Federal Salary Council Chair Ron Sanders submitted a letter of resignation on Monday over Trump’s recent executive order that strips civil service protection for some federal workers.
Sanders, who was appointed to his position by Trump in 2017, said he could no longer work for the president “as a matter of conscience.”
The executive order, signed last week, requires agencies to reclassify workers involved in “positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character that are not normally subject to change as a result of a Presidential transition” to a new category — named Schedule F — by Jan. 19.
The order will make it easier for the president to hire and fire federal workers, with the White House position stating it expedites the removal of “poor performers.”
“[I]t is clear that its stated purpose notwithstanding, the executive order is nothing more than a smokescreen for what is clearly an attempt to require the political loyalty of those who advise the president, or failing that, to enable their removal with little if any due process,” Sanders, a lifelong Republican, wrote in his resignation letter.
Story at Axios.