The Trump administration has been quietly using a new category of political appointments, supplementing its broader effort to expand presidential control over the executive branch and politicize federal leadership.
Office of Personnel Management data now shows 25 political appointees serving under Schedule G, a new appointment category the administration never publicly acknowledged using. Twenty-two of them are at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the first began serving in August 2025, more than a year before any record of these appointees appeared.
A new appointment category, without rules in place
On July 17, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order creating Schedule G for positions of a “policy-making or policy-advocating” character. Why it was needed was unclear. The president was already using Schedule C, designed for positions of a “confidential or policy-determining” nature, at historic levels.
The order directed OPM to adopt regulations to implement the executive order. OPM issued guidance on July 29, 2025, but did not propose a regulation until September 18, 2026, more than a year after the first Schedule G appointee began serving. The rule is currently open for public comment.
In the months that followed the executive order and guidance, every sign suggested Schedule G had not been put to use. It never appeared in OPM’s monthly federal workforce updates, and Plum data from July and September did not include any Schedule G appointees.
However, that changed in the last few weeks. Updated Plum data from last week, in early October, shows 25 Schedule G appointees serving, including 22 at the VA, with the first starting on August 25, 2025, just over a month after President Trump’s executive order and over a year before OPM’s proposed rule.
Even that number may not be the full picture. The Plum data reflects what agencies report to OPM, and agencies have discretion over what they share. Twenty-five is what we can see, not necessarily what exists.
The bigger issue is transparency: The current administration is reshaping the workforce meant to serve the American people but doing it under the radar, without input from Congress and more than a year before the public had a chance to weigh in through rulemaking.
The fact that the public can see who holds political appointee positions offers transparency, and thus a tool for public and congressional oversight and accountability. But in the case of Schedule G, for more than a year, officials served in a new appointment category with no public record, and the only acknowledgment came through an unannounced data update rather than a report or a press release.
In addition, Schedule C appointments come with guardrails set in regulation: OPM must approve each position, Schedule C appointees cannot be detailed to the White House and the authorities are published in the Federal Register. With no regulation yet in place, none of those rules apply to Schedule G, meaning there are no checks or visibility.
And Schedule G doesn’t replace existing authorities; it adds to them. The administration already has over 400 more non-Senate-confirmed appointees than any administration in the past 40 years. Schedule G opens yet another channel for political staff, and further complicates the maze of federal workforce categories and systems. Yet, this addition does not have any clear value in terms of the government’s ability to deliver for the public good.
Restoring guardrails
At minimum, OPM should report Schedule G in its monthly workforce data and, as it finalizes the proposed rule, adopt the same guardrails that apply to Schedule C.
Congress should consider caps on non-Senate-confirmed appointments and limits on new appointment categories created by executive order, so the size and shape of the political workforce is not left entirely to presidential discretion.
And more immediately, Congress should conduct oversight on this new category of political appointees—policymakers need to know how it works, how many Schedule G officials there are, what jobs they are doing and how the new appointment category is affecting decisions being made and programs being delivered.
In the coming weeks, the Partnership for Public Service will take a closer look at these appointees and what Schedule G means for the administration’s broader approach to politicizing federal leadership. Changes like these will shape the landscape a new administration will have to navigate in 2029. This shifting landscape will inform our larger reform work as part of our Government for a New Era initiative along with other expert groups and cross-partisan coalitions. More to come.