Supreme Court Hands Trump White House a Major Win, and Slaps Down Justice Jackson Again

The Trump administration clinched another win today, with the Supreme Court shredding a restraining order on a rogue lower court’s ruling that prevented the government from reorganizing its workforce. For now, the mass layoffs that were put on hold are back on (via The Hill):

The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a judge’s order preventing the Trump administration from conducting mass layoffs across the federal bureaucracy, for now. 

The court in its unsigned ruling said Trump’s February executive order directing federal agencies to prepare for reductions in force, or RIFs, is likely lawful.

It enables federal agencies to resume implementing Trump’s directive, though the high court left the door open for plaintiffs to challenge any agency’s specific plan down the road. 

“We express no view on the legality of any Agency RIF and Reorganization Plan produced or approved pursuant to the Executive Order and Memorandum,” the court’s ruling cautions.  

But for now, it marks a major victory for the administration, which has brought a flurry of  emergency appeals to the Supreme Court seeking to halt lower judges’ injunctions. 

The ruling was 8-1, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. Yet, as Justice Amy Coney Barrett did in the Casa decision, which curtailed lower court’s national injunction power, Jackson got cooked in the opinion, only it was by Sonia Sotomayor—she had to remind Jackson that the Court can only opine on what’s been presented before them, not what they think is being presented before the body.  

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, concurring in the grant of stay. 

I agree with JUSTICE JACKSON that the President cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates. See post, at 13. Here, however, the relevant Executive Order directs agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force “consistent with applicable law,” App. to Application for Stay 2a, and the resulting joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management reiterates as much. The plans themselves are not before this Court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. I join the Court’s stay because it leaves the District Court free to consider those questions in the first instance.

In the CASA decision, Justice Barrett was less charitable, wholly dismissing Jackson’s opinion, and for good reason: it’s not grounded in law. 

The Trump administration clinched another win today, with the Supreme Court shredding a restraining order on a rogue lower court’s ruling that prevented the government from reorganizing its workforce. For now, the mass layoffs that were put on hold are back on (via The Hill):

The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a judge’s order preventing the Trump administration from conducting mass layoffs across the federal bureaucracy, for now. 

The court in its unsigned ruling said Trump’s February executive order directing federal agencies to prepare for reductions in force, or RIFs, is likely lawful.

It enables federal agencies to resume implementing Trump’s directive, though the high court left the door open for plaintiffs to challenge any agency’s specific plan down the road. 

“We express no view on the legality of any Agency RIF and Reorganization Plan produced or approved pursuant to the Executive Order and Memorandum,” the court’s ruling cautions.  

But for now, it marks a major victory for the administration, which has brought a flurry of  emergency appeals to the Supreme Court seeking to halt lower judges’ injunctions. 

The ruling was 8-1, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. Yet, as Justice Amy Coney Barrett did in the Casa decision, which curtailed lower court’s national injunction power, Jackson got cooked in the opinion, only it was by Sonia Sotomayor—she had to remind Jackson that the Court can only opine on what’s been presented before them, not what they think is being presented before the body.  

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, concurring in the grant of stay. 

I agree with JUSTICE JACKSON that the President cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates. See post, at 13. Here, however, the relevant Executive Order directs agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force “consistent with applicable law,” App. to Application for Stay 2a, and the resulting joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management reiterates as much. The plans themselves are not before this Court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. I join the Court’s stay because it leaves the District Court free to consider those questions in the first instance.

In the CASA decision, Justice Barrett was less charitable, wholly dismissing Jackson’s opinion, and for good reason: it’s not grounded in law.