US judge who blocked Trump's mass firings will hear case over shutdown layoffs

By Daniel Wiessner

Oct 7 (Reuters) - A federal judge who previously issued a ruling to block mass layoffs by President Donald Trump's administration said on Tuesday that a new lawsuit over threatened layoffs during the partial government shutdown is related to that earlier case, and took over hearing it.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco granted a motion by the American Federation of Government Employees and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, who brought both lawsuits and argued in a filing last week that they involve the same parties and similar legal issues and should be heard by the same judge.

Trump, a Republican, has blamed Democrats for the lapse in government funding that began October 1, but his threats to lay off many federal workers have yet to materialize. The unions in a lawsuit filed last week say that implementing mass layoffs is not an essential government service that can continue during a shutdown, and have moved to block layoffs from taking place pending further litigation.

Illston in May temporarily blocked the Trump administration from laying off thousands of federal workers, a key piece of Trump's plan to shrink and reorganize U.S. agencies.

Her ruling was paused by the U.S. Supreme Court in July, but the administration scaled back planned layoffs after tens of thousands of employees accepted buyouts or retired early to avoid dismissal.

Illston, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, did not explain her decision on Tuesday. The case involving the shutdown had been assigned to U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama who has not handled any recent challenges to Trump administration policies.

The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment. AFGE declined to comment.

The unions, joined by other labor groups, nonprofits and municipalities, claimed in a lawsuit filed in April that the U.S. Office of Management and Budget had unlawfully directed federal agencies to engage in mass layoffs. Illston in her May ruling agreed, saying Trump needed permission from Congress before reorganizing federal agencies.

"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," Illston wrote at the time.

In the newer lawsuit, AFGE and AFSCME say that memos issued by OMB and the Office of Personnel Management unlawfully authorize agencies to engage in mass layoffs during the government shutdown. The unions in seeking to have Illston take over the case last week said that any layoffs that come during the shutdown could be challenged in both lawsuits.

"Permitting these actions to proceed before different judges would thus raise the risk of conflicting results," the unions' lawyers wrote.

The case is American Federation of Government Employees v. Office of Management and Budget, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 3:25-cv-8302.

For the unions: Danielle Leonard and Alice Wang of Altshuler Berzon; Norm Eisen and Craig Becker from Democracy Defenders Fund; Rushab Sanghvi of AFGE

For the Trump administration: Andrew Bernie of the U.S. Department of Justice

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