A federal judge in California temporarily blocked the Trump administration from firing federal workers during the government shutdown Wednesday, saying the government had “taken advantage” of the lapse in funding to conduct them.
District Judge Susan Illston issued the emergency temporary injunction in favor of labor unions representing the federal employees, just days after the Office of Management and Budget announced roughly 4,100 federal workers had been given reduction-in-force notifications.
“The evidence suggests that the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management have taken advantage of the lapse in government spending, in government functioning, to assume all bets are off, the laws don’t apply to them anymore,” Illston said during a court hearing.
Eight agencies – the Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security, and Treasury – had conducted layoffs after President Donald Trump threatened to use the shutdown to slash more of the workforce to pressure Democrats who boycotted Republicans’ temporary funding bill.
Illston’s ruling arrives ahead of what was expected to be more cuts to the federal workforce.
Vought said Wednesday on the Charlie Kirk Show that the administration wanted to be “very aggressive” in “shuttering the bureaucracy” and could slash more than 10,000 federal jobs during the shutdown.
Many of those targeted were working on programs or part of agencies that Trump has associated with Democrats, such as those working on expanding renewable energy, overseeing grants that support low-income communities and homelessness programs, or handling special education services.
Unions representing the federal workers filed a lawsuit against the administration in September, ahead of the shutdown, in an attempt to thwart Trump’s threats.
But the administration followed through on its threats anyway.
The unions representing workers pushed back, arguing that OMB Director Russell Vought violated the law by improperly notifying employees of their layoffs and that they were politically motivated.
They also said the administration could violate the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the government from spending money not already appropriated by Congress, by allocating promised severance payments to laid off workers.
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