California Judge Extends Hold on Trump’s Mass Worker Layoffs (3)

A federal judge in California extended a pause on widespread layoffs in the federal workforce, keeping President Donald Trump’s overhaul of the public sector at bay.

Judge Susan Illston of the US District Court for the Northern District of California late Thursday issued a preliminary injunction freezing the layoffs while a lawsuit against the government proceeds, delaying the firing of thousands of federal workers.

Illston May 9 had temporarily prohibited the administration from firing government employees, but that order was set to expire on Friday.

The administration appealed the order to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Friday morning. It had previously appealed and sought to stay Illston’s temporary restraining order at the appeals court and the US Supreme Court.

The coalition of 25 plaintiffs, made up of labor unions, nonprofit organizations, and municipal governments, said in a statement Friday that it was “gratified” by the court’s order.

“The Trump administration’s unlawful attempt to reorganize the federal government has thrown agencies into chaos, disrupting critical services provided across our nation,” the statement said.

Separation of Powers

The underlying lawsuit is so far the most expansive challenge to Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal workforce and cut what he sees as administrative bloat, and Illston’s decision sets up an escalated battle over the scope of presidential authority. She agreed with arguments from the plaintiffs that the president must get the approval of Congress before carrying out widespread reorganizations of the executive branch.

Illston rejected the Trump administration’s contention that the worker layoffs were at the direction of the individual agencies rather than the president.

The judge cited nine different presidents from both parties that have sought and been granted Congressional authority to execute cross-agency reorganizations. The last authorization expired in 1984, but was not renewed when requested by Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Trump during his first term.

“Put simply, in this case, defendants want the Court to either declare that nine Presidents and twenty-one Congresses did not properly understand the separation of powers, or ignore how the executive branch is implementing large-scale reductions in force and reorganizations. The Court can do neither,” she said in granting the preliminary injunction.

The Office of Personnel Management, Office on Management and Budget, and the Department of Government Efficiency similarly lack the authority to carry out the president’s executive orders, Illston added.

Questions of Jurisdiction, Standing

Illston’s decision also marks a divergence from other court findings by affirming the plaintiffs’ right to seek relief from the judiciary. She pushed aside arguments from the government that the parties lacked standing and jurisdiction—an issue that has plagued efforts to halt the administration’s actions—and held that at least some of each of the groups of plaintiffs had standing.

Citing the Supreme Court’s Thunder Basin Coal Co. v. Reich decision, Illston found that the case could not be precluded by federal labor statutes. The Thunder Basin test demands that courts examine whether sending the claims through internal review channels like the Federal Labor Relations Authority or the Merit Systems Protection Board would prevent future judicial review, as well as whether the claims are within those bodies’ expertise and power to remedy.

Federal judges in Massachusetts and D.C. both found that prior complaints brought by labor unions were precluded under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. But Illston held that the case before her passed the Thunder Basin test because their arguments have to do with broad questions of statutory authority that the administrative bodies aren’t fit to answer.

If the plaintiffs took their claims through “what can be a prolonged administrative process,” and then appealed it, “they would return to an empty agency with no infrastructure,” the judge said.

Moreover, the nonunion plaintiffs don’t have access to the FLRA or MSPB and so their claims cannot be precluded, she added.

The case is AFGE vs Trump, N.D. Cal., 3:25-cv-03698, 5/22/25.