U.S. District Judge Susan Illston has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from carrying out its mass firing of federal workers during the government shutdown.
This Wednesday ruling comes on day 15 of the shutdown, as thousands of federal workers have already been fired and thousands more remain on edge. The district judge in San Francisco said the mass firings appear to be politically motivated.
“I am inclined to grant the plaintiff’s motion,” said Illston during a hearing on the matter. “The evidence suggests that the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, and the Office of Personnel Management, OPM, have taken advantage of the lapse in government spending, in government functioning to assume that all bets are off—that the laws don’t apply to them any more, and that they can impose the structures that they like on the government situation that they don’t like. And I find, I believe, that the plaintiffs will demonstrate, ultimately, that what’s being done here is both illegal, and is in excess of authority, and is arbitrary, and capricious.”
The case was brought forth by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represent a combined 800,000 federal workers.
This story has been updated.
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