Judge: Trump Can’t Fire Bureaucrats Because It Hurts My Feelings
Teh article discusses a recent unusual ruling by Judge Susan illston in a Northern California federal court, which has temporarily blocked the Trump management from laying off federal employees during a government shutdown. The judge expressed strong emotions about the layoffs, describing them metaphorically as a “hatchet attack” on employees nationwide, and emphasized the unprecedented nature of these reductions in force (RIFs) during a shutdown.
Judge Illston’s decision highlights concerns not only about the legality but more so the normative implications of the administration’s actions, noting that such layoffs during a shutdown are atypical and harmful. She also referenced the difficulties faced by affected workers, including worries about health insurance and pregnancy-related issues, underscoring the human impact of the layoffs.
The ruling critiques the administration’s approach as arbitrary, rush-driven, and politically motivated, particularly pointing to President Trump’s public statements targeting certain agencies aligned with the opposing political party. The judge framed these layoffs as a form of political punishment rather than a neutral policy decision, even tho the administration argued it was a reasoned policy judgment about reducing politicized and inefficient agencies.
Illston further argued that stopping these layoffs is necessary to prevent irreparable harm to employees who would lose income, healthcare, and possibly housing. Even though the legal foundations of the ruling are somewhat unconventional-focusing heavily on the emotional and normative aspects rather than established legal precedents-it sets an vital precedent on how government shutdown-related layoffs are viewed by the courts.
The article’s author, Chris Bray, critiques the decision’s logic and tone, noting its heavy reliance on “feelings” and a normative stance rather than purely legal reasoning, and wonders whether the ruling will hold up over time.
After a just absolutely bizarre hearing in a Northern California federal court, a judge has forbidden the Trump administration from laying off government employees.
The hearing may have been held in the Court of the Red Queen: After counsel to the assistant attorney general Elizabeth Hedges argued that she wasn’t going to get into the legal merits of the Trump administration’s layoffs because the court lacked jurisdiction and the plaintiffs hadn’t met the legal standards for filing a lawsuit, Judge Susan Illston warned that, actual quote, “This hatchet is falling on the heads of employees all across the nation and you’re not even prepared to address whether that’s legal?”
Getting laid off is a hatchet attack, so we skip the arguments about ripeness and standing. It’s emotionally dire, a thing that feels very bad. Judges talk like this, now. OH GOD, COUNSEL, THIS IS LIKE A THING WITH A KNIFE THAT WOUNDS ME. Objection, your honor, inadequate trigger warning. Scene from a recent session of judicial training:
Illston declared the existence of a temporary restraining order from the bench, and I’ve been waiting for her written order to land on PACER. It’s here, and it’s… very… Well, OK: It has a lot of feelings.
Opening paragraphs, first page:
Note that the first paragraph frames federal RIFs as historically unprecedented, while the second paragraph frames the current federal RIFS as not ordinary: different than the way RIFs are usually conducted. So this is unprecedented, but it has happened before, and the problem with the unprecedented thing is that it’s not being done the way the thing that has never been done before is usually done.
But anyway, a reduction in force of federal personnel during a shutdown is “unprecedented in our country’s history.” Of course, a reduction in force alone is not at all unprecedented, and the Clinton administration reduced the size of the federal bureaucracy by about 400,000 people. Illston doesn’t articulate a reason why reducing the bureaucracy during a shutdown is worse, or a reason why Clinton RIFs were good but Trump RIFs are a violent hatchet attack, but she clearly feels it. Of course, during a shutdown, the agencies being shrunk have no approved funding, so it would seem to make more sense to be careful about personnel costs, but this argument means that I just hurt people with a hatchet.
Above all, note that the argument out of the gate is a normative argument, not a legal argument. This is unprecedented! This is not ordinary! If a judge feels that something is a little off, she can order it stopped.
Page two, further explaining why the RIFs have to be stopped: “Unions are hearing from members who have serious health conditions or are in the late stages of pregnancy, and who worry that their health insurance will be impacted by the RIFs, but there is no one in the office who can answer their questions during the shutdown.”
You can’t lay off government employees because they’re worried about their health insurance, and some of them might be pregnant. Private sector employees, is this the standard you’re accustomed to?
Now, same page, watch her misconstrue a political argument:
It is also far from normal for an administration to fire line-level civilian employees during a government shutdown as a way to punish the opposing political party. But this is precisely what President Trump has announced he is doing, by taking to social media on the second day of the shutdown to post: “I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”
Illston frames Trump’s statement as a pure political punishment, hurting Democrats for the sake of hurting Democrats alone, but then quotes Trump as saying that the affected agencies are “a political scam,” agencies that merit reduction because they’re politicized and don’t perform meaningful work. Trump’s statement is a policy claim, a description of agencies that reflects a political judgment. You can argue with it, but you can’t pretend it isn’t a declaration of a political judgment made by an official elected to oversee a branch of government.
- These agencies are a politicized scam, and they aren’t useful enough to staff.
- Oh, you’re saying you have no reason to reduce these agencies, and you’re just being hurtful!
Willfully obtuse. She doesn’t hear a politically in-bounds policy judgment that she doesn’t want to hear, even as she performs the very act of quoting it to you. It’s presumptively illegal for a Republican administration to reduce programs that it perceives to be Democrat-aligned, because in our constitutional system, we don’t allow partisan judgment in the execution of policy, and all officials are legally required to protect the policy priorities of the Democrat Party. Uh, citation TK.
Illston also feels that the administration is being very rushy and aggro, and the RIFs are insufficiently mellow: “If what plaintiffs allege is true, then the agencies’ actions in laying off thousands of public employees during a government shutdown — and in targeting for RIFs those programs that are perceived as favored by a particular political party — is the epitome of hasty, arbitrary and capricious decisionmaking. The many snafus that plaintiffs detail in their papers, some of which are outlined above, are testament to this.”
There were snafus in execution, so this is illegal, and I can stop it. Paperwork errors make any process definitionally unlawful.
Illston goes on to argue that it’s illegal not to staff governmental functions that aren’t currently funded by Congress, because that maneuver “essentially seeks to overturn mandates that Congress has put in place.” Square that circle if you can. Congress has mandated this, but they haven’t funded it, so you have to do it.
Bottom of page four: “Plaintiffs face loss of income, loss of healthcare, and possible relocation from their homes, all constituting irreparable harm if they do not receive immediate injunctive relief.”
It’s legally impermissible to get laid off, because it costs you income, and that’s irreparable harm. You have a right to a job forever, ’cause of you need the cash. As a legal matter, your honor, my vape cartridges cost me 40 bucks a week, so unemployment is a total no-go. Furthermore, boba.
What a fascinating decision. We’ll stand if it stands up.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, “Tell Me How This Ends.”
Chris Bray is a former infantry sergeant in the U.S. Army, and has a history PhD from the University of California Los Angeles. Find his Substack, “Tell Me How This Ends,” here.
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