A coalition of unions, nonprofits and municipalities will urge a federal judge on Thursday to extend her temporary block on President Donald Trump's administration implementing mass layoffs at federal agencies, which was the broadest setback yet to his sweeping government overhaul.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco will hold a hearing at 10:30 a.m. (1:30 p.m. ET/1730 GMT) in a lawsuit arguing that Trump does not have the power to downsize and restructure federal agencies without the consent of the U.S. Congress.
Illston agreed on May 9 and blocked about 20 agencies from implementing mass layoffs for two weeks, while requiring the reinstatement of workers who had already lost their jobs.
She will now decide whether to extend her ruling pending the outcome of the case, which could take months or longer to resolve. If she does not extend her temporary restraining order, it will expire on Friday.
The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause Illston's temporary ruling, saying she improperly infringed on Trump's constitutional powers to control the executive branch.
"Neither Congress nor the Executive Branch has ever intended to make federal bureaucrats a class with lifetime employment, whether there was work for them to do or not," Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a court filing last week.
The plaintiffs say in court filings that Trump's drastic downsizing of federal agencies will result in an array of widespread harms to the public, including gutting disaster relief programs, public health services, food safety inspections, and contagious disease prevention.
The case involves the departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Treasury, Commerce, State and Veterans Affairs, among others.
The White House and some of the plaintiffs including the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal workers union, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The layoffs of tens of thousands of staff across the federal government are a critical piece of a push by the Republican president and adviser Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to shrink the federal government and drastically cut spending.
Trump has urged agencies to eliminate duplicative roles, unnecessary management layers, and non-critical jobs while automating routine tasks, closing regional offices and reducing the use of outside contractors.
Roughly 260,000 federal workers, most of whom have taken buyouts, have left or will leave by the end of September. And deep cuts are earmarked for several agencies, including over 80,000 jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs and 10,000 at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Dozens of lawsuits have challenged the administration's efforts, and Illston's ruling earlier this month was the broadest of its kind so far.
Another judge's March ruling requiring agencies to reinstate nearly 25,000 probationary employees, who typically have been in their current roles for less than a year or two, has been paused by an appeals court.
Illston said in her decision that Republican and Democratic presidents have for decades respected the role of Congress in reorganizing the federal government. She said that while lawmakers have rebuffed some White House initiatives, they have also approved presidents' plans to restructure agencies more than a dozen times since the 1930s.
"Constitutional commentators and politicians across party lines agree that sweeping reorganization of the federal bureaucracy requires the active participation of Congress," wrote Illston, an appointee of Democratic former President Bill Clinton.
