Government attorneys also motioned for a stay on the temporary restraining order until after their appeal.
The Trump administration has appealed against a district court judge’s order to reinstate Cathy Harris as chairwoman of the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
The appeal was filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Feb. 20, two days after U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras issued the temporary restraining order on Harris’s termination.
A motion to stay the temporary restraining order while the appeal was pending was also filed.
“This relief constitutes an extraordinary intrusion into the president’s authority,” government attorneys argued in their motion.
Along with temporarily restoring Harris to her position, Contreras’s order prohibits government officials from “treating her as having been removed,” blocking her access to the office’s resources, and recognizing any other person as a member of the MSPB in her position.
Contreras said in his ruling that he found Harris likely to be able to prove her termination was unlawful, allowing her the opportunity to file for a preliminary injunction by Feb. 24, with a hearing slated for March 3.
Harris’s counsel had argued that she could only be terminated from her position before the end of her term “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” and said she was not given a reason for her termination.
They argued that the MSPB was independent of the executive branch, even though it handles executive-branch employment disputes.
The judge also agreed with their claim that Harris would face irreparable harm from her termination.
Government attorneys argue in the new filing that President Donald Trump did have the ability to fire MSPB members at will due to the significant executive power the agency wields and that Harris’s attorneys fell short of making a strong enough showing that she would succeed on merits in her position.
“The president is being prevented from installing an agency head of the president’s choosing to implement his agenda, and the president must instead retain an agency head against his will,” the filing states.
“That sort of harm—to the Executive Branch, to the separation of powers, and to our democratic system—is transparently irreparable.”
The defendants also argued that loss of employment and salary do not ordinarily amount to irreparable harm and that back pay awarded at the end of the case has been the traditional remedy.
“To the extent [the] plaintiff asserts irreparable harm to the functioning of the MSPB itself, that assertion is misplaced, because the MSPB can continue to function without plaintiff,” the filing states.
Harris was appointed to her position by President Joe Biden in 2022.
Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.