The Trump administration must halt many of the wide-scale reductions in the federal workforce ordered by a California judge on Friday.
San Francisco US District Judge Susan Ilston issued an emergency order last week in a lawsuit filed by trade unions and cities. This is one of several legal challenges to President Trump’s efforts to significantly reduce the size of the federal government he calls bloated and too expensive.
“The court will issue a temporary restraining order to suspend massive cuts in the meantime, as it is likely that the president will have to request Congressional cooperation to seek Congressional cooperation,” Ilston wrote in her order.
The temporary restraining order directs many federal agencies to act on the President’s Labor Force executive order signed in February, and then directs notes issued by the Office of Personnel Management and Elon Musk-led Government Efficiency Bureau, or DOGE.
An order expires in 14 days does not require the department to rehire people. The plaintiffs sought to postpone the effective date of the agency’s lawsuit and suspend the implementation or enforcement of the executive order, including the department taking further action.
They restricted requests to departments that are ongoing or poised for startup, including the Department of Health and Human Services, which announced in March that it would fire 10,000 workers and centralize the department.
Ilston, who was nominated for the bench by former President Clinton, said at a hearing Friday that the president has the authority to seek changes to the administrative department and institutions created by Congress.
“But he has to do so legally,” she said. “He must do so in the cooperation of Congress. That’s how the Constitution is structured.”
Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he said he slammed Musk, the adviser to his billionaire and a leading campaign donor, to accus him through Doge.
Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired and left their jobs due to a postponed resignation program or taken leave as a result of Trump’s government-derived efforts. There are no official numbers for the job offer, but at least 75,000 federal employees have resigned, with thousands of probation workers already being left out.
Government lawyers argued Friday that executive orders and memos calling for massive cuts and restructuring plans provide only general principles that agencies should follow in their own decision-making processes.
“We explicitly invite legislative comments and suggestions as part of the policies these agencies want to implement,” Deputy Attorney General Eric Hamilton said of the memo. “Guidelines are being set.”
However, plaintiffs’ lawyer Daniel Leonard said it is clear that the President, President Doge and the Personnel Management Bureau have made decisions outside the authorities and have not invited dialogue from the agency.
“They aren’t waiting for these planning documents,” she said. “They don’t seek approval, and they’re not waiting for it.”
Temporary restraint orders apply to agencies including the Agriculture, Energy, Labor, Interior Affairs, State, Treasury Department and Veterans Divisions.
It also applies to the National Science Foundation, Small and Medium Enterprise Management, the Social Security Agency, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Some of the unions and nonprofits who filed the lawsuit are also plaintiffs in another case before a San Francisco judge challenged the mass shootings of probation workers. In that case, Judge William Alsup ordered the government to revive those workers in March, but the U.S. Supreme Court blocked his order.
Plaintiffs include cities in San Francisco, Chicago and Baltimore. Federal Union of US Government Employees. and the Center for Taxpayer Rights and Unions to Protect American National Parks, the Union of Nonprofits for Retired Americans.
Har writes for the Associated Press.
