"Given the federal shutdown, they argued, they just didn't have the lawyers to do the work. "Department of Justice attorneys and employees of the federal defendants are prohibited from working, even on a voluntary basis, except in very limited circumstances, including 'emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property,'" they wrote in their filing Oct. 1, the first day of the shutdown."
"The district judge presiding over the case, which California filed in federal court in Massachusetts along with a coalition of other Democrat-led states, agreed, and promptly granted the request. It was just one example of the now weeks-old federal shutdown grinding to a halt important litigation between California and the Trump administration, in policy battles with major implications for people's lives."
Federal funding lapses have prevented many Justice Department attorneys and federal employees from working except in emergencies, prompting the department to request temporary halts in multiple cases. The department asked to pause its response to California's challenge over targeting of gender-affirming care providers and sought delays in litigation over mass firings at the Education Department and a dispute over voter registration rolls. Some federal judges granted stays while others denied pauses that states called unfair. The shutdown's suspension of funding and absence of available lawyers has stalled high-stakes litigation with significant policy and human impacts.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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