WASHINGTON -- A federal judge has dealt a blow to President Donald Trump's effort to overhaul the U.S. bureaucracy. U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said in a ruling issued Saturday that key provisions of three executive orders that Mr. Trump signed in May that would have made it easier to fire government workers "undermine federal employees' right to bargain collectively" as protected by federal law.

The judge said in her decision that "the President must be deemed to have exceeded his authority in issuing them."

Organizations representing federal workers had sued over the executive orders and applauded the judge's ruling.

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Mr. Trump's executive orders covered federal employee collective bargaining rights, grievance procedures and official time use.

The White House had no immediate comment on the judge's ruling.