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| Republican AGs back Trump federal employee buyout [65000 to date] as judge decides 'Fork in the Road' blocked longer |
| 2025-02-11 |
| [FoxBusinessNews] The Trump admin extended the deferred resignation offer deadline until 11:59 pm EST Monday As Big Labor challenges President Donald Trump’s federal employee buyout order, Republican attorneys general from 22 states came to the administration’s defense late Sunday. On Monday, a federal judge in Boston will weigh the legality of the Trump administration's U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) "Fork Directive." Federal employees have until 11:59 p.m. Monday to decide if they are submitting their deferred resignation in return for eight months of paid leave. On Feb. 2, 2 million federal employees received an email after business hours closed advising them of a "fork in the road" – they were told they could accept eight months of paid leave if they agreed to resign by Feb. 6. The buyout offer, which came as part of Elon Musk’s effort to reduce federal waste at the Department of Government Efficiency, prompted a swift blow back from federal labor unions, which argued the Fork Directive is unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act and Antideficiency Act and that they will suffer "irreparable harm." Montana Attorney General Austen Knudsen – joined by the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia – challenged those arguments brought by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations in court. The late Sunday amicus curiae brief filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts said the federal labor unions "complain" about Trump’s executive orders about the federal workforce and allege the president is eliminating offices and programs supported by congressional appropriations, but "do not challenge the authority to issue the Fork Directive or its constitutionality" because "such a challenge would inevitably fail." "Courts should refrain from intruding into the President’s well-settled Article II authority to supervise and manage the federal workforce," the filing said. "Plaintiffs seek to inject this Court into federal workforce decisions made by the President and his team. The Court can avoid raising any separation of powers concerns by denying Plaintiffs’ relief and allowing the President and his team to manage the federal workforce." The Republican attorneys general asked the court to deny the plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order. The Fork Directive reports that Trump is reforming the federal workforce around four pillars: return to office, performance culture, more streamlined and flexible workforce, and enhanced standards of conduct. It is intended to "improve services that the federal workforce provides to Americans" by "freeing up government resources and revenue to focus on better serving the American people," the filing said. The filing noted that 65,000 federal workers had already accepted the voluntary deferred resignation offer by its original Feb. 6 deadline. Federal judge halts Trump’s fed worker buyouts — after 65K take up the offer Feb. 10, 2025, 6:03 p.m. ET [NYPost] A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with a plan to buy out tens of thousands of government workers. In an order from the bench, Boston US District Judge George O’Toole Jr. paused a deadline requiring all federal employees to either take the severance offer or return to their offices until he determines whether to slap the administration with a preliminary injunction sought by three public sector unions. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) offered the buyouts on Jan. 28 to more than 2 million federal workers after President Trump signed an executive order requiring agencies “to terminate remote work arrangements” and to force employees back to “their respective duty stations” full-time. “We are pleased that today the court continued his injunction from last week, continuing to enjoin OPM and defendants from implementing the fork in the road directive, the so-called bailout,” said Elena Goldstein, a lawyer for Democracy Forward, which is repping the unions. “We hope that this decision today will provide civil service workers with the assurance that the American people have their backs. And we will continue to pursue all legal options to ensure that they are protected and that the law is upheld.” OPM warned last week that government employees who did not take the buyout by Feb. 6 would not be given a second chance to receive full pay and benefits until the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30. O’Toole, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, lifted that deadline indefinitely following the afternoon hearing.
First, no one should be surprised by any of this. The administration certainly isn’t. We always knew exactly what they would do. Do not take the fact they are not screaming and yelling as them rolling over. They are not rolling over. There’s plenty going on behind the scenes as administration lawyers prepare their papers for the legal fight to come. Second, since we have to have this fight, this is the time and the battleground to have it. Why? We want it settled right at the beginning of the administration so that we don’t have to deal with this down the road. And we want to fight on these orders because 1) they are manifestly the result of bad faith judge shopping and the opinions themselves are both procedural and 2) they are substantively ridiculous. They are legal jokes. Don’t listen to the dummy lawyers on Twitter - only listen to me or the people I tell you that you can rely on. Everyone telling you these are reasoned, valid legal decisions is either a legal illiterate or thinks you are stupid. Third, the way this fight is happening is to our advantage. Wait, you ask, we’re getting decision after decision against us! How can that be good? Because they are leaving the Supreme Court no choice. People want Trump to sound off about this, but he doesn’t need to. What’s left unstated is the fact that he can just not obey these manifestly improper orders. They say it’s a constitutional crisis now, but that becomes a real one when they push Trump too far. He’s not going to submit forever to micromanagement of the executive branch by activist District Court judges in blue cities across America. And Chief Justice Roberts knows it. CJ Roberts and majority of the court know these are ridiculous legally, and the last thing they want to do is stake the credibility of the Court – which famously has no divisions – on this kind of nonsense. They are not going to jump on the grenade that is these decisions. There might someday be a fight with a president about something where he is legally in the wrong, but this is not that time. This is not the hill the Supreme Court will die on. Wisely, Trump’s not adding fuel to the fire by threatening to do what it’s very clear he can do, which is disobey. This provides SCOTUS the cover it needs to deal with these upstart district courts without looking like Trump strong-armed it. So relax and let the process go forward. We’re going to win on all these injunctions, and I expect fairly quickly |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #4 It isn't going to take two months, let alone two years. |
| Posted by: Hupaviting Ulinenter8857 2025-02-11 17:45 |
| #3 Yes, yes, drag this out for two years. Let the commies run on the work of graft, corruption, and illegals for the midterms while destroying what remains of the integrity of the court. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2025-02-11 10:38 |
| #2 Once their decision is overturned, target them for removal and legal investigations. If they took so much as an extra penny from NGOs, hang them. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2025-02-11 09:39 |
| #1 Judge extends restraining order to ban Trump admin buyout offer to federal workers |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2025-02-11 01:53 |