By Lindsay Whitehurst, Chris Megerian and Michael Casey | Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Wednesday removed a key legal hurdle stalling President Donald Trump ‘s plan to downsize the federal workforce with a deferred resignation program.
The Boston-based judge’s order in the challenge filed by a group of labor unions was a significant legal victory for the Republican president after a string of courtroom setbacks.
“This goes to show that lawfare will not ultimately prevail over the will of 77 million Americans who supported President Trump and his priorities,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
About 250,000 federal workers live in California, including tens of thousands in the Bay Area.
Another group of unions filed a lawsuit in Washington, D.C. late Wednesday, though its potential impacts were not immediately clear.
It’s unclear how many federal workers accepted the offer to quit in return for being paid until Sept. 30, but the White House said there were 65,000 as of Friday.
McLaurine Pinover, a spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management, said the deferred resignation program was now closed to additional workers. She said it “provides generous benefits so federal workers can plan for their futures.”
American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley said in a statement that the union’s lawyers are assessing the next steps.
“Today’s ruling is a setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants,” Kelley said. “But it’s not the end of that fight. Importantly, this decision did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program.”
The union continues to maintain that it’s illegal to force American citizens to make a decision, in a few short days, without adequate information, about “whether to uproot their families and leave their careers for what amounts to an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk,” the statement said.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. in Boston found that the unions weren’t directly affected, so they didn’t have legal standing to challenge the program, commonly described as a buyout. O’Toole was nominated by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.
The deferred resignation program has been spearheaded by Elon Musk, who is serving as Trump’s top adviser for reducing federal spending. Under the plan, employees can stop working and get paid until Sept. 30.
Labor unions argued the plan is illegal and asked for O’Toole to keep it on hold and prevent the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, from soliciting more workers to sign up.
A Justice Department lawyer has called the plan a “humane off ramp” for federal employees who may have structured their lives around working remotely and have been ordered to return to government offices.
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