Limit SES burrowing-in by creating and filling political positions

Partially done

Printed page 80 3. Central Personnel Agencies

“President Reagan's OPM began by limiting such SES burrowing-in, arguing that the proper course was to create and fill political positions.”

What has happened

Jul 17, 2025 Partially done
The administration used Reagan's method from the first day and added to it. The hiring freeze shut career hiring while expressly leaving noncareer Senior Executive Service, Schedule A and Schedule C appointments free, so the only route into the senior civil service during the transition ran through political appointment. Executive Order 14317 then created Schedule G for noncareer policy-making and policy-advocating positions — new political posts in a category the order says had no schedule of its own — and OPM spent February and March 2025 encouraging agencies to redesignate career-reserved SES positions as "general", which is what makes a post available to a noncareer appointee. Partial because no allowlisted source counts the political positions created and filled, or the career appointments headed off.
- Presidential Memorandum, Hiring Freeze
  Primary Executive branch Jan 20, 2025
- Executive Order 14317, Creating Schedule G in the Excepted Service
  Primary Executive branch Jul 17, 2025
- OPM memorandum: Guidance on Senior Executive Service Reassignments
  Primary Executive branch Dec 1, 2025

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Researched 2026-08-27.

Reagan’s method, per the Quote, was to limit burrowing-in by creating and filling political positions. Three instruments in this window do that:

Hiring Freeze, 2025-01-20 — vacant career positions frozen; noncareer SES, Schedule A and Schedule C appointments expressly not limited. The asymmetry is the point.
EO 14317, 2025-07-17 — creates Schedule G for noncareer policy-making and policy-advocating positions, filling what the order calls a gap in the excepted service schedules.
OPM guidance redesignating career-reserved SES positions, described in OPM’s own 2025-12-01 memorandum: “Guidance Regarding Redesignating SES CIO Positions (Feb. 4, 2025) (encouraging agencies to redesignate Chief Information Officers as SES ‘general’ positions); Guidance on Career Reserved SES Positions and Agency Redesignation Requests (Feb. 24, 2025) (directing a broader review of SES designations); Guidance Regarding Redesignating CHCO Positions (Mar. 6, 2025)”. A “general” SES position may be filled by a noncareer appointee; a career-reserved one may not. See #123.

What is missing is a count. No allowlisted source reports how many political positions were created and filled, or how many career appointments were blocked as burrowing-in.

Action: restrict
Object: burrowing-in of appointees into the career SES
ID: 122