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BALTIMORE (AP) — A federal judge in Maryland said Wednesday he will at least briefly extend a temporary order requiring the Trump administration to bring back federal workers who were fired as part of a dramatic downsizing of the federal workforce, but the judge said he was struggling with the scope of a broad order.
U.S. District Judge James Bredar said he had “great reluctance” to issue a sweeping national preliminary injunction in the case, where 19 states and the District of Columbia contend they have been harmed by a large-scale reduction in the federal workforce without warning as required by law.
Bredar asked attorneys for plaintiff states and the federal government to submit supplemental documents by 10 a.m. Thursday on the question of the ramifications for the 19 states seeking relief and the 31 states that are not parties to the case.
During a federal court hearing in Baltimore, Bredar said “there’s a lot of things wrong with national injunctions, just on a jurisprudential level, and courts and commentators are all over the issue.”
“That doesn’t mean the court won’t enter one, if the circumstances and law on this case compel it, but I’m going to resist doing it," Bredar said. "You’re going to have to show me that it’s essential to remedying any harms that your clients are specifically experiencing.”
The case is complicated by the fact that some federal employees may work a job in a state that is a party to the lawsuit, while they may live in a state that isn't. An example is in the Washington area, where an affected federal worker might live in Virginia, which isn't one of the states in the complaint, but work at a federal job in Maryland or the District of Columbia, which are parties in the lawsuit.
In the meantime, the judge said he planned to extend a temporary restraining order he issued last week that required the federal government to reinstate more than 24,000 federal workers. The order expires Thursday night, but the judge said he would extend it “at least briefly, because I think it’s doubtful that given the work that still has to be accomplished that I could complete my opinion and any orders related to this before that TRO runs out.”
The government is appealing the case to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The appeals court last week denied the administration’s request for a stay of the temporary restraining order, since the district court held the Wednesday hearing. At the time, Judge Allison Jones Rushing took issue with the scope of district court rulings. She noted she was writing to "echo the growing concerns over district courts issuing nationwide injunctions to order redress for those who have not sought it.”
The administration is already appealing to the Supreme Court a similar order to reinstate probationary workers from a judge in California. The Justice Department argues that federal judges can’t force the executive branch to reverse its decisions on hiring and firing. Still, the government has been taking steps to rehire fired workers under those orders.
Both judges have found that the president can terminate probationary workers but determined the administration violated the law in the way they carried out the layoffs.
Bredar previously found that firings amount to a large-scale reduction in force that’s subject to specific rules, including giving advance notice to states affected by the layoffs.
His ruling came in a lawsuit filed by 19 states that contend the Trump administration blindsided them with the layoffs, which could have devastating consequences for their state finances.
The Trump administration, on the other hand, argues that the states have no right to try and influence the federal government’s relationship with its own workers. Republican President Donald Trump claims the cuts target fraud, waste and abuse in a bloated federal government.
Probationary workers have been targeted for layoffs across the federal government because they’re usually new to the job and lack full civil service protection. Multiple lawsuits have been filed over the mass firings.
The states suing the Trump administration include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia also is a plaintiff.
