By John Kruzel and Andrew Chung
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift a federal judge’s order to halt large-scale staffing cuts and the restructuring of agencies, part of his campaign to downsize and reshape the federal government.
The Justice Department’s request came after U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco blocked large-scale federal layoffs known as “reductions in force” for 14 days in a May 9 ruling siding with a group of unions, non-profits and local governments that challenged the administration.
“That far-reaching order bars almost the entire executive branch from formulating and implementing plans to reduce the size of the federal workforce, and requires disclosure of sensitive and deliberative agency documents that are presumptively protected by executive privilege,” the department wrote in its filing.
It added that the judicial order “does all of that based on the extraordinary view that the president lacks authority to direct executive agencies how to exercise their statutory powers to conduct large-scale personnel actions within the executive branch,” the department added.
Illston found that Trump had exceeded his authority in ordering the downsizing.
“As history demonstrates, the president may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress,” Illstone wrote in her order.
Trump’s administration has sought relief from the Supreme Court in a growing number of cases following rulings by lower courts impeding various policies since he returned to office in January.
The Republican president directed government agencies in February to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force” as part of the administration’s restructuring plans.
The administration said that Illston’s order was a “universal injunction” captioned as a temporary restraining order.
The administration has aggressively challenged universal injunctions, which can prevent the government from applying a policy against anyone, instead of only the plaintiffs who sued to contest it. It has asked the Supreme Court to narrow three nationwide injunctions that halted Trump’s executive order to limit birthright citizenship, in a case pending before the justices in which they heard arguments on Thursday.
(Reporting by John Kruzel and Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
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