Judge to consider blocking mass firings of government employees after 20 states sue

(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Wednesday will consider the fate of more than 20,000 probationary government employees fired by the Trump administration.

During a hearing in U.S. District Court in Maryland, Judge James Bredar will consider issuing a temporary restraining order that would block future firings and reinstate the probationary employees who have already been terminated.

The court hearing Wednesday comes after 20 Democratic attorneys general sued to block the firings last week.

“These large-scale, indiscriminate firings are not only subjecting the Plaintiff States and communities across the country to chaos. They are also against the law,” the Democratic officials argued in their complaint, which named 41 agencies and agency heads as defendants.

The attorneys general have argued that the Trump administration violated federal law with the firings by failing to give a required 60-day notice for a reduction in force, opting to pursue the terminations “suddenly and without any advance notice.”

Lawyers with the Department of Justice have argued that the states lack standing because they “cannot interject themselves into the employment relationship between the United States and government workers,” and that to grant the temporary restraining order would “circumvent” the administrative process for challenging the firings.

In separate lawsuits, two other federal judges have declined to immediately block firings of federal employees or to reinstate them to their positions.

“The third time is not the charm. Like the unions and the organizational plaintiffs, the States are strangers to the employment relationships at issue and cannot disrupt the exclusive remedial scheme that Congress put in place to adjudicate these disputes,” lawyers with the DOJ argued.

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