Supreme Court disabuses federal workers who thought their jobs were safe

Tens of thousands of workers across the federal government are hoping their unions and allies in local governments and nonprofit groups have a Plan B — a day after the Supreme Court said the Trump administration could proceed with firing them.

The hope hangs on the ruling’s suggestion that lower courts could still consider direct challenges to agencies’ reorganization plans. But that will require plaintiffs to bring more detailed cases quickly and convince judges to stop the layoffs before they become a fait accompli. As cases become more granular, plaintiffs will likely face an uphill battle. And the White House said it plans to restart the terminations immediately.

Federal workers, who have long seen civil service laws and collective bargaining agreements as shields protecting their jobs, told POLITICO their world has been shaken.

“All of my friends are resigned to the worst," said a National Institutes of Health staffer who was granted anonymity due to fear of retribution.

Some workers in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Washington headquarters waited on news from the basement, where they decamped in search of cooler temperatures after a stretch of blistering heat and minimal afternoon air conditioning stemming from an administration directive to conserve energy.

A staffer in a different office said EPA employees were “waiting on pins and needles.”

The plaintiffs, led by the largest of the federal employee unions, the American Federation of Government Employees, but joined by cities and counties in California, Illinois, Maryland, Texas, and Washington, as well as advocacy groups, promised to fight on in a statement, but provided no clarity on their plan.

One of the court’s liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, suggested they might receive a different response if they provide examples of unlawful actions by individual agencies. "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," she wrote.

No previous president, since Congress professionalized the civil service to protect it from political interference, has attempted such a wholesale reorganization and the plaintiffs argued President Donald Trump needed congressional approval to do so. But the Supreme Court, ruling 8-1, said the plaintiffs were likely to fail in their broad challenge to Trump’s plan. The decision, if it’s the last word, would mark a major reversal in the pre-Trump conventional wisdom that federal workers enjoyed significant job protections. And it would allow Trump and presidents going forward to use the threat of layoffs to pressure federal workers to carry out political appointees’ orders, or to root out dissenters.

The ripple effects could disrupt agencies’ ability to carry out their mandates, said Paul Light, a former Senate Governmental Affairs Committee staffer and professor emeritus of public service at New York University.

“You are giving a large number of potential federal officers a very clear statement that they might as well go elsewhere,” Light said. “The more people who exit, the less ability that you have to respond to significant threats.”

James-Christian Blockwood, president of the National Academy of Public Administration, a group that aims to improve government management, said he fears Trump is pursuing worthy goals without adequate planning. "There is broad agreement that reform is needed, but indiscriminately dismissing and disparaging public servants will surely impact government's ability to retain and recruit the best workforce," he said.

But the White House said the bureaucracy is overdue for a downsizing and that it plans to quickly resume wide-ranging layoffs and restructuring. “We see the ruling as the Supreme Court reaffirming that the president has complete authority to direct the executive branch, and with that, we will be reducing and simplifying the size of the federal government,” a senior administration official said Wednesday. Early this year, the administration directed agencies across the government to draft plans for reorganizations, including “large-scale” cuts to their workforces. That drastic overhaul was due to be finalized by Sept. 30, although it’s unclear whether the litigation will impact the timing.

Agencies had plans “basically ready to go” prior to the court’s Tuesday ruling, a White House official granted anonymity to speak more freely about the legal strategy said. The next moves will proceed “agency by agency,” but “the goal of reducing the size of the federal government will be front and center.” Trump officials will be “awaiting guidance, but they are going to be pursuing [reductions in force] consistent with all applicable legal requirements for their individual agencies,” the official said. “This is a priority for the administration. You don’t want an unnecessary bureaucracy.”

On Wednesday, federal workers remained in wait-and-see mode, uncertain and awaiting word from agency lawyers on how to interpret what the ruling would mean for them. Staffers at the Health and Human Services and Transportation departments and the Environmental Protection Agency described feeling anxious and exhausted by the back and forth over their jobs.

"F–k it," another NIH staffer said. "I’m ready to retire if I can."

A California judge had blocked the mass layoffs at 21 agencies in May on the grounds that they would likely violate federal law.

The unsigned ruling from the Supreme Court, which the majority explained in two terse paragraphs, lifts the injunction issued by federal district Judge Susan Illston.

Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, then led by billionaire Elon Musk, directed the layoffs shortly after Trump came to office in January. Those cuts resulted in the firing of more than 20,000 probationary employees across the executive branch, primarily workers who had been in their jobs for two years or less or who had recently switched roles.

A number of more limited challenges to the layoffs remain viable, said Max Stier, an attorney who serves as founding president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that aims to improve the way the government functions.

“[The order] shouldn't, in and of itself, resolve those other cases,” he said.

The administration, for example, faces other legal challenges over its restructuring of the Department of Health and Human Services, which saw a quarter of its workforce bought out or let go, although hundreds of those workers have since been brought back.

A Rhode Island federal judge earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction blocking the termination of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, as well as employees who work on the Head Start program.

“HHS previously announced our plans to transform this Department to Make America Healthy Again and we intend to do just that,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon wrote in a text Wednesday.

POLITICO reporters who cover the agencies found disquiet across the bureaucracy:

Department of Transportation:

The Supreme Court decision paves the way for DOT to terminate the 700 workers it had sought to let go in February — but problems with air traffic control this year, including a midair collision between an Army helicopter and a passenger jet that killed 67 people near Washington, could affect the calculus.

Though the Trump administration insisted that no air traffic controllers were slated for termination, POLITICO has reported that staffers who support them were — raising alarm from lawmakers and placing any layoffs at the agency under a microscope.

