Congress

Judge extends order barring mass firings of federal workers during shutdown

Published

11 months ago

October 28, 2025

A federal judge has indefinitely extended her order banning the Trump administration from mass firing federal employees during the government shutdown.

Following a hearing Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston granted a preliminary injunction blocking reductions in force — better known as RIFs — at most major government agencies.

Barring further action by a higher court, Illston’s decision limits the Trump administration’s ability to continue downsizing the federal government and moves it has made to leverage the ongoing shutdown to cut federal programs and agencies favored by Democrats.

The Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Management and Budget “and the federal agency defendants are enjoined from issuing any more RIF notices because of the shutdown,” said Illston, a San Francisco-based Clinton appointee. The judge also barred the administration from implementing RIF notices issued during the shutdown and said she might hold further court proceedings to resolve disputes about some RIFs that were in the works just before the shutdown began on Oct. 1.

The Trump administration is expected to appeal Illston’s ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. OMB spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Justice Department attorney defending the administration at the hearing Tuesday, Michael Velchik, said the firings were lawful and represented the will of the electorate expressed through President Donald Trump’s victory at the polls last year.

“The American people selected someone known above all else for his eloquence in communicating to employees that, ‘You’re fired!’” Velchik said, referring to Trump’s trademark line on his television show, “The Apprentice.”

However, Illston bluntly rejected the administration’s key arguments, including that the lapse in appropriations gave agencies new flexibility to fire workers because unfunded programs are no longer required by law.

“I think that’s completely wrong,” the judge said.

Velchik was undeterred. “I think that’s obviously correct. I think all three branches of government agree on that,” he said.

A lawyer representing the federal employee unions challenging the RIFs said that argument suggests Trump could permanently dismantle every federal agency simply because Congress failed to meet a funding deadline.

“What counsel is arguing is that if Congress lets funding lapse for one day, the president can fire the entire federal government. That is absurd,” the unions’ attorney, Danielle Leonard, said.

On Monday, one of the unions suing, AFGE, shifted its position in the shutdown fight. While it initially joined with other federal employee unions backing Democrats’ resistance to supporting a temporary funding bill, AFGE urged senators to support a three-week funding patch. It fell short in the Senate again Tuesday in a 54-45 vote.

Illston made clear at the outset of the hearing that she intended to issue an injunction that effectively extends a temporary restraining order she issued two weeks ago at the unions’ request. She called it “particularly ironic” that the federal employees sending out the RIF notices appeared to be violating the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prohibits the government from incurring expenses not authorized by Congress, but includes some exceptions for essential activities.

The judge also said she found some accounts from federal RIFed employees “very affecting.”

“I think it’s important that we remember that although we are here talking about statutes and administrative procedure and the like, we are also talking about human lives, and these human lives are being dramatically affected by the activities that we’re discussing this morning,” Illston said.

As an example, she cited an account by a RIFed Department of Housing and Urban Development employee who in a court filing on Oct. 21 wrote that she had never gone through anything as traumatizing as the current experience, including her combat deployment when she was in the Air Force.

The judge also mentioned another account filed in court on Oct. 21 from a RIFed IT specialist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who has been working for the federal government for more than 40 years.

“After 40 years of service, she’s eligible for retirement, but no one at Human Resources can answer her questions about the RIF notice or retiring, because most, if not all, of the HR staff have also been RIFed,” Illston said about the woman. “This is her second RIF notice. She got one earlier in April that was later rescinded.”

That was part of a spring round of RIFs at the Department of Health and Human Services. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at the time that he sought to downsize the department by about a quarter, to about 62,000 employees.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said earlier this month that he expected the total number of employees fired in connection with the shutdown would “probably end up being north of 10,000.”

Those plans appear to have been scaled back since then, partly due to resistance from other high-level officials in the Trump administration. Trump has said the firings and program terminations are aimed at getting Democrats to cry uncle in the budget fight by targeting constituencies and causes important to them.

Congress

Capitol agenda: China fears drive AI divide

Published

3 hours ago

September 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Americans — and Congress — are divided on whether it’s acceptable to fall behind other countries in the race to develop advanced artificial intelligence.

And that fear of international competition is emerging as a key point of tension slowing down any path to AI safety legislation.

Even as almost two thirds of respondents in a new Blue Light News poll said there’s a real possibility that AI could destroy humanity, they’re split on whether it’s acceptable to slow down and potentially fall behind other countries like China in an AI arms race.

A plurality, 43 percent, say it is okay for the U.S. to fall behind if that means developing AI more responsibly and securely, while 37 percent take the opposite view. Voters who backed Donald Trump in 2024 favor the competition-first position by 50 percent compared to just 34 percent of Kamala Harris voters.

Republican Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie argued the U.S. cannot risk Chinese AI dominance, and that AI legislation is too complex to rush — even if that means pushing off until next year consideration of a measure by his panel.

