In an opinion issued late Thursday night, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston wrote that the president and department agency heads do not have the authority to reorganize the government without Congress’ input.
The Trump administration’s attempts to radically shrink and reorganize the Department of Health and Human Services and other departments is on hold for now after a California judge issued a preliminary injunction.
The late Thursday order from U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, indefinitely stops HHS’ goal of reducing its divisions from 28 to 15 and firing upwards of 10,000 employees, among other reorganization and mass layoff plans.
The case was filed by a variety of public sector unions, employee groups and local governments against President Donald Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as other federal agencies and their heads.
The order blocking the reduction in force (RIF) refers to an executive order issued by Trump on February 11 that “commences a critical transformation of the federal bureaucracy” as well as memos sent two weeks later by the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management sent to agencies with instructions on how to implement the executive order.
In the opening to the 51-page order, Judge Illston wrote that “Congress creates federal agencies, funds them, and gives them duties that—by statute—they must carry out. Agencies may not conduct large-scale reorganizations and reductions in force in blatant disregard of Congress’s mandates, and a president may not initiate large-scale executive branch reorganization without partnering with Congress.”
Judge Illston had issued a temporary restraining order in the same case on May 9 that would have expired Friday. The new opinion indefinitely extends that hold. In April, a Rhode Island judge also issued an order stopping HHS from cutting about $11 billion in grants.
The new order stops the federal government from issuing any new reorganizing plans or RIFs for the duration of the hold.
The court said the status quo, in terms of an injunction, would be the state of the government as it was before the February 11 executive order. Judge Illston ordered the defendants to rescind any RIFs issued because of the executive order and return employees placed on administrative leave back to their positions. But, she stayed that relief for the duration of the appeals process.
“The court is not convinced that a directive to respect statutory mandates is a message the agencies have actually received, as the scale of workforce terminations raise significant questions about some agencies’ or sub-agencies’ capacities to fulfill their statutory missions,” Illston wrote in her opinion. “For example, it appears the Department of Health and Human Services is planning to practically wipe out the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an office established by Congress.”