During a March Cabinet meeting, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy clashed with Musk over the reductions, according to The New York Times. The Times reported that Duffy said Musk’s cost-cutters had wanted him to let air traffic controllers go, and that he’d refused. (Duffy has subsequently denied the exchange.)

And POLITICO has reported that so many people elected to take the second of two “deferred resignation” offers from the administration that some had been asked to reconsider.

Several people at DOT, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said it isn’t clear whether the agency will have to cut more people in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Others are hoping that Duffy’s push for a “brand new air traffic control system” could save their jobs. An official with the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, which represents aviation technicians and some inspectors, granted anonymity to talk about layoffs, said the Trump administration’s plan to invest heavily in modernizing aviation systems may thwart future reductions given how “critical to modernization” many technicians are.

In April, Federal Aviation Administration Acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau told staff during an employee town hall that the agency would be leaner in a year or two. “It’s the fact,” he emphasized, though he added he was “confident” the agency would preserve its core safety mission.

Staffers said they were taking a stoic approach to the news from the court. “A lot of us are so exhausted by the back and forth we aren’t letting ourselves get worried yet. If DOT hasn’t realized yet how harmful staff leaving is to their administration’s goals, they never will,” an agency employee said.

— Chris Marquette and Oriana Pawlyk

Environmental Protection Agency:

The Supreme Court ruling is adding to the anxiety of EPA employees, who were first rattled in February when Trump announced that Administrator Lee Zeldin planned to lay off 65 percent of the agency’s workforce. The White House later clarified that the agency planned to cut 65 percent of its spending.

Zeldin has said he expects the reorganizations and cuts to leave the agency’s staffing at around what it was during the Reagan administration, when EPA’s number of employees fluctuated between 10,800 and 14,400. EPA’s congressionally mandated duties have swelled since Ronald Reagan left the White House in 1989 to include responsibility for regulating toxic “forever chemicals,” pollution that contributes to climate change and many more hazardous substances.

At least 3,000 of EPA's 15,000-person workforce has taken a buyout or early retirement.

EPA was in the process of closing up its independent research branch when the California judge whose decision the Supreme Court overturned put the layoffs on hold in May.

Now employees are waiting to find out what their fate will be.

The agency has laid off hundreds of workers from offices dealing with environmental justice, which addresses pollution that disproportionately harms disadvantaged communities.

An agency staffer, granted anonymity over concerns about retaliation, said that losing environmental justice workers would make outreach and cooperation to those most directly harmed by pollution harder.

"The administration has chosen to abandon communities most impacted by pollution, and they will continue to cater to polluters by rescinding rules, relaxing enforcement, and abandoning science," the staffer said.

— Alex Guillén and Annie Snider

Department of Energy:

The DOE deemed just 9,000 of its 16,000 employees “essential” in a March document obtained by POLITICO, leaving more than 40 percent of staff vulnerable.

That total includes the more than 1,000 people the agency placed on administrative leave — but not the 555 probationary employees it fired in February. It was not clear whether all the people considered nonessential would be terminated, and the agency said in April it was conducting a department-wide review to decide. DOE did not respond to a request for comment on potential cuts on Wednesday.

Among the operations likely in the crosshairs is the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, according to another document seen by POLITICO in April.

— POLITICO staff

Department of Agriculture:

After thousands of agency employees opted to accept a payout from the administration to resign earlier this year, one person at USDA told POLITICO any layoffs would be "very targeted and limited because we met our staffing goals."

Already, USDA has had to rehire for critical positions in food inspection and safety as well as farm loans after allowing employees in some of those roles to accept the resignation offer.

USDA is considering moving some rural development programs to the Small Business Administration, and Trump’s budget request would zero out several programs and move the Forest Service’s wildland firefighting capacities outside of USDA.

Leaked USDA reorganization plans from May indicate the agency is considering a third deferred resignation offer, but it’s not clear whether those plans are final.

USDA did not respond to a request for comment about how the agency plans to proceed following the court ruling.

— Jordan Wolman and Marcia Brown

Department of Labor:

Labor had planned to lay off hundreds of staffers at its Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs by early June, but that was put on hold during the litigation.

Staffers in the division are now awaiting word on whether those plans will resume.

“Haven’t heard anything yet,” said one staffer who received a layoff notice earlier this year and was put on administrative leave in April alongside colleagues.

— Nick Niedzwiadek

Department of Housing and Urban Development:

HUD had been expected to cut its workforce by half, according to the union representing agency employees.

However, a HUD spokesperson denied the scale of the layoffs: “HUD is always examining ways to best optimize its workforce. However, contrary to past reports, the agency will not be laying off half of its workforce."

American Federation of Government Employees Council 222, the union representing HUD employees, filed a national grievance against HUD Secretary Scott Turner in March for conducting a “mass termination” of bargaining unit employees.

The union wrote to Turner, “it is clear that the Agency has improperly conducted a reduction-in-force in violation of the parties’ [collective bargaining agreement]."

— Katherine Hapgood

National Institutes of Health:

At the NIH, the largest funder of health care research in the world, information technology staffers said they were waiting to hear from agency leaders about plans they were asked to submit last month to fire their coworkers and consolidate operations.

These staffers stretch over a dozen teams and offer scientists IT support across various sub-offices. Trump and his DOGE team have argued they’re duplicative. NIH leaders have reviewed the plans, staffers said, but have been “eerily quiet” since.

— Danny Nguyen

Department of Education:

Education is the only department not affected by the Supreme Court decision.

In a separate case brought by several Democrat-led states, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the administration’s attempt to lay off Education workers in May while the case is litigated. In response, the Trump administration filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court. The administration is seeking to lay off roughly half of the department’s 4,000 employees.

— Rebecca Carballo

Robin Bravender and Sophie Gardner contributed to this report.