“We absolutely can’t surrender,” he said Wednesday at Blue Light News’s Decoded Summit.

Meanwhile, the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said competition isn’t a reason to avoid guardrails.

“The AI race is not an arms race that you win,” Rep. Greg Casar said at the Decoded Summit.

Other lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are trying to strike a balance. Rep. John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, acknowledged lawmakers “do have a responsibility for public safety” while saying it was also important to “beat China when it comes to the AI race.”

Still, the emerging divisions spotlight a long road ahead for any consensus from Congress.

An attempt to quickly pass a bill requiring companies to build a “kill switch” into their AI models from Republican Sen. John Kennedy was blocked Wednesday by Sen. Rand Paul on the chamber’s floor.

And while Guthrie’s Senate counterpart, Commerce Chair Ted Cruz said Wednesday his hope was still to mark up this month a bipartisan AI safety bill from Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, lawmakers haven’t reached agreement to finalize the measure. Thune himself said Wednesday he was unsure it would happen before the midterms.

Cracks are also starting to show among the leading AI companies on what role they want Congress to play.

One example: Anthropic’s policy chief Sarah Heck declined at Blue Light News’s summit to endorse a proposal for congressionally mandated independent AI monitoring — a day after competitor OpenAI endorsed it. The proposal is a key provision in Reps. Jay Obernolte and Lori Trahan’s bipartisan AI safety measure.

The House’s early dismissal Wednesday only added to time pressure on lawmakers, who will return to a lame duck session with an already full calendar.

What else we’re watching:

— LEE BULLISH ON PERMITTING: Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee told fellow Republicans during a closed-door lunch Wednesday he is “guardedly optimistic” that negotiators will reach a long-sought deal on a bill to ease permitting approval for energy projects. “We were told today that the Democrats are going to agree to a permitting bill, and it’s going to be drafted and ready for us to vote on,” Kennedy said in an interview. Still, the top negotiators have yet to clinch an agreement, meaning the timeline could slip until after the midterms.

— SPY LAW TIMING UNCLEAR: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently warnedCongress that if it doesn’t vote on a controversial surveillance law by Nov. 20, the program could go dark, but it’s unclear congressional leadership can meet that deadline. Thune told reporters this week that there is an “interest” in trying to get Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorized, but didn’t commit to getting a vote before the midterms. With the House gone, reauthorization will wait until at least mid-November, regardless.

Riley Rogerson, Mia McCarthy, Anna Wiederkehr, Jordain Carney, John Sakellariadis and Josh Siegel contributed to this report.

Congress

Poll: China fears drive polarization on AI regulations

Published

6 hours ago

September 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Americans are divided on whether it’s acceptable to fall behind other countries in the race to develop advanced artificial intelligence. So is Congress.

A new POLITICO Poll finds that Americans broadly recognize serious risks from frontier AI models, but many — particularly President Donald Trump’s voters — also prioritize maintaining a lead over other countries, including China.

Even as 63% of the poll’s respondents said there’s a real possibility that AI could destroy humanity, they’re split on whether it’s acceptable to slow down and potentially fall behind in order to mitigate that risk.

A plurality, 43%, say it is acceptable for the U.S. to fall behind other countries if that means developing AI more responsibly and securely, while 37% take the opposite view, saying the U.S. should not stand down, even if that requires taking risks. Voters who backed Trump in 2024 favor the competition-first position by 50% to 38%.

That split is already playing out on Capitol Hill as AI safety zooms to the center of congressional conversations. With legislation only slowly taking shape, fear of international competition stands to be a major point of tension during any bipartisan negotiations — with most lawmakers’ views divided closely along party lines.

Many Republican lawmakers said in interviews this week that pausing AI development could give China an opening to overtake U.S. capabilities. Democrats are also looking over their shoulders at Chinese advances, but they are cautioning that competition is not a reason for Congress to avoid instituting AI guardrails.

“The AI race is not an arms race that you win,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) said during Wednesday’s Blue Light News Decoded Summit. “It’s an arms race that we need to end, and we need to protect the American people.”

Casar, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has teamed up with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in calling for a ban on “superintelligence” to stave off the existential threats to humanity — a concern that bubbled to the fore last week when a former Anthropic researcher warned AI could “kill us all.”

Senior Republicans are denigrating proposals like Casar’s, arguing that the U.S. cannot risk Chinese AI dominance. Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), chair of the powerful House committee overseeing the tech industry, said as much at the summit.

“We absolutely can’t surrender,” he said. “And I think that’s what it would be if we stopped AI development.”

Guthrie further argued AI legislation is too complex to rush and that the Energy and Commerce Committee he leads might not take up AI legislation before next year. That sentiment is in line with Speaker Mike Johnson, who said this week that the U.S. must “maintain our edge over China.” Meanwhile, Trump has called the AI panic a “HOAX” and said that federal regulations would allow China to leapfrog the U.S.

