Executive Order 14171: Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions

What does Executive Order 14171 do?

The order reinstated and amended the first Trump administration’s Schedule F framework, renaming it Schedule Policy/Career. It covers selected career positions considered confidential, policy-determining, policymaking or policy-advocating. Those roles remain career positions and are to be filled on merit, but incumbents do not receive some chapter 43 and 75 removal procedures and Merit Systems Protection Board appeal rights.

Reading the operative provisions of Executive Order 14171

Schedule Policy/Career applies to positions the administration determines are confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating. It is a classification framework for selected federal jobs, not a declaration that every career employee is a political appointee. The order instructs agencies to identify potentially covered roles and petition OPM; OPM reviews the petitions and issues implementing regulations. The positions remain part of the career service and are to be filled on merit, but the framework changes some protections and procedures that apply to covered roles.

The timeline has several separate steps. Agencies first review their positions, OPM establishes the rules for petitions and review, and the President can make specific designations through later executive action. EO 14410’s later designations are therefore distinct from EO 14171’s original framework. A job is not necessarily converted merely because its duties involve policy; the agency’s petition, OPM’s decision, and any presidential designation must be checked.

The 2026 OPM rule and its effective date are evidence of implementation, but they do not answer whether a particular employee’s position has been designated or whether a change was lawful. Individual actions can raise separate questions about notice, appeal rights, prohibited personnel practices, and statutory merit-system principles. The order preserves legal requirements and should be read with the rule and the specific agency decision. Read Executive Order 14171 at the White House.