Left: MIAMI, FL-MARCH 10: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is seen during an Evening with Ketanji Brown Jackson at Chapman Conference Center at MDC Wolfson Campus on March 10, 2025 in Miami, Fla. (Photo by Alberto E. Tamargo/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images). Right: President Donald Trump talks about transgender weightlifters as gives a commencement address at the University of Alabama, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart).
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the Trump administration the go-ahead to resume ambitious plans to reorganize the federal government and mass-fire federal workers.
Acting on an application for a stay, a majority of justices voted to overturn a preliminary injunction issued in late May by San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, a Bill Clinton appointee, barring the implementation of an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on Feb. 11. That order called for administrative agency heads to “initiate large-scale reductions in force” (RIFs), or layoffs.
The district court twice issued injunctive relief for the union plaintiffs – first issuing a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction – and twice the Trump administration asked the high court to intervene. The first time, the government withdrew its request; the second request came in early June after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused to stay the injunction.
Now, the government is free to pursue plans to begin such reorganizations and reductions in force “consistent with applicable law.” The plans themselves, however, may run afoul of the law and are still subject to the district court”s supervision, the high court ruled.
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The opinion – which for all intents and purposes appears to be 8-1; the exact vote was not published – makes clear to differentiate between Trump’s order and a joint memorandum issued by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on one hand, and the actual work the agencies do when implementing those directives on the other hand.
“Because the Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful—and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied— we grant the application,” the unsigned opinion reads. “We express no view on the legality of any Agency RIF and Reorganization Plan produced or approved pursuant to the Executive Order and Memorandum. The District Court enjoined further implementation or approval of the plans based on its view about the illegality of the Executive Order and Memorandum, not on any assessment of the plans themselves. Those plans are not before this Court.”
Writing in dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson makes clear her disdain for the actions taken by her colleagues in the present case – and in many other similar emergency stay applications.
“[T]he District Judge thoroughly examined the evidence, considered applicable law, and made a reasoned determination that Executive Branch officials should be enjoined from implementing the mandated restructuring until this legal challenge to the President’s authority to undertake such action could be litigated,” the dissent reads. “But that temporary, practical, harm-reducing preservation of the status quo was no match for this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.”
To hear Jackson tell it, the district court has been marshaling the facts relevant to answering the “critical question” in the case, which the dissent views as a distinction between “massive restructuring” of the federal government and “minor workforce reductions consistent with existing law.”
Jackson, for her part, aims to answer that question – at least to an extent. Insofar as the order and associated memos intend to “significantly reorganize the agencies that comprise the Executive Branch,” the president should work with Congress, the dissent argues.
But Jackson leaves that question hanging – at least long enough to advise the other members of the Supreme Court to back off.
From the dissent, at length:
[T]he District Court not only issued such preliminary findings based on actual evidence, it is also the tribunal best positioned to make that determination, at least initially. Put differently, from its lofty perch far from the facts or the evidence, this Court lacks the capacity to fully evaluate, much less responsibly override, reasoned lower court factfinding about what this challenged executive action actually entails. I respectfully dissent because, in addition to the Government’s failure to show the exigency or irreparable harm that is required for emergency relief, this Court could not possibly know in this posture whether the Government is likely to succeed on the merits with respect to such a fact-dependent dispute. So it should have left well enough alone.
Still, Jackson picks the question back up – to answer it in favor of the coalition of unions, local governments and nonprofits opposing the measure – and offers a lengthy historical overview of federal restructuring.
“The many reorganization acts that Congress has passed since 1932 vary in the degree of discretion conferred,” the dissent muses. “But all have given Congress a say before the President has implemented any proposed plans to reorganize agencies’ structures. Pursuant to that process, as of the last time Congress expressly granted this reorganization authority, ‘presidents [had] submitted 126 reorganization proposals to Congress, of which 93 were implemented and 33 were affirmatively rejected by Congress.'”
The dissent then returns to the primacy of judicial review – and again finds fault with the other justices for what she views as improper encroachment on the lower court’s “evidence-based” reasoning.
“On what grounds does the majority deviate from the District Court’s fact-based findings here?” Jackson asks out loud. “Has it found that the court below clearly erred with respect to its assessment of the evidence? Has it opted to simply ignore the well-settled deferential standards of review? Has it made its own factual findings about the nature, scope, and extent of the Government’s reorganization activities? All of these possibilities are problematic. And because the Court provides no explanation for its likelihood-of-success conclusion, the answers to these crucial questions are also anyone’s guess.”
As the dissent continues, Jackson fashions her complaint into a new warning about the perils of an executive branch running roughshod over the constitutional prerogatives of Congress.
Again the dissent, at length:
With scant justification, the majority permits the immediate and potentially devastating aggrandizement of one branch (the Executive) at the expense of another (Congress), and once again leaves the People paying the price for its reckless emergency-docket determinations. …
Given the fact-based nature of the issue in this case and the many serious harms that result from allowing the President to dramatically reconfigure the Federal Government, it was eminently reasonable for the District Court to maintain the status quo while the courts evaluate the lawfulness of the President’s executive action. At bottom, this case is about whether that action amounts to a structural overhaul that usurps Congress’s policymaking prerogatives—and it is hard to imagine deciding that question in any meaningful way after those changes have happened. Yet, for some reason, this Court sees fit to step in now and release the President’s wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation…
While Justice Sonia Sotomayor briefly joined the dissent for the limited notion that “the President cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates,” Jackson largely stood alone. Indeed, Sotomayor issued a concurrence agreeing with Tuesday’s result.
In a statement, the coalition that challenged the mass-firing plans bemoaned the high court’s decision.
“Today’s decision has dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy,” the statement reads. “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. While we are disappointed in this decision, we will continue to fight on behalf of the communities we represent and argue this case to protect critical public services that we rely on to stay safe and healthy.”
