The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to allow it to immediately proceed with its plan to lay off tens of thousands of workers across federal agencies.
In an emergency appeal, the administration urged the justices to quickly lift a lower-court order that has temporarily blocked the layoffs.
The bid for Supreme Court intervention is the latest step in the administration’s urgent mission to downsize the federal workforce. The high court has already assisted that mission once before: Last month, the justices lifted a lower-court order that had blocked the mass firings of probationary workers at six Cabinet departments.
The administration’s new appeal pertains to an even broader group of federal employees that numerous agencies are seeking to terminate under a February executive order that calls for “large-scale reductions in force.” U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, a Clinton appointee, blocked the administration last week from carrying out the layoffs.
Solicitor General John Sauer argued in his Supreme Court appeal that Illston improperly encroached on the president’s “unquestioned legal authority to plan and carry out” layoffs and reorganize the federal workforce.
“More concretely,” Sauer wrote, “the order has brought to a halt numerous in-progress RIFs at more than a dozen federal agencies, compelling the government to retain — at taxpayer expense — thousands of employees whose continuance in federal service is determined by agencies not to be in the government and public interest.”
Illston’s order has halted about 40 ongoing reductions-in-force at 17 agencies, Sauer said.
Trump’s order was challenged by the largest federal workers’ unions in the country, along with several nonprofits and local governments. More than 20 Democratic-leaning states have also filed briefs backing the workers.
Illston held that the administration is not following the strict set of legal and procedural requirements that apply when the government wants to conduct mass layoffs, including how long an employee has been with an agency. She added that a president also needs “the cooperation of the legislative branch” when making the kind of large-scale reorganizations Trump has announced, noting that Trump urged Congress to pass a bill to back similar efforts during his first presidency.
Illston’s order covered 21 agencies, including DOGE; the departments of Energy, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Interior, Labor, State, Treasury, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, OMB, OPM, the National Labor Relations Board, National Science Foundation, Small Business Administration, Social Security Administration and AmeriCorps.
