The Prohibition Without the Exception

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco on Tuesday 13 October stayed the Agriculture Department’s office closures and employee relocations in the components the plaintiffs challenged. The 40-page order in American Federation of Government Employees v. United States Department of Agriculture, No. 26-cv-09976, grants a motion for a stay under 5 U.S.C. 705. It is preliminary relief pending the outcome of the case, not a judgment that the plan is unlawful; the judge found the plaintiffs likely to succeed. The plan includes moving about 2,600 employees based in the Washington area to hubs elsewhere in the country, Federal News Network reported.

The unusual part is how the court got there. Both sides agreed that a clause in the spending law is unconstitutional. The judge accepted that and ruled for the plaintiffs anyway.

The clause and the rule beside it

Section 716(a) of the fiscal 2026 agriculture appropriations act bars USDA from using funds through a reprogramming that, among other things, “relocates an office or employees” or “reorganizes offices, programs, or activities,” unless the Secretary notifies and “receives approval from the Committees on Appropriations of both Houses of Congress” at least 30 days in advance. Section 421 of the Interior appropriations act imposes a similar restriction on the Forest Service. So the law has two parts: a prohibition, and a way out of it that runs through two committees.

“Both sides agree that this committee-approval language is unconstitutional,” Chhabria wrote, “so the question is whether and how that language should be severed from the rest of the statutes.” USDA argued that severing it would leave the agency with blanket permission to reprogram funds for closures and relocations. The judge rejected that: “it’s highly unlikely Congress would have wanted the statutes to operate that way,” and “all available evidence suggests that Congress would have wanted the default prohibition to remain in place.” What is left, he concluded, is a restriction on reprogramming money for reorganization, and USDA “has almost certainly been violating” it, because Congress did not contemplate the funds being used to shut offices or move employees.

Why the whole plan, not just the unions

The plaintiffs are led by four unions, the American Federation of Government Employees, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the National Federation of Federal Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union, and are joined by local governments and nonprofits, the order says. USDA argued that any relief had to be limited to employees the union plaintiffs represent. Chhabria called that “wrong,” holding that section 705 contains no such limit, and on the facts he chose the broad remedy: “the most appropriate remedy is indeed to stay USDA’s reorganization expenditures, full stop.” Keeping some employees in place while moving others, he wrote, would mean paying for “two offices with two sets of employees rather than one.”

The operative paragraphs cover the Agricultural Research Service, the Forest Service and seven other components, and bar closing offices and relocating employees outside their local commuting area, including by issuing or enforcing management-directed reassignment letters. Moves within the National Capital Region are carved out. USDA need not return employees who began work at a new duty station before the court’s first administrative stay, on 14 September. It must notify affected employees and their unions within two business days and file a declaration of compliance within seven business days.

How long the stay lasts

The reports differed on this. Government Executive called the stay indefinite while the court reviews the merits; Agri-Pulse wrote that it will last until at least 11 December. The order itself sets no end date. A section 705 stay applies, in the order’s words, “while the litigation is pending,” and the operative paragraphs contain no expiry.

What expires on 11 December is the law the stay rests on. The restrictions in sections 716(a) and 421 were set to lapse on 30 September, the order notes, and a continuing resolution extended them to 11 December 2026. “It’s worth emphasizing that the temporal scope of this relief could end up being quite short,” Chhabria wrote. If USDA wants to proceed, “it will soon have the opportunity to convince Congress of the merits of those plans. Congress, if it agrees, can choose not to extend the restrictions at issue in this case.” The order does not say what happens to the stay if the restrictions lapse; it does not dissolve itself on that date.

What is not known

A USDA spokesperson told Federal News Network the department “is reviewing the judge’s decision and will file its response with the court.” Government Executive wrote that the administration is likely to appeal, without attributing that to a named person. No source read for this piece says whether USDA will ask the Ninth Circuit to stay the order.

The ruling answers a narrow question. It does not decide whether the reorganization is wise; the judge wrote that the court “has no view on whether USDA’s planned reorganization is a good idea or a bad one.” It holds only that the committee-approval condition, which both sides called unconstitutional, did not take the prohibition down with it. Whether that prohibition survives 11 December depends on the bill that funds the government after that date, not on the court.