CNN
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Federal workers are rushing to a little-known and understaffed office to try to save their jobs from President Donald Trump’s mass government layoffs, in hopes that it will be a bulwark against the president and Elon Musk as they push for more cuts.
The Merit Systems Protection Board, or MSPB, is facing an avalanche of new cases as the Trump administration plows ahead with its efforts to significantly reduce the ranks of the federal government.
The board is also grappling with what one judge recently described as a “nakedly illegal” attempt by Trump to prematurely remove the chairwoman of the independent agency. The Biden-appointed chairwoman will be back in court Monday for another hearing on how long she can stay in the role, as the Trump administration continues to try to push her out.
The obscure board – barely known outside of government – is set to become the next major battleground for Trump and the federal workers he’s trying to fire. Its increasingly important role became clear after some judges recently turned away lawsuits about the cuts, telling employees and their unions that they need to go to MSPB first to review firings.
Federal workers filed more new cases last week than in the previous 12 weeks combined, according to the board, and more than 2,700 cases have been filed since Trump’s inauguration.
The board’s executive director acknowledged to CNN that it is currently “understaffed,” but expressed confidence that it can handle the surge of cases.
One MSPB employee, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, said the agency’s workload went from “busy” to “overwhelming” in a matter of days, amid the federal firings.
“They are coming in faster than we can process them,” the employee told CNN, adding that laid-off workers are also calling and emailing with questions. “We’re going to be digging out from this for a long time.”
Former MSPB member Mark Robbins, an Obama-appointed Republican who served on the board from 2012 to 2019, said the flood of new appeals is “shocking” and “the staff must have their eyes bugging out right now.”
The board has fewer than 190 staffers, and many employees are lawyers and “nerds” who are enthralled by federal procedure, Robbins said. Its budget last year was $52 million, which is meager by government standards. Tech billionaire Musk, who is advising the president on the federal cuts, spent more than five times that amount supporting Trump in the 2024 election.
The MSPB already issued a decision in a closely watched case about six probationary workers in new roles, which gives them fewer protections and makes them a top target for cuts. One of those employees was a 100% disabled veteran who was praised by their boss for their “willingness to go above and beyond” – only to be hit by Trump’s layoffs later that day.
The board on Tuesday temporarily reinstated the six employees that Trump appointees tried to fire, handing activists an initial victory as they try to save the jobs of thousands of others.
“Now that we have this determination, we’re going to be requesting broader relief,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, a liberal-leaning nonprofit at the forefront of these and other legal challenges. “The individuals we represent are representative of so many individuals in these federal agencies who were terminated improperly without proper cause.”
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
The MSPB is an independent, quasi-judicial agency established in 1979. The board’s website says it’s the “guardian of federal merit systems.” It was created after actions by President Jimmy Carter and Congress as part of the Civil Service Reform Act, a post-Watergate reform that professionalized the federal workforce and imposed bulwarks against political abuses.
“If you believe in a merit-based civil service – based on qualifications, objectivity, and intelligence, rather than political criteria – then it’s important to have guardrails up to protect that,” said Robbins, who was the board’s acting chair during parts of Trump’s first term.
The board protects “merit system principles,” like hiring only qualified people, treating staff fairly regardless of race or religion, and preventing punishments based on political views, according to the MSPB website.
Most, but not all, of the nation’s 2.4 million federal employees can go to the MSPB to resolve disputes. For instance, employees can file a case if they are fired, suspended, or demoted.
An administrative judge will hold trial-like hearings where both sides can conduct discovery, issue subpoenas, call witnesses and present evidence. That judge’s decision can be appealed to the actual MSPB board. The board’s final ruling can then be appealed in the federal courts.
The agency has a reputation of being fair, said Jenny Mattingley, vice president for government affairs at the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that focuses on improving the federal government.
“Sometimes they find for the employees, sometimes they find for the agency. It depends on the facts of the case,” she said. “From that perspective, both agencies and employees trust going to MSPB.”
The MSPB is a three-member panel. Board members are appointed by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate. The three board members serve overlapping seven-year terms.
Federal law says no more than two board members can be from the same political party, bolstering the agency’s bipartisan nature. There is currently a 2-1 Democratic majority on the board. The chairwoman, Cathy Harris, was appointed in 2022 by President Joe Biden.
