Federal shutdown stalls California’s legal battles with Trump
Days before the Trump administration is expected to respond to a lawsuit targeting gender-affirming care providers in California, lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal judge to temporarily halt the proceedings.
They argued that, given the federal shutdown, they did not have lawyers to do the job.
“Justice Department attorneys and employees of federal defendants are prohibited from working, even on a voluntary basis, except in very limited circumstances, including ’emergencies concerning the safety of human life or the protection of property,’” they wrote in their filing on Oct. 1, the first day of the shutdown.
The district judge presiding over California’s lawsuit, filed along with a Democrat-led coalition of other states in federal court in Massachusetts, agreed and promptly granted the request.
It was just an example of the present weeks of federal shutdown It brings to a halt key cases in policy battles between California and the Trump administration that have major impacts on people’s lives.
That same day, in the same Massachusetts court, Justice Department lawyers were given a recess in a lawsuit in which California and other states challenging mass layoffs against the U.S. Department of Education said department funding had been suspended and the department did not know “when such funding would be restored by Congress.”
The same day, in U.S. District Court in Central California, the Trump administration sought a similar stay in its lawsuit against California, challenging the state’s refusal to turn over voter registration lists to the administration.
Justice Department attorneys wrote that they “deeply regret the disruption suffered by the Court and other plaintiffs,” but that they must pause the proceedings until they are “permitted to resume regular civil litigation functions.”
Since then, the court in Central California has recommended alternative dispute resolution options to the parties and outside groups, including the NAACP, have filed to intervene in the case, but without significant developments.
The pauses in the cases — just a fraction of the pauses occurring in courts across the country — were an example of the sweeping, real-world, high-stakes effects of the federal government shutdown that average Americans may not consider when considering the impact of the shutdown on their lives.
Federal employees working in security and other essential roles – e.g. air traffic controllers – they continued to work even without pay, but many people were forced to stay at home. The Justice Department did not disclose which of its lawyers were dismissed due to the shutdown, but made clear that some lawyers who worked on the cases in question were no longer doing so.
federal lawsuit It often takes years to resolve, and brief pauses in proceedings are not uncommon. However, the prolonged disruptions that could occur if the shutdown lasts long would cause great harm and hinder legal answers to some of the most important policy battles in the country.
California Adv. Gen. Rob Bonta, whose office has filed more than 40 lawsuits against the Trump administration since January, has not objected to every request from the Trump administration for a pause, especially in cases where the status quo favors the state.
But on other occasions he defied the pauses and achieved some success.
At the same Massachusetts federal courthouse, for example, on Oct. 1, Justice Department lawyers asked a judge to temporarily halt proceedings in a case in which California and other states are suing to block the administration from cutting funding for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.
Their arguments were the same as in other cases: Given the closure, they did not have lawyers to do the necessary legal work.
In response, attorneys for California and other states pushed back, saying the shutdown did not prevent Department of Health and Human Services officials from continuing to enforce the measure to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, leaving state residents at risk of losing necessary health care.
“Risks of irreparable harm are particularly high because it is unclear how long the cut in funding will last, meaning aid will remain unavailable for months, at which point many health centers will likely be forced to close due to lack of funding,” the states said.
On October 8, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani denied the government’s request for a stay, finding that the states’ interest in pursuing the case “outweighed” the administration’s interest in pausing the case.
Talwani’s argument was, in part, that his order denying the stay would give Justice Department officials the legal authority to continue pursuing the case despite the shutdown.
“Trump owns this shutdown” and “owns the devastation it has wreaked on hard-working everyday Americans,” Bonta said in a statement, adding that his office would not allow Trump to use this to cause further harm by delaying relief in court cases.
“We do not allow the administration to use this shutdown as an excuse to continue implementing its illegal agenda unchecked. We will not back down — and neither will the courts — until there is relief for Californians,” Bonta said. “We cannot wait for Trump to finally allow our government to reopen before these cases are heard.”
Trump and Republicans in Congress blamed Democrats for the shutdown.
