type: timeline_event
On March 5, 2026, the Office of Personnel Management published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that would make performance ratings — specifically the three most recent annual appraisals — the primary factor in determining which federal employees are retained during reductions in force, replacing the long-standing system that prioritized tenure and seniority. The rule opened a public comment period running through May 4.
The proposed rule excluded probationary employees, temporary workers, and political appointees from RIF procedures entirely, meaning those categories of workers could be dismissed without the procedural protections that the rule nominally reformed. Federal workforce experts immediately noted that the exclusions created a two-track system in which the employees most vulnerable to political pressure — probationary workers and those in positions most recently filled by the current administration — had the fewest protections, while career civil servants with decades of experience would be evaluated primarily on performance reviews that many feared had been compromised.
AFGE president Everett Kelley warned that the rule would "trigger another mass layoff" under the cover of "tainted performance reviews," arguing that performance appraisals at many agencies had become unreliable instruments after years of DOGE-directed disruption, leadership vacancies, and the politicization of evaluation processes. Kelley noted that in agencies where supervisory positions had been left vacant or filled by political loyalists, performance reviews had already been weaponized against employees who raised concerns about policy changes or resisted directives they believed violated federal law.
Virginia state representative James Walkinshaw, whose district includes tens of thousands of federal workers, called the proposal "a blueprint for a political purge disguised as merit reform." Legal analysts observed that the rule, if finalized, would fundamentally alter the federal civil service's century-old merit system protections — replacing a system designed to insulate career employees from political retaliation with one that could be exploited to target employees whose independence made them inconvenient. The comment period was expected to generate an unusually high volume of public responses from federal employee unions, professional associations, and good-government organizations.