Three unions that represent federal workers, including one based in Quincy, yesterday sued the regime over a question on employment forms that ask prospective workers just what they would to do support Dear Leader’s agenda, specifically:

How would you help advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.

In their suit, filed in US District Court in Boston, the American Federation of Government Employees, AFSCME and the Quincy-based National Association of Government Employees say the question violates laws, dating to 1873, aimed at ensuring a non-partisan, professional civil service and violates the First Amendment rights of prospective government employees. They are seeking to strip the question from forms given to prospective employees.

Potential federal job applicants who want to serve the United States but do not personally support the President’s executive orders and policy initiatives - or simply prefer not to share their political beliefs and views when applying for a career federal job - will be compelled to speak in the form of a written essay praising the President’s orders and policies (in order to better their chances of employment), risk being punished for answering honestly, or be chilled from speaking at all.

That is by design. The current Administration has a stated goal of removing civil servants it deems to be disloyal and replacing them with loyalists. By directing the use of the Loyalty Question in job applications for most career positions and instructing politically appointed agency leaders to review applicant responses, the Administration appears to be trying to fill nearly every level of the civil service with political loyalists.

They add:

The essay questions, including the Loyalty Question, have already appeared on over 5,800 federal job listings for career civil service positions that have nothing to do with politics or personal sympathy for the President’s Executive Orders. They are included on applications for 4 jobs as varied as Meatcutting Worker (Dept. of Defense), Research Biologist (Dept. of Agriculture), Laundry Worker (Dept. of Veterans’ Affairs), Practical Nurse (Dept. of Justice), Air Traffic Control Specialist (Dept. of the Air Force), and Recreation Specialist – Institutional (Dept. of Justice). An applicant’s ability to perform these and other career civil service roles competently is entirely unrelated to the applicant’s personal political views.

The essay questions are part of the regime’s “merit hiring plan,” which the unions say not only degrades the civil service, it violates the First Amendment rights of people trying to get a job with the federal government:

First, it imposes an unconstitutional condition on employment, creating a hiring system where applicants are identifiable by and selected on the basis of professed political beliefs and loyalties. In so doing, the MHP essentially establishes a system of unconstitutional political patronage. Second, the MHP unconstitutionally compels speech. It effectively requires applicants to disclose thoughts and beliefs on political topics and coerces them into voicing allegiance to this administration’s political agenda, regardless of their views. Third, it chills the speech of potential applicants who are interested in new job postings but refuse out of principle to profess support for the administration or to voice political views at all. These chilled applicants either engage in self-censorship or do not apply at all. Fourth, it encourages and facilitates viewpoint discrimination, allowing the Trump Administration to weed out those who do not voice sufficient support for President Trump and reward those who do. And it provides no standard for assessing responses to the Loyalty Question, giving Administration officials unfettered discretion in deciding how to use applicants’ personal political beliefs in the hiring process.