A federal judge put a stop to the State Department’s plans to fire some employees, ruling late Thursday that the new stopgap spending law passed by Congress to end the shutdown last month prohibits any reductions in force.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, a Clinton appointee to the court in California, issued her ruling without waiting to give the administration a hearing.
She said she needed to act quickly top prevent the firings, which were slated to happen as soon as Friday.
Judge Illston pointed to a provision of the continuing resolution, the spending passed to reopen the government, which prohibits reductions in force from the date the law took effect until its expiration on Jan. 30.
Members of Congress had said that provision was intended to rehire employees President Trump’s team fired during the shutdown. But Judge Illston said there is no such limitation in what Congress actually wrote.
She issued a temporary restraining order on the government.
The State Department had begun the firings in July, setting a November date for the actual terminations.
The shutdown upended those plans.
The department this week renewed the terminations with a Dec. 5 date.
But Judge Illston said the new law bars carrying out or implementing reductions in force no matter when they began.
“Nothing in the plain text of the statute limits Section 120(a) to apply only to those RIFs initiated during the government shutdown,” she wrote.
