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By: FEDweek StaffIn two key court actions within the space of a day, a federal district judge has extended a general ban on further reductions in force and reorganizations by federal agencies, while the U.S. Supreme Court has again sided with the White House over the firing of a MSPB board member.
A new order from Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has indefinitely extended an earlier two-week pause against carrying out an executive order and other Trump administration policies to cut federal employment in general and to abolish or virtually abolish various individual agencies.
“Presidents may set policy priorities for the executive branch, and agency heads may implement them. This much is undisputed. But Congress creates federal agencies, funds them, and gives them duties that—by statute—they must carry out. Agencies may not conduct large-scale reorganizations and reductions in force in blatant disregard of Congress’s mandates, and a President may not initiate large-scale executive branch reorganization without partnering with Congress,” she wrote.
The order specifically applies to OMB, OPM, DOGE, USDA, Commerce, Energy, HHS, HUD, Interior, Labor, State, Treasury, Transportation, VA, AmeriCorps, EPA, GSA, NLRB, NSF, SBA, and SSA—although the judge noted that it “will provide relief beyond the named parties.”
The ruling in a suit sponsored by the AFGE union and numerous other parties comes as RIF notices have been issued at many of those agencies—in some cases with employees already put on paid leave pending their layoff—while many other agencies are making preparations for significant layoffs and reorganizations under a March executive order and later guidance from OMB and OPM.
Judge Illston rejected the administration’s arguments that agencies are acting on their own for efficiency reasons, saying “The evidence plaintiffs have presented tells a very different story: that the agencies are acting at the direction of the President and his team.” She cited language in the order that agencies “shall promptly undertake preparations to initiate large scale reductions in force” and in the guidance telling them to submit reorganization plans for review and approval—in both cases with specific deadlines.
As in the earlier order, she found that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their arguments that the order “usurps Congress’s Article I powers and exceeds the President’s lawful authority” and went beyond the authority of OPM and OMB.
The Justice Department has appealed to the Ninth Circuit federal court of appeals.
MSPB remains without quorum, NLRB case continues
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has again refused to reinstate Cathy Harris to the MSPB governing board while her challenge to her firing—along with that of a member of the NLRB board, Gwynne Wilcox—continues in the lower courts.
The immediate impact for federal employees is that it continues to leave the MSPB board without a quorum to review decisions by its hearing officers on appeals of layoffs and other personnel actions. A surge of such appeals has been brought from laid-off probationary employees and many more are likely from those employees as well as from tenured employees.
More broadly, the case has become the center of a larger dispute over a law stating that heads of independent agencies may be removed “only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The White House did not cite such factors in their firings or in the firings of a number of other similarly situated officials.
Earlier, the high court had allowed to stand an appeals court’s ruling to keep her off the board for the meantime, which overturned a lower court’s action to reinstate her. In that earlier action, the court had invited further briefing on the issue, which the Trump administration used as an opportunity to request a full ruling on its argument that the underlying law is an unconstitutional limit on a President’s authority to operate the executive branch.
Says the new order from the court majority, “The stay reflects our judgment that the Government is likely to show that both the NLRB and MSPB exercise considerable executive power. But we do not ultimately decide in this posture whether the NLRB or MSPB falls within such a recognized exception; that question is better left for resolution after full briefing and argument.”
Three dissenting justices, though, said the order goes against established precedent and that in the law, “Congress provided for them to serve their full terms, protected from a President’s desire to substitute his political allies . . . the interest at stake is in maintaining Congress’s idea of independent agencies: bodies of specialists balanced along partisan lines, which will make sound judgments precisely because not fully controlled by the White House.”
Halt to layoffs at Education ordered
Separately, a judge of the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts has issued an injunction against layoffs already announced of about a third of the Education Department workforce, ordering that those “whose employment was terminated or otherwise eliminated” since the start of the Trump administration be returned to their jobs.
“The massive reduction in staff has made it effectively impossible for the Department to carry out its statutorily mandated functions,” Judge Myong Joun wrote. The order is to “remain in effect for the duration of this litigation and until a merits decision has been issued”; however, a number of such orders against layoffs in other agencies have been stayed by appeals courts while the cases proceed to a full ruling.
He cited declarations from former employees and others that “paint a stark picture of the irreparable harm that will result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America’s most vulnerable student populations.”
“Indeed, prior to the RIF, the Department was already struggling to meet its goals, so it is only reasonable to expect that an RIF of this magnitude will likely cripple the Department. The idea that Defendants’ actions are merely a “reorganization” is plainly not true . . . Not only is there no evidence that Defendants are pursuing a “legislative goal” or otherwise working with Congress to reach a resolution, but there is also no evidence that the RIF has actually made the Department more efficient.”
Large Share of Federal Workforce about to Experience a Payless Pay Period
OPM Details Coverage Changes, Plan Dropouts for FEHB/PSHB in 2026
OMB Says Federal Workforce RIFs are Starting as Shutdown Drags On
Financial Impact of Shutdown Starts to Hit Home; WH Threatens No Back Pay
Surge of Retirement Applications Is in the Pipeline, Says OPM
See also,
TSP Takes Step toward Upcoming In-Plan Roth Conversions
5 Steps to Protect Your Federal Job During the Shutdown
Over 30K TSP Accounts Have Crossed the Million Mark in 2025
The Best Ages for Federal Employees to Retire
