By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) -A federal judge on Tuesday extended a block preventing President Donald Trump’s administration from laying off thousands of federal employees amid a nearly month-long partial government shutdown.
During a hearing in San Francisco, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston extended an earlier temporary ruling barring nearly 40 federal agencies from implementing layoffs pending the outcome of a legal challenge by unions that represent federal workers.
About 4,100 employees at eight agencies had been notified that they were being laid off before Illston’s October 16 ruling, the Trump administration said in court filings. White House Budget Director Russell Vought has said that more than 10,000 federal workers could lose their jobs because of the shutdown.
Illston’s decision will likely be immediately appealed, and could be paused by a San Francisco-based appeals court or the U.S. Supreme Court pending further litigation.
The shutdown, which entered its 28th day on Tuesday, is the second longest in U.S. history after a partial lapse in funding that lasted 35 days beginning in late 2018, during Trump’s first term.
Trump has blamed Democrats for the shutdown and the planned layoffs, though no other administration has carried out mass layoffs during lapses in funding.
The unions that filed the suit said implementing layoffs is not an essential service that can be performed during a shutdown, and that the current funding lapse does not justify mass job cuts because many federal workers have been furloughed without pay.
Trump’s Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress but need at least seven Democratic votes to pass a funding bill in the Senate, where Democrats are holding out for an extension of health insurance subsidies. Democrats have said they will not cave to Trump’s pressure tactics.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
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