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Alsup issued a nationwide order for the feds to rehire probationary workers. Judge Bredar in Maryland also initially ordered the feds to rehire workers from even more federal agencies, but then limited his preliminary injunction to workers who had their workstation in the 29 states and the District of Columbia whose AG's brought the action. SCOTUS disagrees with Alsup on the standing of the plaintiffs, non-profits, who brought the action. The states claim standing in federal court in MD because they will have to pay the fired federal employees unemployment if they are terminated. I expect SCOTUS to agree with that argument.

The issue is whether or not Trump issuing a hiring freeze on day one of his administration and then firing all of the probationary workers hired by the previous administration is a de facto reduction in force (RIF). Bredar ruled it was, and will likely be upheld on appeal. The result is that thousands of federal employees are getting paid in full while on administrative leave while all of this plays out in court. There was no cost savings in this, although it may have disrupted resistance to Trump in the federal agencies.

A Supreme Court ruling that said that states have the standing to sue over federal policy because of indirect effects would be bigger than DOGE. They must be desperate as all Hell! Imagine if the states had standing for every federal regulation under the notion that the regulation would cost them money!

There is also another boogieman in this. If States have standing simply because they would have to pay unemployment to the fired US Govt workers, then States would also have standing to sue to stop private companies from laying off, shutting down or moving their operations. To Hades with that.

There is no such animal as a “de facto RIF”.

Good luck finding it in previous legal cases.

The Supreme Court is laughing at the concept.

So am I.

Lol.