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Is this a win? Procedurally, it’s more of a pause, and may not even be much of a pause, as we’ll see. It may, however, send an important signal to lower courts, and to judges inclined to toss sand in the gears of the executive branch. Maybe.
Earlier this afternoon, the Supreme Court intervened to stay an order by a San Francisco judge that had ordered the Trump administration to reinstate 16,000 probationary employees. The ruling galvanized Donald Trump and supporters, already outraged by district courts issuing nationwide injunctions, and demanding action from the top court to put a stop to jurisdictional overreach.
That’s not the basis for this decision, however, even if it was part of the ruling yesterday on the Alien Enemies Act challenge. This time, the court focused on standing instead, in a ruling that may have little practical effect, as the New York Times notes, and doesn’t even apply to all of the potential plaintiffs in the action:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a ruling from a federal judge in California that had ordered the Trump administration to rehire thousands of fired federal workers who had been on probationary status.
The court’s brief order said the nonprofit groups that had sued to challenge the dismissals had not suffered the sort of injury that gave them standing to sue.
The practical consequences of the ruling may be limited, as another trial judge’s ruling requiring the reinstatement of many of the same workers remains in place.
That ruling came in Maryland a month ago, and NBC News included the link in their report on today’s action:
U.S. District Judge James Bredar in Maryland issued a temporary restraining order against dozens of agencies, departments and their leaderships across the federal government that had terminated workers as part of reduction-in-workforce efforts.
“In this case, the government conducted massive layoffs, but it gave no advance notice. It claims it wasn’t required to because, it says, it dismissed each one of these thousands of probationary employees for ‚performance‘ or other individualized reasons“, Bredar wrote in his ruling.
