"We won't be silent as anti-public education politicians try to steal opportunities from our students, our families, and our communities to pay for tax cuts for billionaires," said the head of the nation's largest labor union.
By Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams
March 20, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) - U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday afternoon directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of shutting down the Department of Education.
"Hopefully she will be our last secretary of education," Trump said of McMahon, promising to "find something else" for the billionaire businesswoman to do.
Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate campaign, responded to Trump's move by announcing a Friday "study-in" outside Department of Education headquarters in Washington, D.C.
As U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to sign an executive order Thursday directing officials to shut down the Department of Education, Democratic politicians, teachers and communities across the nation are vowing legal and other challenges to the move.
Trump is set to check off a longtime Republican wish list item by signing a directive ordering Education Secretary Linda McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the states."
Shutting down the department—which was created in 1979 to ensure equitable access to public education and employs more than 4,000 people—will require an act of Congress, both houses of which are controlled by Republicans.
Thursday's expected order follows the department's announcement earlier this month that it would fire half of its workforce. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and more than three dozen Democratic senators condemned the move and Trump's impending Department of Education shutdown as "a national disgrace."
Abolishing the Department of Education is one of the top goals of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led roadmap for a far-right takeover and gutting of the federal government closely linked to Trump, despite his unconvincing efforts to distance himself from the highly controversial plan.
U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) called Trump's bid to abolish the Department of Education "more bullshit" and vowed to fight the president's "illegal behavior until the cows come home."
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said on social media: "Trump and his Cabinet of billionaires are trying to destroy the Department of Education so they can privatize more schools. The result: making it even harder to ensure that ALL students have access to a quality education. Another outrageous, illegal scam. We will fight this."
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, a Democrat, warned that "ending the U.S. Department of Education will decimate our education system and devastate families across the country."
"Support for students with special needs and those in rural and urban schools will be gone," he added. "We will stop at nothing to protect N.J. and fight this reckless action."
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA)—the nation's largest labor union—said in a statement Thursday that "Donald Trump and Elon Musk have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in rural, suburban, and urban communities across America, by dismantling public education to pay for tax handouts for billionaires."
Musk—the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—is the world's richest person. Trump and McMahon are also billionaires.
"If successful, Trump's continued actions will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle-class families, taking away special education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil rights protections," Pringle warned.
"This morning, in hundreds of communities across the nation, thousands of families, educators, students, and community leaders joined together outside of neighborhood public schools to rally against taking away resources and support for our students," she continued. "And, we are just getting started. Every day we are growing our movement to protect our students and public schools."
"We won't be silent as anti-public education politicians try to steal opportunities from our students, our families, and our communities to pay for tax cuts for billionaires," Pringle added. "Together with parents and allies, we will continue to organize, advocate, and mobilize so that all students have well-resourced schools that allow every student to grow into their full brilliance."
National Parents Union president Keri Rodrigues said that closing the Department of Education would disproportionately affect the most vulnerable students and communities.
"Let's be clear: Before federal oversight, millions of children—particularly those with disabilities and those from our most vulnerable communities—were denied the opportunities they deserved," Rodrigues said in a statement. "The Department of Education was created to ensure that every child, regardless of background or ZIP code, has access to a public education that prepares them for their future. Eliminating it would roll back decades of progress, leaving countless children behind in an education system that has historically failed the most marginalized."
"The Department of Education has an enormous effect on the day-to-day lives of students across the country," the petition states. "They are tasked with protecting civil rights on campus and ensuring that every student—regardless of where they live; their family's income; or their race, sex, gender identity, or disability—has equal access to education."
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, responded to Trump's looming order in four words: "See you in court."
This article first appeared in Common Dreams and is featured in East County Magazine under a Creative Commons license.
By G. A. McNeeley
Photo courtesy of Brian McNeeley
March 19, 2025 (Washington D.C.) — The Agriculture Department predicts egg prices could rise by more than 40%, on top of already steep price rises in 2024. While egg producers blame bird flu outbreaks, the Justice Department this month announced an investigation into whether egg producers might be sharing information and engaging in price gouging, ABC News reports.
