The Justice Department on Monday asked the Supreme Court to block a federal judge’s ruling ordering the agency to rehire 16,000 probationary workers fired as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to slash the size of government.
Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris filed an application requesting that SCOTUS place an immediate administrative stay on U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s order to reinstate certain probationary government workers. Harris argued that Aslup’s order was overly broad and an abuse of judicial authority.
“This is no way to run a government,” Harris wrote in the brief. “This Court should stop the ongoing assault on the constitutional structure before further damage is wrought.”
Earlier this month, Alsup said that probationary employees let go by the Trump administration at the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, and Treasury should be rehired after suits from a number of government unions, like the American Federation of Government Employees, and non-profits like the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.
Harris argued that Alsup, a Bill Clinton appointee, had let “third parties hijack the employment relationship between the federal government and its workforce.”
Harris argued that probationary employees should follow congressional guidance and appeal to either the Office of Special Council or the Merit Systems Protection Board to challenge their termination.
“Declaring open season on challenges to federal personnel management is especially unsound because Congress has created an entirely different framework for resolving legal challenges to the terminations of federal employees,” Harris said. “Allowing strangers to the federal-employment relationship to head straight to district court and raise claims that the affected federal employees themselves cannot raise would upend that entire process.”
The application said that the groups challenging the order lacked standing and that the district court had no authority to adjudicate federal personnel decisions.
“A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said after the initial decision from Alsup. “The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch – singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda. If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for President themselves.”
With the guidance of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort, the Trump administration has moved to cut employment throughout the federal government through terminations and instituting volunteer retirement initiatives.
The Trump administration has been challenged by various federal judges who have issued sweeping injunctions looking to block actions ranging from deportations of suspected gang members to pausing foreign aid. The Supreme Court previously rejected an emergency application from the DOJ in a 5-4 decision seeking to block a judge’s demand that the administration unfreeze billions of dollars meant for foreign aid.
