Lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s move to cancel $810 million in congressionally approved spending are piling up in courtrooms throughout the country as states and groups that receive federal dollars fight to keep the cash flowing.
In the final hours before the fiscal year ended late Wednesday, a half-dozen states went to federal court to challenge Trump’s latest use of a controversial “pocket rescission.” A group that helps students from migrant families go to college also filed suit, trying to preserve about $25 million in education funding Trump is seeking to claw back.
At least one federal judge so far has been sympathetic to arguments that Trump’s move, which essentially runs out the clock on Congress’ right to evaluate and potentially reject funding clawbacks, could be illegal: U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled late Wednesday to delay the expiration of $56 million for housing support services, temporarily blocking Trump from canceling the money.
The flurry of legal action comes as many lawmakers on Capitol Hill clamor for the courts to strike down Trump’s action as an illegal and unconstitutional encroachment on Congress’ power to dictate how federal cash is spent.
But the fresh lawsuits will not necessarily prompt a sweeping ruling from the Supreme Court, which allowed Trump to go ahead last year with withholding $4 billion he canceled through the same budget tactic. The high court argued in that brief unsigned order that the Trump administration had made a strong argument that outside groups may not have legal standing to sue under the decades-old impoundment law.
In the lawsuit Wednesday by six states, the suing parties argue that the president has not only flouted that 1970s law, but also the Constitution and the annual funding bills Congress has enacted over the last year.
The group suing over the cancellation of funding for educating students from migrant families laid out similar arguments, contending that the Trump administration has violated the First Amendment by discriminating based on “protected speech, expressive activities, and viewpoints that are irrelevant to funding or activities” the programs support.
Cobb’s decision, meanwhile, is only temporary. She explained in an emergency order Wednesday that she acted because the suing groups “would lose out on significant amounts of funding due to allegedly unconstitutional actions.”
Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.
