Judge Blocks Federal Loyalty Question
A federal judge blocked the government from asking federal job applicants how they would advance President Trump’s agenda. The ruling came Friday in Boston.
Why it matters: The question sat on more than 70,000 job listings and asked applicants to name executive orders they would help carry out. Supporters call it accountability to an elected president. Critics call it a loyalty test for the civil service.
Where things stand
The order. S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. of Massachusetts blocked the Office of Personnel Management from continuing to use the question on federal job listings.
The scope. He stopped the question going forward but declined the unions’ broader request to bar the government from weighing answers already submitted.
The reach. The question appeared on more than 70,000 postings on the federal jobs site, for positions graded GS-5 and above.
How it works
- The actual wording. OPM’s “Question Three” asked: “How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role?” It told applicants to name one or two orders “significant to you” and explain how they would implement them.
- Where it came from. The question came from OPM’s Merit Hiring Plan, issued in 2025, which gave political appointees a larger role in hiring.
- The chilling effect. One applicant testified in a sworn declaration that she “was afraid” answering honestly about Trump’s orders would “hurt her application.”
What they’re saying
The judge saw a political test. “The plain language of Question Three calls for the applicant’s personal views on a political topic,” O’Toole wrote, “and directly links that personal view to the duties of the desired civil service job.”
The unions cheered. AFGE President Everett Kelley said federal workers “should be hired based solely on their ability to perform the job, not their allegiance to any particular administration.” AFGE, AFSCME, and the National Association of Government Employees brought the suit with Democracy Forward and Protect Democracy.
Critics tie it to Schedule F. Analysts have called the Merit Hiring Plan a “Schedule F 2.0,” a next step in the long effort to make the federal workforce more answerable to political leadership. The ruling itself did not reach that question.
OPM defended it as optional. The agency said the question was voluntary and that hiring decisions “cannot consider political or ideological beliefs.”
The argument
The administration’s case is not frivolous. Voters elect a president to set policy, and a civil service that quietly resists that agenda is its own democratic problem. In that light, asking applicants how they would implement lawful executive orders is a fair question about doing the job. The line between “will you carry out the president’s lawful orders” and “are you loyal to the president” is exactly what this case is about.
-The Editors
Liberty · Politics · Upstream of the Swamp · September 13, 2026
