SCOTUS greenlights Trump's federal firings

What happened

The Supreme Court Tuesday ruled that the Trump administration can conduct mass federal firings without Congress' permission. The decision lifts a lower court's block on an executive order President Donald Trump issued in February aimed at "eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity" across government and paves the way for thousands of workers to be cut from multiple departments.

Who said what

This case "represents a key test" of the extent of Trump's "power to reorganize the government without input from Congress," said The New York Times. White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said the ruling "clearly rebukes the continued assaults" on the president's executive powers.

The order was unsigned and did not include a vote count. But in a 15-page dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the court's three liberals, called the decision "hubristic and senseless" and warned it would "release the president's wrecking ball" on the government workforce. A coalition of labor unions, nonprofits, and local governments said that regardless of Tuesday's ruling, firing federal workers "en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval" was unconstitutional.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What next?

The ruling is temporary, while litigation over Trump's executive order proceeds. "In practice, it means he is free to pursue his restructuring plans," said the Times. Several departments, including State and Veterans Affairs, have already announced steep workforce cuts. But while the ruling "cleared one major legal obstacle" for the administration, further challenges "could alter the scope and timing of the cuts," unnamed White House sources told Reuters.