Judges legislating from the bench is an enormous problem. It almost always goes one way, too.
And now one activist judge just threw a major wrench in Donald Trump’s agenda.
A federal judge in Boston on Thursday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s bold plan to shrink the bloated federal workforce by offering employees eight months of pay and benefits in exchange for their immediate resignations.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole issued an order extending the administration’s Thursday midnight deadline, delaying it until after a scheduled hearing at 2 p.m. Monday.
The administration had rolled out the mass buyout plan in a Jan. 28 email titled “Fork in the Road,” offering at least 2 million federal workers the chance to take the deal. So far, around 60,000 employees have accepted, with White House officials expecting that number to grow.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made it clear the administration is eager to move forward.
“We encourage federal workers in this city to accept the very generous offer. If they don’t want to show up to the office. If they want to rip the American people off, then they are welcome to take this offer, and we’ll find highly competent people to take these roles,” Leavitt said Thursday.
However, powerful federal employee unions were quick to fight back, filing a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts. They claim the plan is “arbitrary and capricious” and violates labor laws governing workforce reductions.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, hailed the judge’s temporary ruling as a victory.
“We are pleased the court temporarily paused this deadline while arguments are heard about the legality of the deferred resignation program. We continue to believe this program violates the law, and we will continue to aggressively defend our members’ rights,” Kelley said.
Joining the lawsuit are the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the National Association of Government Employees, with Democracy Forward, a left-wing legal advocacy group, representing them in court.
The lawsuit alleges that the buyouts will destabilize government operations, failing to account for potential damage to essential services. Attorneys for the unions argue the “Fork Directive” lacks clear implementation guidelines and ignores best practices for reducing federal staff.
Union lawyers also claim the buyouts are a veiled effort to replace career federal workers with Trump-aligned employees, and they question whether the administration can even guarantee eight months of pay—given that the government’s temporary funding bill expires in March.
“If these employees leave or are forced out en masse, the country will suffer a dangerous one-two punch. First, the government will lose expertise in the complex fields and programs that Congress has, by statute, directed the Executive to faithfully implement. The government will have fewer qualified employees to execute the statutorily-required tasks that still remain,” the lawsuit stated.
Attorneys have requested Judge O’Toole, a Clinton appointee, to declare the “Fork Directive” illegal, delay the buyout deadline for at least 60 days, and force the Trump administration to provide additional legal justification.
President Trump has made no secret of his desire to shrink the federal government, crack down on wasteful spending, and bring an end to the remote-work culture that has left office buildings half-empty. In addition to the buyout offers, Trump has ordered all federal employees back to the office, reversing the widespread work-from-home policies that became entrenched during the previous administration.
Democrats in both the House and Senate, along with federal employee unions, have loudly opposed Trump’s plan.
Trump’s approach to government downsizing stands in stark contrast to former President Bill Clinton’s 1995 buyout program, which was first approved by Congress and capped severance pay at $25,000 per worker. Clinton’s plan, which excluded the Defense Department, ultimately led to over 100,000 federal employees leaving their jobs, with an overall reduction of 270,000 positions.
“Looking back, I can safely say that our buyout program has been a huge success. It achieved what we had hoped: to help us cut the workforce in a fiscally responsible and humane way,” Clinton said at the time.
Unlike Clinton, however, Trump isn’t waiting for congressional approval—he’s taking direct executive action to slash bureaucracy and rein in government overreach. Whether the courts will allow his aggressive streamlining to proceed remains to be seen.
Stay tuned to Prudent Politics.
