(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Wednesday will consider the fate of more than 20,000 government employees fired by the Trump administration.
Twenty Democratic attorneys general sued to block the firings last week. Now, U.S. District Judge James Bredar will consider issuing a temporary restraining order that would block future firings and reinstate the probationary employees.
“These large-scale, indiscriminate firings are not only subjecting the Plaintiff States and communities across the country to chaos. They are also against the law,” they argued in their complaint, which named 41 agencies and agency heads as defendants.
The attorneys general have argued that the Trump administration violated federal law with the firings by failing to give a required 60-day notice for a reduction in force, opting to pursue the terminations “suddenly and without any advance notice.”
Lawyers with the Department of Justice have argued that the states lack standing because they “cannot interject themselves into the employment relationship between the United States and government workers,” and that to grant the TRO would “circumvent” the administrative process for challenging the firings.
Two other federal judges have declined to immediately block the firings and reinstate the employees.
“The third time is not the charm. Like the unions and the organizational plaintiffs, the States are strangers to the employment relationships at issue and cannot disrupt the exclusive remedial scheme that Congress put in place to adjudicate these disputes,” lawyers with the DOJ argued.
The Pentagon’s new policy to separate transgender U.S. service members from the military will face its first legal test on Wednesday when U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes considers issuing an order blocking the policy from taking effect.
The plaintiffs have argued that the DOD’s policy — which was finalized in late February and bans most transgender service members from serving with some exceptions — violates the Fifth Amendment’s right to equal protection and causes irreparable harm by denigrating transgender soldiers, disrupting unit cohesion and weakening the military.
“This case is a test of the core democratic principle that makes our country worth defending—that every person is of equal dignity and worth and is entitled to equal protection of the laws,” the plaintiffs argued.
Lawyers with the Department of Justice have defended the policy by arguing the court should not intervene in military decision making, describing gender dysphoria as a condition that causes “clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of human functioning.”
“DoD has been particularly cautious about service by individuals with mental health conditions, given the unique mental and emotional stresses of military service,” government lawyers argued.
During a hearing last month, Judge Reyes — a Biden appointee who was the first LGBT judge on the DC District Court — signaled deep skepticism with the government’s claim that transgender service members lessen the military’s lethality or readiness, though she declined to intervene until the DOD finalized their policy.
When the policy was formalized last month, she quickly ordered the government to clarify key tenets of their policy, including identifying what “mental health constraint” other than gender dysphoria that conflicts with the military’s standards of “honesty, humility, and integrity.”
She also raised doubts about the government’s claims about the exceptions to the policy, flagging on the court’s docket a recent DOD social media post that “transgender troops are disqualified from service without an exemption.”
The hearing comes amid an increasingly hostile relationship between Judge Reyes and the Department of Justice.
After Judge Reyes excoriated a DOJ lawyer last month during a hearing in the case, the Department of Justice filed a complaint with an appeals judge about what they alleged was Reyes’ “hostile and egregious misconduct.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff Chad Mizelle alleged that Reyes demonstrated a political bias, compromised the dignity of the proceedings and inappropriately questioned a DOJ attorney about his religious beliefs.
“At minimum, this matter warrants further investigation to determine whether these incidents represent a pattern of misconduct that requires more significant remedial measures,” Mizelle wrote.
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