A judge in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, had blocked the layoffs, finding that they would likely violate federal law. But the justices granted an emergency appeal from the administration seeking permission to enforce a Feb. 11 executive order that instructed agencies to carry out dramatic ''reductions in force.''
In an apparent 8-1 ruling, the high court said it was not assessing the legality of any particular agency's layoff plans, nor any moves taken so far to implement those plans. Litigation over the downsizing efforts is sure to continue. But for now, the justices said, the administration can enforce the executive order and a memo from the Office of Management and Budget implementing that EO.
The high court's unsigned decision — which the majority explained in two terse paragraphs — lifts an injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, who had blocked 21 agencies from complying with the mass layoff orders.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole member of the court to record a dissent. She said President Donald Trump
...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...is unleashing a ''wrecking ball'' on the federal government, and she slammed the court's majority for its ''demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President's legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.''
Jackson, a Biden appointee, said her colleagues were inappropriately reinterpreting Illston's findings, noting that appeals courts are supposed to adhere to a lower court's conclusions about disputed facts. Lower courts have better command of the facts at this early stage in the litigation, she wrote in a 15-page dissent.
The groups that sued over the layoff plans — including several cities and counties, the American Federation of Government Employees and other federal worker unions — said in a statement that the ruling jeopardizes services that Americans rely on. ''This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution,'' the unions said.
Illston's injunction, which she issued in May, had blocked most major federal agencies from moving forward with any of the complicated steps the government must take when carrying out mass layoffs. She prohibited the administration from developing reorganization plans, issuing any new RIF notifications, and executing any RIFs that were further along in the process.