also mentions that the President must be able to “rectify” the situation if SES officials are involved in some kind of misconduct, providing for at-will termination. 

And already the Trump Administration is acting on its SES accountability order.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on January 20 fired multiple career SES working in the DOJ Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), citing the President’s Article II authority, GovExec reports. 

“We're getting rid of all the cancer,” President Trump said during a executive actoion signing ceremony in the Oval Office. “I call it cancer, the cancer caused by the Biden administration.” 

Presidential Power Now Aimed at the Civil Service Reform Act

All this shows that the Trump Administration believes that the president’s Article II powers can override the congressionally enacted Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA), which codified civil service protections, and gave due process and appeal rights to employees subject to termination, including career SES. 

Statutory limitations on presidential Executive authority has been increasingly under attack over the past few decades, particularly from groups pushing the concept of a Unitary Executive and from U.S. Supreme Court decisions. 

For instance, in the SES accountability memo, the Trump Administration is hanging its hat on Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which recited that “[A]ll of [the executive power]” is ‘vested in a President.” President Trump’s memo takes the view that the Executive power vested by Article II of the Constitution empowers him to reach down and “remove [individual] subordinates” such as career senior executives. 

In other decisions from the past 15 years, the courts have found that for-cause protections for political appointees, including those Presidentially Appointed and Senate confirmed, are unconstitutional limitations of the president’s power. These cases, such as Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Co. Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U.S. 477 (2010), Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U.S. 197 (2020), and Collins v. Yellen, 594 U.S. 220, contribute to a growing body of law expanding Executive control of federal agencies. In other cases like United States v. Arthrex, Inc, 594 U.S. 1 (2021), the Supreme Court stripped power from career employees, giving it instead to politicals, to comport with the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.

This body of case law is now being applied to federal civil servants and used to challenge the framework established by Congress in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. 

And the speed at which the President is moving, is stunning some of the top supporters of his agenda and pleasing them that long-held conservative positions are coming into reality.

“Monday you hit, you flood the zone. Second week you’ll flood the zone,” said Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s first White House chief strategy. “It’s working. It’s just stunning to me what they’re doing, and it’s not getting covered because it’s too much. They’re overwhelming the system.”

“It’s called Project 2025, but it’s bigger than that,” Bannon continued, citing the work of think tanks led by Trump administration officials such as the Center for Renewing America and America First Policy Institute. “This was a vast effort to think through the executive actions. We’ve had four years, and this is what you see.”