The Supreme Court opened the way for the Trump administration to continue mass layoffs in the federal workforce in an emergency ruling Tuesday.
The court’s decision lifts a lower court ruling that blocked the layoffs at government agencies that President Donald Trump initiated in a February executive order. The executive order instructed federal agencies to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force (RIFs), consistent with the applicable law, and to separate from Federal service temporary employees and reemployed annuitants working in areas that will likely be subject to the RIFs.”
A joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management referenced in the Court’s majority opinion implemented the executive order.
“Because the Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful — and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied — we grant the application,” the Court wrote in a two-page unsigned majority opinion. “We express no view on the legality of any Agency RIF and Reorganization Plan produced or approved pursuant to the Executive Order and Memorandum.”
When several labor unions, advocacy groups, and local governments sued to block the executive order, Judge Susan Illston of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California issued a two-week pause followed by a preliminary injunction barring the government from proceeding with the planned layoffs.
After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld Illston’s order on appeal May 30, Solicitor General D. John Sauer took the case to the Supreme Court on June 2, asking the justices to intervene. He argued that the district court’s injunction called for the Court’s intervention because “it interferes with the Executive Branch’s internal operations and unquestioned legal authority to plan and carry out RIFs, and does so on a government-wide scale.” The injunction caused confusion in more than a dozen federal agencies by bringing numerous in-progress RIFs to an abrupt halt, he wrote.
The respondents argued that the president could not initiate the reorganization and reduction efforts by unilateral executive order without constitutionally required cooperation from Congress.
The high court favored the Trump administration.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to write a dissent, arguing in a 15-page opinion that the Court’s ruling would “allow an apparently unprecedented and congressionally unsanctioned dismantling of the Federal Government to continue apace, causing irreparable harm before courts can decide whether the President has the authority to engage in the actions he proposes.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a one-paragraph opinion concurring with the ruling, emphasised that the RIF plans themselves were not before the Court at this stage. Sotomayor wrote that she agreed with Jackson that the president cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates.
“Here, however, the relevant Executive Order directs agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force ‘consistent with applicable law,’” she argued.
The ruling is temporary and guides how the administration can proceed while a legal challenge to Trump’s plan continues in lower courts.