There are some steps Trump could take to try to neutralize the agency and slow down its work. That could put fired workers in a bind, as some federal district court judges have already said they can’t consider lawsuits about mass layoffs if employees don’t go first to the MSPB.
The merit board can’t issue final decisions without a quorum. If there are two vacancies on the three-member panel, then it loses its quorum. MSPB’s administrative judges can still hear cases, but any further appeals are paused because the hobbled board can’t issue final rulings.
During Trump’s entire first term in the White House, there was no quorum, because Trump’s didn’t fill two vacancies. (It’s unclear if this was an intentional move or if the board languished amid the Trump-era chaos.) The board regained a quorum in 2022 under Biden, but not before building up a significant backlog of roughly 3,800 cases that were awaiting final resolution.
After the quorum was restored with Harris’ appointment, the board has closed approximately 94% of the backlogged cases, and the agency said in a report last month that it expected to resolve all of the remaining cases this year. The MSPB employee who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity said Harris whittled down the backlog faster than many expected.
“MSPB has experience adjudicating increased workloads,” MSPB executive director William Spencer told CNN in an email, pointing to the backlog from Trump’s first term and “the influx of more than 32,000 furlough appeals” stemming from the 2013 government shutdown.
The term of one of the Democratic members, Raymond Limon, expires Saturday, and Trump can replace him with a Republican. Limon is the member that paused the six firings this week.
But there is no imminent risk of losing a quorum. Spencer told CNN that Limon will remain on the job for one more year, while he waits for the Senate to confirm a successor, as allowed by federal law.
On Trump’s first day in office, he tried to fire Harris, triggering an MSPB leadership crisis.
However, the boilerplate termination email sent to Harris on February 10 didn’t cite any cause, as required by federal law to dismiss an MSPB member. She filed a lawsuit and was reinstated for now, after a judge said Trump’s move appeared to be “nakedly illegal.”
“The MSPB’s mission and purpose require independence,” District Judge Rudolph Contreras wrote in a ruling last week, adding that “ninety years of Supreme Court precedent” cut against the Justice Department’s arguments that Trump could fire Harris for any reason at any time.
At last week’s hearing, Justice Department lawyer Madeline McMahon argued that the MSPB could still operate normally even if Trump prevails and can fire Harris “at will.”
“There’s still a quorum,” McMahon said. “The agency can still function. There’s two members and they can issue decisions with or without her.”
Another hearing is set for Monday, where Harris will push for a longer-term reinstatement. Her lawyers argued in a recent filing that “now more than ever,” MSPB’s impartiality is essential, and they cited the “ten-fold increase” to the board’s caseload since Trump was sworn in.
“The current litigation over Cathy Harris speaks volumes,” Karen Hertz, a federal employment lawyer who has handled dozens of recent cases before the MSPB, said in an interview. “Yes, there are concerns, but there are checks and balance in place. And that’s not something that the president has the authority to do. But nothing like this has ever happened before.”
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Harris’ reinstatement also gave some federal employees hope that the MSPB won’t be compromised by the Trump administration.
“It gives me more faith that there’s less power on the administration’s side to insert their own bias into the process,” said one laid-off Department of Health and Human Services probationary worker, who is gathering evidence for their appeal to the board and requested their name not be used by CNN.
Trump could try to find a rationale that passes legal muster to fire Harris or any of the other MSPB members. But it would need to hold up in court.
“It would be very difficult to prove any of the three elements of cause,” Robbins said, referring to the requirement that members can only be fired for inefficiency, neglect, or malfeasance.
The termination notices that probationary workers received said they could file appeals to the board if they think they were let go for “partisan political reasons or marital status.”
However, several employees who anonymously spoke to CNN said the appeal process was confusing.
One probationary staffer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was let go started researching the MSPB, as well as the Office of Special Counsel, which also hears federal workers’ employment cases. But the information was written in “legalese” and “governmentese” that was hard to decipher. (The head of the Office of Special Counsel was also fired by Trump but then reinstated by a judge. That dispute has now reached the Supreme Court.)
“Everybody’s trying to figure it out on the fly,” the employee said, noting that some workers have been sharing template appeal letters. “We’re all trying to work together to figure it out and support each other.”