California AG Rob Bonta files legal challenge to Trump’s firing of federal employees
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BONTA SUES TRUMP OVER FEDERAL WORKER FIRINGS
Last week, Attorney General Rob Bonta joined more than a dozen other states in suing President Donald Trump and his administration for mass firing probationary employees.
“This sweeping mass firing is, simply put, illegal,” Bonta said at a Friday press conference. “The president has, once again, overstepped his authority by a mile.”
The lawsuit targets a wide number of federal agencies including the Department of Defense, the Department of Interior, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Veterans Affairs, among others.
Bonta said the federal administration violated its own Administrative Procedures Act, which guarantees workers receive warnings of mass layoffs and ensures protection for military veterans. It’s not clear how many federal employees in the state have been laid off, but Bonta wants to know. Specificially, Bonta has asked the federal government how many veterans and their spouses have been fired since Trump took office given this group has special termination protections.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
Bonta said that Trump’s firings have wide-reaching economic effects on the state where California-based federal employees pay income taxes and generate local revenue. He estimated the financial impact of these firings on California could reach tens of millions of dollars.
One former employee of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who spoke with Bonta’s office after he was terminated said he was only buying the bare necessities since losing his job.
The attorney general said the firings led to a 149% increase in state unemployment benefit claims by federal employees last month.
Because the federal administration did not follow reduction-in-force procedures by providing notice of layoffs, Bonta said his office does not know how many federal employees in California have lost their jobs. He estimated that potentially thousands of federal employees in the state have lost their jobs.
According to the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management, California is home to more than 150,000 federal employees as of 2024.
ASSEMBLYMEMBER TA TO FEDS: PROBE RACIAL EMPLOYMENT BIAS
A Republican lawmaker from Orange County is calling on the federal government to open a civil rights investigation into California employment law that he said discriminates against Asian women.
Assemblyman Tri Ta wrote to Attorney General Pamela Bondi Friday requesting the federal government investigate a California law that he said limits “Vietnamese American female professionals to control their working conditions, earnings, and career paths, effectively placing undue economic hardship on this community.”
State employment law prohibits California manicurists from working as independent contractors, despite allowing other licensed beauty professionals to do so. Ta said the disparity raises equal opportunity concerns.
A 2024 study by the University of California, Los Angeles, Labor Center found that 85% of the manicurists are women and 84% are Asian. Ta asserts that not allowing people in this sector of the beauty industry — which overwhelmingly relies on the labor of Vietnamese women — to work as independent contractors, should be considered racial discrimination.
“Every Californian that believes in justice and equality under the law should be outraged by the unfair treatment of Vietnamese-Americans working in the beauty industry,” Ta said on Friday. “We cannot wait for politicians in Sacramento to fix this issue, that’s why I’ve called on the U.S. Justice Department to intervene.”
Last month, Ta introduced a bill that would make changes to the state’s employment law, allowing manicurists to work as independent contractors. Ta said that the bill is sponsored by the California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Just as the federal government has come to the aid of communities impacted by wildfires across the western United States, tornadoes in the Midwest, ice storms in Texas or hurricanes in the Southeast, we should once again support the recovery of the impacted families, businesses, and communities in Los Angeles County.”
— A letter signed by the entire bipartisan California Congressional delegation, urging Congress to provide additional disaster relief funding to help Los Angeles rebuild from the fires.
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