Some Republicans have been almost flippant about the dilemma policymakers face in reconciling a potentially dangerous technology with their fear of Chinese competition.

“If there are going to be killer robots, I’d rather they be American killer robots,” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said in a recent POLITICO interview. Like Guthrie, Cruz chairs a committee overseeing tech matters.

Among the bipartisan group of lawmakers who have locked arms in warning about the Chinese threat on other fronts, the familiar partisan divide is still emerging on AI regulation.

“We can lead in innovation and lead in safety,” said Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.), who sits on the bipartisan Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. “So if Trump or anyone else comes at it that we can only do one but not the other, he’s not looking at the history of the United States of America.”

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a moderate Republican China hawk, said he is “very reluctant to hinder AI” via regulation.

“They’re going to have to make the good case why we need it,” he said. “We don’t want to hinder our AI research. We can’t afford to fall behind China.”

Some, however, are being careful to strike a balanced tone as the AI safety conversation kicks into high gear.

Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House China panel, acknowledged lawmakers “do have a responsibility for public safety” while saying it was also important to “beat China when it comes to the AI race.”

“There’s economic benefits to that,” he said. “There’s national security issues, but we want to have common sense and a deliberative process.”

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), an Intelligence Committee member and a co-chair of House Democrats’ AI commission, said China is “not waiting for anyone else.”

“So you can’t just leave the race, but you need to make sure you do it in the right way,” he added.

Opinions are sharper when it comes to Trump’s upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week and whether he should even broach some type of cooperation on AI safety.

“I don’t trust him,” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said when asked if Trump should engage with Xi on AI. “I trust Trump.”

But many Democrats say it’s a mistake to engage in an AI arms race, with some explicitly reaching for analogies with the nuclear arms race that ended in Cold War treaties with a former global rival — the Soviet Union — limiting bomb tests and missile deployments.

Rep. Ted Lieu of California, another co-chair of the Democratic AI commission, said Trump could start small by asking Xi to “commit that they’re never going to let AI launch a nuclear weapon by itself.”

“There are things that we can do to get other countries to follow the lead the U.S. has taken in AI,” he said.

Congress

Democrats keep pressure on Hakeem Jeffries to punish rogue members

Published

14 hours ago

September 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Democrats aren’t letting rogue members off the hook for bucking their party. They hope Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries won’t either.

“Obviously, there’s got to be” punishment for the two Democrats who twice this month bucked their party to advance a slate of Republican priorities, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said in an interview.

“Otherwise, then,” he said, “it’s open season.”

Democrats are watching closely how — and if — Jeffries doles out consequences for Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington who have twice provided the decisive votes for GOP procedural measures this month. Jeffries and his leadership team condemned the two members when they first defected two weeks ago, slamming a “breach of trust” warranting a “serious response” but have yet to inflict any public consequences.

On Tuesday, they defied leadership a second time, infuriating House Democrats and resurrecting questions about how leadership plans to keep its caucus in line — especially if they have a slim majority next term.

“We have to all be united, and I think it’s pretty simple,” said one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “If there’s not [a punishment], I find it hard to see a path forward in the majority, which we’re all pushing for.”

Asked if leadership should punish the two aisle-crossers, Rep. Troy Carter pointed to his time as minority leader of the Louisiana state Senate: “When I had members that did not work within the confines of the philosophical views of our party, I took them off our caucus.”

“I don’t want to second-guess anybody’s timing, but I will tell you that these things cannot allow to fester,” he added. “We have to have a strict message: Either you’re with the team on those fundamental issues of governance or you aren’t.”

Multiple members, including Carter, said that removing Gluesenkamp Perez from the Appropriations Committee should be considered. (While members are just as angry at Golden, they acknowledge he’s beyond punishment given he is retiring at the end of this term.)

“I suspect that there are a number of appropriate consequences that [leaders] could implement,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) said in an interview. “And, ultimately, it’s their decision. I certainly don’t want that to be a caucus decision. That should be a leadership decision.”

One leader, Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, suggested she is open to removing Gluesenkamp Perez from Appropriations, telling reporters Wednesday morning that “team players get to sit on exclusive committees.”

After the first instance where the two Democrats defected on Sept. 1, Jeffries kicked the matter to a caucus rules panel, saying afterward he wanted to pursue action against the two members “sooner rather than later.” The panel continues to deliberate on what should happen if members vote with Republicans on procedural measures.

Jeffries said that week that he’d had a “productive” and “forward-looking” conversation with Gluesenkamp Perez, but he has said much less after Tuesday’s floor drama.

“I’ll have more to say about the issue when I have more to say about the issue,” he told Blue Light News shortly after the vote.