New Trump Administration Loyalty Test
Washington, D.C. (June 2, 2025)—Today, Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, Acting Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to Acting Director Charles Ezell of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) urging the agency to withdraw a new memorandum that establishes a test of loyalty to President Trump for Americans who apply to work for the federal government. Similar to the Administration’s effort to reclassify federal employees under Schedule Policy/Career allowing them to be fired for political reasons, administering a loyalty test would politicize the federal workforce and undermine the purposefully nonpartisan nature of the civil service.
“Our civil service should operate unflaggingly and unencumbered in its commitment to the preservation and defense of our Constitution. Your memorandum’s guidance not only endangers the quality of our civil service by prioritizing loyalty over expertise, but also imperils the government services upon which Americans rely,” wrote Acting Ranking Member Lynch. “The Department of Veterans Affairs should be focused on hiring the physicians and nurses who can deliver the best care possible to our veterans—not whether those physicians and nurses can convey a partisan interest to ‘advance the President’s Executive Orders.’ A senior who needs help with a change to their Social Security benefits does not need a claims representative at the Social Security Administration who wants to identify ‘one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant’—they need efficient, compassionate, and fair treatment.”
On May 29, 2025, OPM posted a memorandum to its website announcing a new essay question for all applicants for federal employment at or above the GS-05 level that asks how the applicant would help advance President Trump’s policy priorities. The question asks applicants to identify recent Executive Orders that are significant to them and how they would implement them. Repeatedly, President Trump’s Executive Orders have been rejected in the courts as unlawful and unconstitutional overreaches of executive power, including orders levying across the board tariffs, targeting law firms, attempting to end birthright citizenship, and dismantling the federal government.
Federal workers take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, not to the President. This memorandum comes amid the Trump Administration’s ongoing purge of the civil service and effort to consolidate executive power, including mass firing thousands of workers, ousting independent watchdogs who investigate wrongdoing, destroying federal union rights, silencing whistleblowers, pushing a Reconciliation bill through that House that eviscerates federal worker protections and steals from their retirement, and creating a culture of chaos throughout the federal government to push civil servants out of public service.
Click here to read the letter to Acting Director Charles Ezell.
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