President Donald Trump’s campaign platform including a pledge to bring down inflation including egg prices, but so far, prices continue to skyrocket. Now, the administration is offering its first details on its plan to fight avian flu and ease costs.
With an emphasis on farms tightening their measures to prevent avian flu’s spread, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will invest another $1 billion on top of the $2 billion it has already invested, since the outbreak first began in 2022, AP reports.
The main reason egg prices have climbed (hitting an all-time average high of $4.95 per dozen) is that more than 166 million birds have been slaughtered to limit the virus’ spread when cases are found. Most were egg-laying chickens. Just since the start of the year, more than 30 million egg layers have been killed.
However, new research by Food and Water Watch suggests that major egg corporations might also be using the avian flu as an excuse to raise the price of eggs, the Guardian reports.
The Price of Eggs Is Rising
The USDA is predicting that the cost of eggs will go up by 41.1% this year.
Prices have more than doubled since before the outbreak began, costing customers at least $1.4 billion last year, according to agricultural economists at the University of Arkansas. Some customers are even paying more than a dollar per egg (over $12 a dozen) in some places.
Rollins acknowledged that it will take some time before customers see an effect at the checkout counter. It takes infected farms months to dispose of deceased birds, sanitize their farms and raise new birds.
“It’s going to take a while to get through, I think in the next month or two, but hopefully by summer,” Rollins told AP News.
What Is The Administration’s Plan?
The plan calls for $500 million investment to help farmers bolster biosecurity measures, $400 million in additional aid for farmers whose flocks have been impacted by avian flu, and $100 million to research and potentially develop vaccines and therapeutics for U.S. chicken flocks, and explore rolling back what the administration sees as restrictive animal welfare rules in some states, such as California’s cage-free requirement, a humane animal treatment measure that was approved overwhelmingly by voters. However, increasing crowding by keeping poultry in cramped cages could actually increase spread of the disease.
The USDA has already paid farmers roughly $1.2 billion for the birds they had to slaughter, AP reports. The additional aid will continue going to those payments, and help farmers bring in new flocks more quickly.
The administration is in talks to import about 70-100 million eggs from abroad in the coming months, Rollins said. But there were 7.57 billion table eggs produced in the U.S. last month, so those imports don’t appear likely to make a significant difference in the market.
Trump administration officials have suggested that vaccines might help reduce the number of birds that have to be slaughtered when there is an outbreak. However, no vaccines have been fully approved for widespread use in poultry, and the industry has said the current prototypes aren’t practical because they require individual shots for each bird. Plus, vaccinated birds could jeopardize exports, since some countries have restrictions.
Fired Workers Are Being Rehired
Rollins said she believes the USDA has enough staff to respond to avian flu, even after all the cuts to the federal workforce at the direction of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“Will we have the resources needed to address the plan I just laid out? We are convinced that we will… as we realign and evaluate where USDA has been spending money, where our employees are spending their time,” Rollins told AP News.
Democratic U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar said the new plan is an important step, but the USDA needs to confirm it rehired everyone involved in the avian flu response who was mistakenly fired.
“At a time when producers are already grappling with the bird flu, the public is facing high prices, and all Americans are on edge about what broader spread of this virus could mean, the last thing the administration should have done was to eliminate these positions,” Klobuchar told AP News. “USDA must rehire these crucial personnel immediately.”
The Agriculture Department is scrambling to rehire several workers who were involved in the government’s response to the ongoing avian flu outbreak that has devastated egg and poultry farms over the past three years.
A USDA spokesperson said the department “continues to prioritize the response to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)” and several key jobs like veterinarians, animal health technicians and other emergency response personnel involved in the effort were protected from the cuts. Some employees of the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) were also eliminated.
“Although several APHIS positions supporting HPAI were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters,” the department spokesperson told AP News.
