Democracy Forward’s Civil Service Strong initiative submitted a comment on January 29, 2026, opposing a proposed rule by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that would replace an established, independent process of probationary and trial period appeals for federal workers.
For decades, probationary appeals have served as a critical anti-spoils safeguard for federal employees. The proposed rule would effectively abandon current safeguards, allowing unlawful motives, such as partisan politics and discrimination based on marital status, to influence federal hiring and retention. It removes these appeals from the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and replaces it with an internal OPM process designed to proceed “based on the written record without the need of extensive discovery,” and without a right to a hearing unless OPM deems one necessary. The proposal would also foreclose judicial review. The likely result is the under-enforcement of core protections at a moment when federal employees are vulnerable to unlawful termination.
The comment explains that the proposed rule is structurally and procedurally defective. It describes how OPM is not equipped, legally or institutionally, to perform this function, and that the proposed approach is ineffective by describing how stripping discovery, hearings, and external review from these appeals replaces existing meaningful adjudication with proceedings incapable of delivering justice.
The comment warns that, if finalized, the proposed rule would harm recruitment and retention, and it signals that federal employment is unstable and politicized, directly undermining OPM’s stated goal of building and retaining a strong, professional workforce.
The comment emphasizes the importance of evaluating the proposed rule in the context of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks on our federal workforce, and how the removal of protections within this rule would make it easier for the administration to continue its unlawful purge of the civil service.
