Federal Judge Says Trump’s Shutdown Layoffs Are Likely ‘Political Retribution’

A federal judge once again barred the Trump administration from conducting mass layoffs across wide swathes of the federal government during the shutdown, this time on a more permanent basis.

Judge Susan Illston in the District Court for the Northern District of California verbally issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday against reductions-in-force for federal workers represented by a coalition of several unions. The preliminary injunction effectively extends her temporary restraining order first issued on Oct. 15.

The Trump administration is now barred from going through with its plans to fire thousands of additional workers across the government while the shutdown drags into its fourth week. The administration issued RIF notices to about 3,000 workers before the initial restraining order went into effect.

Illston said at the conclusion of the hearing that she found the unions likely to succeed in their suit, which alleged several legal issues with the administration’s reduction-in-force plan, including that the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management violated the Administrative Procedure Act.

“I believe that I will find that their actions are arbitrary and capricious, as shown by the haphazard way in which the RIFs have rolled out, and they are intended for the purpose of political retribution,” Illston continued.

The preliminary injunction is effective immediately, though the judge said several details will be defined in a written order published later Tuesday. It blocks OPM, OMB and all federal agencies from issuing more RIFs to areas represented by unions and from implementing RIF notices that have been issued during the shutdown.

Illston did not resolve questions about whether the Department of the Interior — where the largest layoffs are planned — should be covered by the injunction. Interior has argued in its filings that its planned layoffs are unrelated to the shutdown, a claim that the unions are disputing.

Illston’s verbal order appears to cover Interior for now, but she said that further briefing and possibly a hearing would be necessary to resolve the question.

Illston appeared very moved by stories of federal workers who had been furloughed and then laid off, reading some of the examples in court before the hearing actually began.

“I found them very affecting. And I think it’s important that we remember that although we are here talking about statutes and administrative procedure and the like, we are also talking about human lives,” Illston said from the bench.

While Elizabeth Hedges is listed in the case as the lead attorney for the federal government, she was not the one arguing in the hearing. That role fell on Michael Velchik, senior counsel at the Justice Department’s civil division. He was added to the case less than a week ago, nearly two weeks after Illston criticized Hedges for refusing to address whether the administration’s shutdown RIFs were legal.

Velchik is currently handling prominent cases for the Trump administration, including one against Harvard University and another defending the government’s interpretation of the Alien Enemies Act.

Velchik’s inclusion in the shutdown layoffs case could indicate that the Justice Department is raising the stakes in this particular challenge.

Toward the end of his arguments, Velchik called the reductions-in-force “the right thing to do.”

“It’s not arbitrary and capricious; in fact, it’s good policy,” Velchik said. “Morally, this is the right thing to do, and it’s the democratic thing to do.”

The attorney representing the union plaintiffs, Danielle Leonard, immediately called his comments “offensive” when she took the stand. “This is partisan retribution that is not permissible under the law,” she said.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal workers and one of the unions in this lawsuit, issued a statement Monday formally condemning the shutdown’s effects and urging lawmakers to quickly pass a clean continuing resolution. Senate Democrats are downplaying that statement and have not yet used that as a reason to budge on their refusal to vote for Republicans’ CR, NOTUS reported.

Illston allowed more unions — including the National Federation of Federal Employees, the Service Employees International Union and the National Association of Government Employees — to join the lawsuit. These groups wanted to be included in the challenge in order to increase protections against RIFs for more federal workers.

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, one of the legal groups representing the unions in the case, called Illston’s decision “positive for the American people and a major blow” for the Trump administration.

“Our team is honored to represent the civil servants who are fighting back against President Trump’s dangerous agenda, and to have won this crucial injunction that will help stop federal workers from continuing to be targeted and harassed by this administration during the shutdown,” she added.