A federal appeals court on Friday opted to keep in place a lower court’s decision to block the Trump administration‘s sweeping federal workforce cuts under the Department of Government Efficiency.
The three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled 2-1 to deny the Trump administration’s bid to stay the earlier order from the U.S. District Court for the North District of California. Judges William Fletcher, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, and Lucy Koh, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, ruled in the majority to deny the bid to unpause the mass workforce cuts.
In the lengthy decision, the court argued that the Trump administration failed to show the necessary factors to pause the lower court’s order and expressed concern over the effects the cuts could have on government services. Fletcher, in the majority opinion, called the proposed cuts “an unprecedented attempted restructuring of the federal government and its operations.”
Judge Consuelo Callahan, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, dissented from the decision, and said she would have granted a stay of the lower court’s order.
“Plaintiffs sued, bypassing the comprehensive administrative scheme that Congress has enacted to handle federal sector labor and employment disputes. The district court nevertheless entertained Plaintiffs’ claims and concluded that the Executive’s actions likely violate separation of powers—without making any finding that any agency’s [reduction in force] is likely to violate any statute,” Callahan said in her dissent.
The court then entered a sweeping preliminary injunction that strips the Executive of control over its own personnel,” she added. “Because Defendants have shown a likelihood of success and irreparable harm, we should have stayed the preliminary injunction.”
SUPREME COURT ALLOWS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO END MASS PAROLE FOR MIGRANTS
The pause issued by the district court earlier this month was the latest of several Trump administration actions to be blocked by a federal court, as President Donald Trump faces a bevy of legal challenges to nearly all of his actions early into his second term.
The actions by district courts to stop the Trump administration’s actions have led to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket becoming flooded with requests from the administration to pause lower court orders.