Politico and NBC News reported that the jobs that were eliminated were part of an office that helps oversee the national network of labs the USDA relies on to confirm cases of avian flu and other animal diseases. It wasn’t immediately clear how many workers the department might be trying to rehire, or if any of them worked at the main USDA lab in Ames, Iowa.
Avian Flu Is Affecting Egg Production
Egg and poultry farmers have already been working to protect their birds by making workers change and shower before entering barns, using separate sets of tools, and sanitizing any vehicles that enter farms. The challenge is that wild birds easily spread the virus.
The department has already done biosecurity reviews on about 150 farms and only one had an outbreak afterward, the USDA said, so officials believe more can be done to protect birds and they are going to make those reviews available to more farms. Any farm that has an outbreak has to undergo a biosecurity audit, and the government will help pay up to 75% of the needed biosecurity improvements.
The vast majority of avian flu outbreaks have been on factory farms where hundreds of thousands (or sometimes millions) of egg-laying hens are caged in close proximity, creating ideal conditions for the rapid spread of infectious diseases.
If one hen is infected, federal regulations call for the entire flock at the affected site to be killed – due to the risks posed by the deadly and highly contagious virus to other poultry, animals and humans, further disrupting supply and increasing costs.
So far, 70 human cases have been confirmed in the US. One person has died and another three have required hospital treatment. Almost 1,000 cattle herds have been infected, and more than 54 million birds have been affected in the past three months. The virus has also been detected in almost every US territory.
Almost 631 million eggs were produced in January 2025 (nearly 10% fewer than January 2022, as flock sizes continue to drop). The USDA tracks pullets (the chicks hatched to replace egg-laying hens) which have been below the five-year average most months since the outbreak began in February 2022.
Corporations Are Also To Blame
While avian flu has been a principal driver of rising egg prices, the highly concentrated egg market may also be contributing, according to an analysis by Food and Water Watch (FWW).
“Bird flu does not fully explain the sticker shock consumers experience in the egg aisle… corporate consolidation is a key culprit behind egg price spikes,” Amanda Starbuck told The Guardian.
“Powerful corporations that control every step of the supply chain (from breeding hens to hatching eggs to processing and distributing eggs) are making windfall profits off this crisis, raising their prices above and beyond what is necessary to cover any rising costs,” Starbuck added.
The analysis found that in some regions, prices were going up even before the new strain of the deadly H5N1 virus had affected poultry flocks and reduced egg production. Even as egg production recovered in 2023, prices did not come down.
The country’s largest egg producer, Cal-Maine, boasted a sevenfold increase in gross profits in 2023, after increasing prices above rising costs despite its flocks not being affected by avian flu during that period.
Cal-Maine, which produces one in every five eggs eaten in the US, issued shareholder dividends totaling $250 million in 2023 – 40 times more than the previous year. The company sold 7% more eggs in 2024 (compared with 2021) and tripled its profits over the same period, according to company filings.
“The working class is struggling to afford groceries while companies like Cal-Maine are raking in huge profits and rewarding their shareholders,” Democratic congressman Ro Khanna told The Guardian. “The Trump administration has the power to lower grocery bills, but instead they are imposing blanket tariffs on allies, firing federal workers who are trying to prevent the bird flu, and putting billionaires over ordinary Americans.”
The top five egg companies own almost half (46%) of all egg-laying commercial hens. Headquartered in Mississippi, Cal-Maine is the only publicly traded US egg producer, and has 75% more hens than the next largest company.
In its financial documents, Cal-Maine suggests egg prices are outside the company’s control: “We do not sell eggs directly to consumers or set the prices at which eggs are sold to consumers.” But many of its customers rely on Cal-Maine for the majority of their egg needs, according to company filings, so the price it sells its eggs factors into grocery store prices.
Lakeside egg rancher speaks with ECM
East County Magazine spoke with Frank Hilliker, co-owner of Hilliker’s Ranch Fresh Eggs in Lakeside.
Hilliker said that while his business doesn’t have the avian flu, “it’s driven prices of eggs so high that a bunch of people don’t want to buy.”
