WASHINGTON – On Friday, the Trump administration followed through on threats to begin mass firings during the government shutdown. White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought announced on X: “The RIFs have begun.”
The announcement was immediately met with significant backlash. Virginia Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (D-VA) released a joint statement about the layoffs.
“They’re doubling down by laying off federal workers,” Warner and Kaine said. “[They’re] turning their own failure to govern into a direct attack on the people who keep this country running and jeopardizing vital government services.”
Virginia is home to nearly 150,000 civilian federal employees, making it the state with one of the highest numbers of federal workers.
Before the government shutdown began, the OMB had instructed federal agencies to prepare mass reduction-in-force (RIF) plans. According to a memo released by the OMB, the layoffs specifically targeted employees who work for programs that are considered non-essential and are impacted by the shutdown.
Since Friday’s mass firings began, more than 4,000 workers have been laid off across seven federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Education (DOE). Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle responded to the layoffs by emphasizing the harm this could have on federal employees and their families.
“Many of these abrupt terminations will do more harm than good, stunting opportunities in Alaska and leaving holes in our communities,” wrote Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on social media. Murkowski added: “Indiscriminate workforce cuts aren’t efficient and won’t fix the federal budget, but they will hurt good people who have answered the call to public service to do important work for our nation.”
Others have asserted that the firings are not only harmful, but actually illegal. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, referred to the layoffs as an “illegal attempt to fire hardworking public servants.”
Some legal experts agree.
Paul Gowder, a professor of constitutional law at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, believes the firings are unconstitutional. He says the constitutionality issue here is whether the President has to obey the laws of Congress regarding “who can be fired and when.”
“Presidents, particularly the Republican presidents, and super particularly Trump, have been attached for a while now to this theory called the Unitary Executive,” Gowder said. “The idea of this theory is that the executive branch is controlled by one person, and that person is the president, and they have sort of complete authority to decide how to supervise personnel in the executive branch: who to hire, who to fire, and so forth.”
But, Gowder says, Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution – the list of Congress’ powers – contains a clause called the Necessary and Proper Clause. This clause explicitly grants Congress the power to make any laws that are “necessary and proper” to “carry into execution” all power vested by the Constitution in the government.
“What that means is that the counter-argument to the unitary executive view is actually that Congress has the authority to decide which officers are protected from firing and which aren’t under what circumstances,” Gowder said. “That’s really what the fight is about.”
At least one court has already agreed: A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from “taking any action to issue any reduction-in-force notices to federal employees […] during or because of the federal government shutdown,” ordering the administration to immediately halt the mass firings. The judge granted the temporary restraining order on the basis that she believed the evidence would ultimately show the cuts were “illegal and in excess of authority.”
As of now, it is unclear whether the mass federal layoffs will ultimately be allowed to continue. Since taking office, more than 200,000 federal employees have been fired or left their jobs.
