Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown / Courtesy Office of the Attorney General
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown and County Council Vice President Will Jawando gave federal employees the latest legal updates related to the Presidential Administration’s actions as well as more job resources for laid-off workers.
“You are not disposable, you are indispensable,” said Jawando, who is also a civil rights lawyer, during the virtual community meeting Wednesday. There are more than 70,000 federal employees estimated to live in the county.
Brown is working with a multi-state coalition of more than 20 Democratic Attorneys General across the nation fighting against Trump Administration actions. He said attorneys got a temporary restraining order against mass layoffs of probationary federal employees.
“As of Monday, the administration was to reinstate those employees…And to ensure that they don’t do this going forward until such time that the court can resolve this dispute,” Brown said. “We have a temporary restraining order, good for 14 days.” Next week, attorneys will be back in court seeking a preliminary injunction which would stop the administration from laying off probationary employees unlawfully until this case is resolved.
Brown said many issues will go to the Supreme Court — “Now, the Supreme Court has demonstrated that it will issue opinions that don’t make sense.” He added, “But the Supreme Court has also handed the president defeat. So, we’re going to appeal to their principles of separation of power, their strict interpretation of the Constitution when it comes to whether Congress has the authority or the executive branch has the authority.”
County Council Vice President Will Jawando
Jawando mentioned a bill he introduced this week to give hiring preference for county jobs to recently-fired federal employees who live in the county, on par with preference given to veterans — “It’s an unprecedented measure, I never thought I would have to be introducing a bill to do something like this, but we’re in an unprecedented time.”
Brown said that Gov. Wes Moore announced a new initiative to match federal government employees to jobs in state and local government.
Wednesday was the county council’s third United in Service and Support community meeting. The next meeting will be hosted by Councilmember Laurie-Anne Sayles on April 2 with a focus on support for workers transitioning from federal employment to new opportunities.