Regarding the many chickens killed nationwide due to exposure to avian flu, Hilliker said, “When you take that kind of supply off the market,” it will heavily affect the production of eggs, as well as their prices.
Hilliker said bird flu has actually increased demand, forcing rationing of sales per customer. “We’ve always sold eggs at the farm, and we’re not selling any more eggs out of the farm now than before, but we have more customers.” He added that they also “put limits on what people can buy,” which make it so they’re, “able to spread it out a little bit more that way.”
The farm has capacity for 30,000 chickens, according to Hiilliker. As for steps being taken to prevent bird flu from infecting his flocks, Hillkier explained the farms’ health and safety protocols. “We’re locked down in our chicken areas. Everything that goes through the gates where the chickens are, is disinfected,” which includes people and equipment, he said.
Sources:
https://apnews.com/article/record-egg-prices-usda-bird-flu-virus-92e9f5fbc4e0a792be484a4aee5b9c16
https://apnews.com/article/usda-firings-doge-bird-flu-trump-fdd6495cbe44c96d471ae8c6cf4dd0a8
Stopgap funding measure signed by President Trump; California’s Senators voted no
By G. A. McNeeley
March 18 2025 (Washington D.C.) — Congress avoided a government shutdown on March 14, just a few hours before the funding deadline. The stopgap measure to fund the government until September 30 was signed by President Donald Trump on Saturday.
The stopgap would fund government operations through the remainder of this fiscal year, but it would also slash non-defense funding by roughly $13 billion and increase defense spending by about $6 billion over current budgets (including billions for deportations, veterans’ health care and the military).
Many Democrats, including California’s Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, opposed the measure due to the non-defense cuts and because Republicans refused to include language in the bill putting guardrails on Trump and Elon Musk’s ability to continue dismantling the federal bureaucracy unchecked. The Democrats also advocated for a shorter, four-week stopgap to keep the government running on current funding levels in an effort to buy more time for appropriators to strike a deal on a bipartisan funding package. Republican leadership interest in those negotiations diminished weeks ago.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blocked filibuster
Senate Democrats came under intense pressure to oppose the Trump-backed bill. Now Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and nine others, are facing backlash after they helped clear a path for its passage by refusing to support a filibuster to block the budget bill.
Lawmakers raced towards a shutdown that would’ve had far-reaching consequences across the federal government, highlighting the struggle Democrats face, trying to counter Trump and the Republican control on power in Washington.
Schumer and nine other Democrats crossed the aisle to advance the budget in a key procedural vote. The legislation only required a simple majority in the Senate chamber for final passage, and all but two of those ten ultimately voted no on the budget bill.
Schumer argued his party only had bad options. “I believe it is the best way to minimize the harm that the Trump administration will do to the American people,” Schumer told CNN, in defense of his vote. “Clearly, this is a Hobson's choice. The CR (continuing resolution) is a bad bill, but as bad as the CR is, I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
Since Congress has not approved appropriations for any federal departments, all would be affected. Every agency has its own set of plans for a shutdown. Those plans include how many employees would be laid-off, which employees are considered essential and would work without pay, how long it would take to wind down operations in the hours before a shutdown and which activities would come to a halt. Those plans can vary from shutdown to shutdown.
The impact of a shutdown differs each time, and it’s unclear how agencies would handle it now, especially since Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal government has wreaked havoc on their operations and workforces.
The Division Among Party Members
Trump praised Schumer for saying he would support the measure, telling reporters after the vote, “I appreciate Senator Schumer, and I think he did the right thing, really. I’m very impressed by that.”
Many Senate Democrats and House Democrats saw the vote as a surrender in the party’s first real leverage point in Trump’s second term.
The initial vote had been closely watched by Democrats across the country, who saw it as a test of their party leaders’ willingness to fight Trump.
Ultimately, the Senate voted 54-46 to approve the stopgap bill for government funding through September 30. The vote was mostly party line, though Senator Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire Democrat) and Angus King (Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats) voted in favor of the bill, while Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky (Republican) opposed it.
