Supreme Court Overturns Lower Court Decision Blocking Trump Administration from Firing Federal Employees

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On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision that had temporarily blocked the Trump administration from dismissing employees at six federal departments. The original injunction, issued by a California federal court, stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a prominent public sector union.

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In an unsigned ruling, the justices stated “The District Court’s injunction was based solely on the allegations of the nine non-profit-organization plaintiffs in this case. But under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations’ standing.”

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the ruling. While Sotomayor did not provide a written explanation, Jackson criticized the administration for not proving the urgency of its actions.

The AFGE had petitioned a San Francisco court to stop the termination of approximately 16,000 executive branch employees across departments including Agriculture, Treasury, Defense, Veterans Affairs, Interior, and Energy. The union claimed that the Office of Personnel Management was exceeding its legal authority in initiating the dismissals.

“Despite this setback, our coalition remains unwavering in fighting for these workers who were wronged by the administration, and in protecting the freedoms of the American people. This battle is far from over,” the union and its allies said in a statement.

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National Review notes that the Supreme Court’s decision does not affect a “separate lower court ruling in Maryland preventing the Trump administration from firing probationary employees working in 19 states and Washington, D.C., a ruling that followed a lawsuit from the states in question…

The Maryland case covers the same six agencies and over a dozen others for the workers in D.C. and the 19 Democratic states that brought the case. Probationary employees not in those states can now be fired because of the Supreme Court’s decision.”

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