(The Center Square) — A group of Democratic attorneys general is taking the Trump administration to court over regulations they claim have allowed the federal government to “illegally” cut billions of dollars in crucial funding for states.
The federal lawsuit, filed Tuesday by New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, 18 other AGs, and the District of Columbia, targets a five-word phrase — “no longer effectuates administration priorities” — that they say the Office of Management and Budget has used to implement sweeping cuts in federal grants for healthcare, public safety, and education.
“This administration has used that one clause to justify withholding billions of dollars in grants to the states,” New York Attorney General Letita James said Tuesday in a live-streamed briefing. “They’ve used this regulation to slash resources for everything from life-saving medical research to law enforcement to improvements to state unemployment systems that help those who’ve lost their jobs.”
The OMB regulation, adopted by the first Trump administration in 2020, declares that federal agencies can terminate a grant if it “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”
In the complaint, the AGs ask the federal judge to declare the rule does not allow federal grants to be terminated if an agency’s priorities change after the money has been awarded.
There was no immediate response from the White House to the lawsuit, one of dozens filed by Democratic AGs challenging the Trump administration’s policies.
In February, Trump signed an order giving the quasi-governmental Department of Government Efficiency authority to cut the federal workforce. The directive instructed the heads of government departments and agencies to comply with the group’s orders.
The agency, which was then overseen by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, relied heavily on the OMB policy as it called on the Trump administration to cut funding to states and “delete” agencies from the federal government as part of efforts to cut spending and reduce the size of the federal workforce.
Democratic-led states have filed dozens of lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s funding cuts. Last week, a U.S. District Court judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration’s move to slash federal National Institutes of Health funding, saying it violated the law because it discriminated against racial minorities and the LGBTQ+ community.
The Trump administration has argued in that lawsuit and other legal challenges that it acted within its authority to freeze and cancel grant awards that did not reflect “agency priorities” following Trump’s return to the White House in January.
But in the lawsuit, the attorneys general argue the Trump administration can’t use the OMB regulation to overrule laws authorizing Congress to appropriate federal grant funding.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said the regulation was never intended as a “blank check” for presidential administrations to cancel congressionally approved funding for programs they don’t support.
“It’s yet another example of the president ignoring the law and acting like a king,” Platkin, a Democrat, said in remarks Tuesday. “There are other ways he can make these cuts … but he’s choosing to disregard the law, the constitution and punish states and the people who rely on these services across the country. And the consequences to that have been severe.”