“Once I had voted for cloture, it was an opportunity to pass the bill, and I thought it was more honest to vote for it,” Shaheen told CNN. “I thought, much as I didn’t like the CR, I thought a government shutdown would be worse and would give Trump and Elon Musk and the DOGE operation more of an opportunity to fire people, to shut down agencies and to close the work of the government.”
At the urging of Democrats like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, voters had been flooding senators’ offices with calls urging them to block the bill and take on Trump for his dismantling of the federal government. Many Democrats believe that Schumer failed that test.
Schumer has faced criticism, but no senators have publicly said they would challenge his leadership.
House Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, were against the bill, but lost by one vote from one of their members. It was not enough to sink the bill, which passed the House on March 11th.
Jeffries would not answer when asked whether he had lost confidence in Schumer, with whom he diverged on the funding issue.
Senate Democrats are now grappling with how to move forward as a caucus after the government funding bill split their party.
Schumer told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he “always knew there would be disagreements,” but maintained that a “government shutdown would be far worse” than voting for the GOP-led measure.
“My job as leader is to lead the party and if there’s going to be danger in the near future, to protect the party. And I’m proud I did it, I knew I did the right thing, and I knew there would be some disagreements. That’s how it always is,” he added.
Schumer also defended his leadership position, saying, “My caucus and I are in sync.”
New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich would not say whether he thought the party needed a new leader, telling reporters, “That’s a conversation for inside the caucus. I’m not going to debate that out here.”
Virginia Senator Mark Warner said he has “faith in Chuck Schumer,” but acknowledged that the caucus had a “choppy week.”
“I voted no on the CR. I heard that overwhelmingly from folks, and again, recognizing I got tons of federal workers. But I have total respect for the folks who reached another conclusion, and the idea that they would have had a shutdown that would have put us into the abyss with, unfortunately, parts of this administration, doesn’t follow the law,” he told CNN.
“I think the Democrats need to have a pro-growth agenda that recognizes fairness, and that is, frankly, not the debate though, that we just took place. That we just took place, it was two awful choices,” he added.
What California Politicians Have To Say
California Senator Alex Padilla issued the following statement after the House of Representatives narrowly passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through September 30th:
“The House Republican spending bill completely shortchanges California and other disaster-stricken states on disaster relief. We cannot leave communities in our states behind as they continue to rebuild and recover from devastating recent disasters. Despite the House vote today, I still believe the best path forward is for Congress to instead pass a 30-day funding bill to keep the government open while we continue negotiations for the remainder of the fiscal year in a way that properly funds disaster relief and doesn’t cede more power to Trump and Elon Musk.”
California Senator Adam Schiff explained why he’s “voting no, and why this needs to be defeated,” in a press release.
Schiff said it would embolden Trump to continue tearing down government services, close Social Security offices, illegally withhold funds, illegally seize authority from Congress, lay off veterans, and cut health care and Medicaid.
“I'm not willing to continue to see Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their minions continue to arrogate to themselves the power to fire anyone in the federal government,” Schiff said.
Schiff also addressed those who think that a shutdown of the government would be worse.
“If the government shuts down, let's be clear, they control everything. They control the House, they control the Senate, they control the White House, they control the Supreme Court. If they shut down the government, it is on them. That is their decision,” Schiff said.
“I am desperately worried about the direction of this country. We are seeing an executive run away with authority he does not have, merely because he claims to have it, merely because our courts have often acted too slowly to stop him,” he added.
In addition to Padilla and Schiff, Democratic House Representatives Sara Jacobs, Mike Levin, Scott Peters, and Jacob Vargas all voted against it, while Republican House Representative Darrel Issa voted in favor of it.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/14/politics/government-funding-bill-senate-shutdown/index.html
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/13/politics/deadline-federal-government-shutdown-congress
https://schiffnotes.substack.com/p/my-vote-on-the-gop-spending-bill
By Karen Pearlman
Photo via San Diego County Sheriff: Homeless encampment fire in Santee, February 2025
March 14, 2025 (San Diego’s East County) -- With an estimated one out of every five fires in San Diego County started in encampments where homeless individuals congregate, San Diego County Supervisor Joel Anderson has said enough is enough.
