CHICAGO (WAND) — On Sunday, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and a coalition of 20 state attorneys general filed an amicus brief to support a temporary restraining order on the Trump administration's federal buyout plan.
The plan, which was issued Jan. 28, offered most federal employees a buyout to voluntarily leave their jobs by Feb. 6. In a release, Raoul said this "Fork in the Road" directive is "an attempt to force federal workers to choose, giving them only days to decide between accepting a legally fraught 'buyout' and potentially being terminated from their jobs."
Locally, federal employees such as Veterans Affairs workers and postal office workers could be affected.
“The abrupt loss of vital federal employees would have a devastating effect on our residents who depend on the expertise and services federal workers provide, as well as our state economies," said Raoul. "The administration’s so-called buyout offer is a poorly-thought-out attempt to intimidate federal employees out of their jobs, with no guarantee they would receive the benefits promised under the directive. I stand with our federal workers against this attempt to sow confusion and anxiety.”
On Thursday, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts stayed the Fork directive’s deadline until Monday, Feb. 10, with a hearing to be held at 2 p.m. EST in Boston.
The brief filed by the AGs emphasized that the "indiscriminate loss of indispensable federal employees could have a devastating effect on cooperative aspects of federal, state and local government – from those who care for veterans, to those who arrive when natural disaster strikes."
This is a developing story.
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