The Office of Personnel Management proposes a rule to uphold civil service protections and merit system principles. It will clarify that employees who are moved involuntarily from the competitive to the excepted service, or from one excepted service schedule to another, retain the status and adverse action rights they had at the time of movement. It will also require federal agencies to follow specific procedures upon moving any employees without their consent from the competitive service to the excepted service or, if already in the excepted service, to a different excepted service schedule. Finally, it will further define positions of a "confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character," in accordance with legislative history and Congressional intent, to mean political appointments.