“Nobody has a right to burn my constituents’ homes down, whether they intend to or not,” Anderson said, two days after the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to update the county’s Unsafe Camping Ordinance. It would apply to property that the county owns or leases and specified areas such as parks, open space and certain public works facilities.
At their meeting on Tuesday, March 11, the supervisors voted 4-0 to empower appropriate authorities “to ensure public safety and do more than just cite repeat offenders,” Anderson said. A final draft ordinance is expected to be presented by county staff to the board in about two months, when a final vote will take place.
At that time, Supervisors will have options for changing the current ordinance.
One option includes adding provisions related to fire risk; adding protections in specific areas (including open spaces and public works infrastructure); and a notification period of 24 hours for those living in unsheltered encampments, to give them time to move personal property.
Another option is to leave the ordinance as it is, which includes enforcement to prohibit and abate illegal encampments, remove improperly stored property on public property and protect vacant property (such as the San Diego River corridor) from fire and pollution.
Currently there are several existing state and local codes that address fire prohibitions and liabilities due to careless, negligent or intentional acts. These existing codes grant enforcement authority to local law enforcement and/or fire agencies to investigate and hold individuals accountable for unlawful acts as defined in code sections.
As for the role law enforcement and other agencies would play in enforcing the ordinance, Anderson said "We expect the draft ordinance, which will be coming back to the Board in about two months, will contain more detailed information on this piece."
Anderson has been a leader in leading changes in the back country.
He said that passing an Unsafe Camping Ordinance in the county’s unincorporated communities “is a crucial step to protect all residents,” and referenced January’s Center Fire in Rancho Bernardo that burned seven acres.
San Diego's Metro Arson Strike Team reported that the Center Fire, which forced people in homes and those in a daycare center to evacuate, was started in a homeless encampment
Anderson said that more than 1,100 fires in the last 12 months were connected to homeless encampments.
In a staff report related to the ordinance, it was noted that the County has, and would continue to have, a “services-first” approach, with a goal of connecting people with shelter, food and -- where appropriate -- substance use disorder and mental health treatment.
The County’s outreach team -- The Health and Human Services Agency, Parks and Recreation, Public Works and Sheriff’s Office Homeless Assistance Resource Team -- coordinates provision of services and resources including emergency housing to people experiencing homelessness in the unincorporated communities.
The 2024 Point in Time Count identified nearly 200 people experiencing homelessness in the unincorporated county area. (This number captures unsheltered individuals only and does not include 250 households already placed in the County’s emergency housing program.)
The county’s changes to the ordinance are also connected to the June 2024 Supreme Court decision in the case of City of Grants Pass v. Johnson. T which allows local governments to enforce camping bans through citations or arrest regardless of the number of shelter beds open.
The decision overturned Martin v. Boise, a Ninth Circuit case from 2018 that held that individuals could not be cited for sleeping on public property unless they were first offered alternative shelter.
In Grants Pass, the Supreme Court upheld enforcement of local ordinances regulating camping on public property even if no shelter beds were available. Under this new guidance, the county’s existing camping ordinances could be enforced.
While all Supervisors voted for drafting an update to the county’s Unsafe Camping Ordinance, Supervisor Monica Montgomery-Steppe wants to be sure shelter space is available for anyone displaced. The County currently operates no homeless shelters, other than two safe parking areas for unhoused people living in vehicles, though plans are in the works to build sleeping cabins in Lemon Grove.
"We have a moral obligation before we put handcuffs on somebody to say, `We have a place for you to go," Montgomery-Steppe said, ECM news partner 10 News reports.
Asked if there is information on any separation of homeless encampment fires vs. fires started in migrant camps, Anderson said County Fire and CalFire have indicated that “these separate data points are not currently tracked in the unincorporated areas.”
An ECM article last year reported that at least six local fires between May 1 and June 1 were attributed to migrants or smugglers near the border, according to Cal Fire. Those fires ranged in size from less than an acre to 50 acres.
