Tracking Trump in Court: The Scope of Executive Power Tested

The Trump administration has opened up new fronts in the legal battle over the president’s authority to reshape the federal bureaucracy, choosing trial courts in Texas and Kentucky to file lawsuits seeking to void Biden-era union contracts.

Early challenges to the administration’s attempts to reinstate the Schedule F job classification for federal workers, fire the heads of independent agencies, shutter some agencies without congressional sign-off, and grant Elon Musk’s government efficiency team access to sensitive data largely landed in predominantly liberal courts. Those include the US District Court for the District of Columbia and neighboring districts in Virginia and Maryland, as well as the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Many of those cases were assigned to Biden and Obama appointed judges, who have drawn criticism—and some calls for impeachment—from the president and his allies for interfering with his agenda.

The administration took a different approach after Trump signed an executive order directing agencies across the executive branch to stop bargaining with federal unions: Rather than waiting for a union challenge, the Justice Department quickly sued the American Federation of Government Employees over collective bargaining agreements that Trump says pose a threat to national security.

The administration’s preemptive strike under the Declaratory Judgment Act was filed in Waco, Texas, where US District Judge Alan Albright, appointed during Trump’s first term, is assigned all civil cases. While Albright is set to transition to Austin once another judge is appointed to his current division, the venue choice is likely to eventually give the conservative US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit a chance to rule on the scope of Trump’s executive power.

Days later, the Treasury Department used a similar strategy in an attempt to void its union deal, filing a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky against an affiliate of the National Treasury Employees Union. All six judges in that district were appointed by either Trump or George W. Bush.

The suit was assigned to Judge Danny C. Reeves, who last year blocked enforcement of Biden-era regulations that granted seasonal farmworkers on H-2A visas workplace organizing protections. Reeves also recently struck down a Biden administration rule barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in federally-funded schools. All six judges in the Eastern District of Kentucky were appointed by either Trump or George W. Bush.

If the suits prove successful, it would make it far easier and faster for the administration to lay off swaths of federal workers across the government.

Updates with new story on administration suits seeking to void federal worker union agreements.