The government shutdown is about to slam into the federal courts, which had been able to keep running but are about to exhaust their extra cash and will have to furlough employees starting early next week.
Courts will be allowed to perform only essential work where human life or protection of property is involved, plus activities specifically required by federal law or to carry out Article III of the Constitution.
Employees who aren’t involved in those activities will be furloughed, while essential employees will have to work without pay, the administrative office for the U.S. courts said Friday.
The shutdown began Oct. 1, but the courts kept running at full speed based on cash from court fees and other sources that didn’t stem from congressional appropriations. That extra money is now running out.
Money for juries is still there, so they can operate.
And the courts have determined that judges can be paid under the precepts of the Constitution, so they can work.
What’s not clear is how courts will classify the hundreds of anti-Trump lawsuits that have been filed and how they will proceed.
Sen. Richard Durbin, Illinois Democrat, fretted Friday that some of those cases “could be delayed.”
Officials said each court can make its own determinations.
The federal lawyers arguing cases in court have been working without pay since the start of the shutdown.
The Justice Department requested that many of the anti-Trump lawsuits be put on hold because of the shutdown. Some judges agreed, but many others refused, pointing to the department’s own shutdown plan that said if a judge ordered a case to be worked during a shutdown, that was a reason to stay on the job — albeit without pay.
That could be a clue that judges will argue that those cases are essential enough to continue despite their own staff furloughs.
Republicans in Congress have offered legislation to keep the government running at last year’s levels. Senate Democrats have filibustered those bills, forcing the shutdown.
Democrats say the government shouldn’t reopen until money is added to extend pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies and a rollback of some new limits on eligibility for federal health programs that Republicans imposed in their One Big Beautiful Bill budget law this past summer.
Mr. Durbin on Friday urged Republicans to cave on their stance to get the courts working again.
“The impacts of the Trump government shutdown are now reaching our justice system. Because Republicans are choosing to put billionaire tax cuts ahead of affordable health care for all Americans, federal courts will now be forced to make hard choices as they work to fulfill their constitutional duties,” he said.
The federal courts said the electronic case management system will remain in operation so the public can access documents, and litigants can file briefs.
