Make the MSPB the main reviewer of federal adverse actions

Research notes

Researched 2026-08-27.

The record here runs against the ask. When action moves the other way, the Status stays not started and the Primary Evidence of that action is attached to it.

• MSPB, Appellate Jurisdiction Update, final rule 2026-02-23: removes appeal rights to the Board for actions moving a civil service employee into an excepted service position without civil service protection, “reflect[ing] the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM’s) recission of these rights.”
• MSPB, Appellate Jurisdiction Update II, final rule 2026-08-12: removes references to the Board’s jurisdiction over “probationary termination, suitability, and reduction-in-force (RIF) appeals … This revision reflects the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM’s) rescission of the MSPB’s jurisdiction to hear these types of appeals.” Only Foreign Service RIF appeals under 22 U.S.C. 4010a survive.
• The appeals removed from the Board went to new OPM programs: OPM’s Suitability Action Appeals, Streamlining Probationary and Trial Period Appeals and Reduction in Force Appeals final rules, all published 2026-08-03, with implementation resources issued to agencies.
• The 2026-07-02 Promoting Employee Accountability proposal would further narrow what the Board does with the cases it keeps, refocusing penalty review on a totality-of-the-circumstances test.

Congress has done nothing: no bill in the 119th Congress names the MSPB.

• 2026-09-03 (reviewed 2026-09-06): the Board finalized its half of Promoting Employee Accountability as Determining the Appropriate Penalty for Federal Employees Charged With Misconduct (RIN 3124-AA35, effective 2026-10-05). It changes the standard of penalty review, not the allocation of review: the preamble says the rule “does not remove, narrow, or transfer any category of Board jurisdiction”. Nothing for this Quote; the Status stands on the two jurisdiction rules above. The rule is Evidence on #111.