In honor of public servants: The case for making Jan. 6 a national holiday 

As a scientist with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Frances Kelsey single-handedly prevented thalidomide, a drug now infamous for causing horrific birth defects, from reaching patients in the United States. Today, 70 years later, we Americans are fortunate to have thousands of people like Dr. Kelsey working across the federal government to protect us not just from dangerous pharmaceuticals, but also from banks that might cheat us out of our hard-earned money and from employers who think nothing of risking their workers’ lives. 

Instead of being celebrated, though, our public servants find themselves the target of escalating political attacks. 

Sometimes, these attacks are as vivid and overt as the threat from Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis last August “to start slitting throats on day one.” 

More and more, though, lawmakers are working to decimate the civil service upon which our democracy and economy depend. While less violent than DeSantis’s abhorrent rhetoric, these attacks nonetheless carry significant dangers of their own. 

Foremost among these “legal” attacks against public servants is Schedule F, a policy pioneered during the Donald Trump administration. This proposal would reclassify the thousands of career government employees who play some role in policy formation outside of the competitive service into the newly created “Schedule F.” 

By stripping these workers of basic employment protections, Schedule F would undermine the federal merit-based hiring system. Since it was established 180 years ago, this system has helped to guarantee that professionalism, expertise and fidelity to the rule of law guide our civil service, rather than self-interest or partisan loyalty. 

In the hands of an authoritarian president, Schedule F could be wielded to wipe out vast swaths of dedicated public servants and replace them with legions of unqualified hacks and sycophants. 

Schedule F has now become a centerpiece of Project 2025, a comprehensive policy blueprint being developed by conservative think tanks aimed at reprogramming the executive branch to advance a reactionary and anti-democratic agenda. Most of the leading Republican presidential candidates have vowed to institute Schedule F if they win next November. 

To be sure, elected officials from both parties, but especially those on the right, have a long history of casting public servants as scapegoats for failures in governance. Common utterances such as “good enough for government work” illustrate the extent to which derision of public service pervades popular culture. 

Still, this recent spate of attacks isn’t just different in degree but in kind. They don’t just put the lives of individual public servants at risk; they threaten to destabilize a crucial piece of the foundation upon which U.S. democracy is built. 

Political scientist Donald Moynihan underscored this point in a recent essay where he summarizes the growing body of research showing that an empowered and professionalized civil service, such as we currently have in the United States, delivers better results, is less corrupt, and is more responsive to the public and legislators. 

We also witnessed firsthand during the Trump administration how our public servants can provide a vital bulwark against presidential attempts at authoritarian-style abuses. The first impeachment proceedings against Trump began with a whistleblower complaint from a career Central Intelligence Agency officer, exposing how the president had attempted to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into helping him get reelected. 

Yet, by tolerating the demonization of public servants for so long, we have lost sight of the fact that they are just like the people they serve. They shop in the same grocery stores, they are among those standing next to us in our places of worship, and, when they get sick, they go to the doctor’s office, too. 

Dr. Kelsey helped raise two children. In her spare time, she enjoyed gardening and crossword puzzles. 

We must rebuild our “cultural commonsense” as it applies to public servants so that it no longer provides fertile ground for violent rhetoric and dangerous policies. One definitive step we should take is to establish a national holiday that recognizes the contributions and sacrifices that public servants have made on the public’s behalf since the country’s founding. 

Just as we celebrate Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day to honor the military service of those who protected our democracy against threats from without the United States, a national holiday for our career public servants would similarly honor those who work to promote and even defend our democracy within. 

And what better date to mark this occasion than Jan. 6, which has come to symbolize the dangers of deteriorating social trust and the extremist anti-government sentiment that it can foster. After all, our public servants can play a vital role here, too. As the bridge between the people and their government, they can help the nation to restore a sense of shared destiny and social cohesion that will be essential for averting another insurrection in the future. 

James Goodwin is a senior policy analyst at the Center for Progressive Reform.