Emergency call
By Amy Howe
on 25. Mar 2025
at. 9:45
The court has not yet called for an answer from the other side. (Trekandshoot via Shutterstock)
The Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on Monday morning and asked the judges to put an order from a federal judge in San Francisco, who would require the federal government to immediately reintroduce more than 16,000 trial staff fired from six agencies in February. The decision of senior American district judge William Alsup, acting lawyer Sarah Harris told the judges, lets “Third Party hijack the employment relationship between the federal government and its workforce.”
Harris also asked the court to quickly introduce an administrative stay, a temporary freezer of the order’s order, while the judges are considering the government’s request.
The trial was brought by nonprofit groups claiming that redundancies could lead to fewer public services affecting their members. On March 14, Alsup issued a preliminary injunction that requires six branches in the federal government – wards for veteran affairs, agriculture, defense, energy, interior and treasury – to immediately reintroduce the probable employees fired in February.
Alsup wrote that federal agencies can shoot their employees, “even in scale,” but that “Office of Personal Management has no authority to hire and shoot employees in another agency.”
The Trump Administration went to the US Appeals Court for the 9th Circuit, which rejected his request for an administrative stay. The Court of Appeal has not yet decided on the government’s emergency proposals for a stay.
In his filing, Harris claimed that the nonprofit groups lack a legal right to sue, known as standing. “If organizations could establish Article III, which states that fewer government employees will translate into less optimal public services for some of their members,” she wrote, “so anyone everywhere with any contact with the federal government could guess all agencies’ staff decisions that federal employees work, what hours.”
Harris also argued that Alsup does not have the power to review the agencies’ decisions shooting the test workers. Congress, she claimed, has already “created a completely different framework for solving legal challenges for termination of federal employees” – Merit Systems Protection Board.
More broadly, Harris complained about the dozens of orders issued by district courts since the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January. These orders, she suggested, forms an “Interbranch Power Grab” that has “sown chaos” in the executive branch.
Harris called on the judges to enter an administrative stay in Alsup’s order. This, she said, would facilitate the burden of agencies who would otherwise be the result of reinstatement of trial officers and then boarding them, as well as spoiling the departments from “Any obligation to provide work assignments to the onboarded employees or to submit additional reports documenting these measures in the court.”
Harris’ request first goes to justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency appeals from 9th circuit. Kagan has not yet called for a response from the challengers.
This article was originally published on Howe on the field.