By Miriam Raftery
Photo by Anne Meador: Federal workers protest at Capitol (CC by NC-ND)
March 14, 2025 – Two federal judges have ruled that the Trump administration’s mass firing of federal workers was illegal. Both judges ordered thousands of probationary fired workers rehired, at least temporarily, though the two rulings differed on the scope of agencies affected. Combined, the two rulings order that 18 agencies immediately rehire those fired, affecting a broad range of jobs from national park rangers to Veterans’ Administration workers and many more.
The judges also issued scathing rebukes of the purge of agencies done by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and accused the administration of lying when it claimed the firings were based on performance issues, since many of the laid-off workers had extremely positive performance reviews.
U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup in San Francisco called the mass terminations a “sham.” He stated in open court, “It is sad, a sad day, when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie. That should not have been done in our country.”
Judge Alsup ordered the immediate rehiring of fired probationary employees in these six departments: Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs. That lawsuit was filed by federal employees’ unions. His order lasts until whenever the case’s outcome is ultimately resolved in court, a process that could take years.
U.S. District Judge James Bredar in New York issued a broader but more temporarily order in a case filed by Democrat state attorneys general. Judge Breder’s order requires 18 federal departments to immediately rehire the fired probationary workers for at least 14 days, though he indicated he would consider a longer relief.
His order requires reemployment be offered to the fired probationary workers in these departments: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior (which includes the National Park Service), Labor, Transportation, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, and the Small Business Administration.
However, Bredar found the states’ failed to meet the burden of proof to show illegal firings at three other agencies, which he excluded from his ruling: the Defense Department, Office of Personnel Management, and the National Archives and Records Administration.
Judge Bredar found that the mass firings failed to provide 60 days required notice and follow other requirements, and concluded, “The sheer number of employees that were terminated in a matter of days belies any argument that these terminations were due to the employees’ individual performance or conduct...The government’s contention to the contrary borders on the frivolous.”
Bredar also found arguments from the states compelling, noting that the lack of notice left states “impaired in their capacities to meet their legal obligations to the citizens.”
Judge Alsup bristled at the Justice Department’s refusal to make acting Office of Management and Budget Director Charles Ezell available for testimony yesterday, and suggested the Trump administration’s attorneys were withholding information on who directed the mass firings.
The Trump administration has already filed an appeal in one case and will likely do so in both. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a statement after the ruling, saying, “A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch...If a federal district court would like executive powers, they can try and run for President themselves,” she sniped. “The Trump Administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order.”
In fact, the hiring and firing of federal employees is dictated by federal law, which contains numerous civil service worker protections. In addition, many legal scholars have said it is illegal for the Executive branch to usurp the power of Congress, which created many of the agencies being gutted under the guise of streamlining government efficiency and saving taxpayers’ money.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said he is “pleased with Judge Alsup’s order to immediately reinstate tens of thousands of probationary federal employees who were illegally fired from their jobs by an administration hellbent on crippling federal agencies and their work on behalf of the American public.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who led efforts to sue the Trump administration on behalf of states, issued this statement: “The Trump Administration’s callous and reckless mass firing of probationary federal employees has caused chaos and prevented these workers from providing critical services that affect the everyday lives of Americans, from offering support for veterans and farmers, to protecting our cherished national parks and public lands.”
Bonta added, “I am pleased that the federal district court has promptly granted our request for a temporary restraining order, which will block the Administration’s unlawful mass firing directive and reinstate affected employees. I, alongside my fellow attorneys general, will be closely monitoring to ensure that the Administration follows the court’s order.”
Sources:
https://www.newsweek.com/list-federal-agencies-rehire-fired-employees-2044763
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/13/nx-s1-5325694/maryland-court-fired-federal-employees-trump
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/judge-trump-reinstate-thousands-fired-federal-workers/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=089i2Ex5Nlw
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/03/trump-mass-firings-doj-judge-youre-fired.html
https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/MD%20v.%20USDA%20-%20TRO%20Order.pdf