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Restraining orders block federal funding freeze

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The freeze had targeted a wide swath of federal funds, including those allegedly promoting "woke gender ideology."

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A federal judge in Rhode Island has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s freeze on all federal funding.

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John J. McConnell Jr., chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, granted the order Friday in a lawsuit brought by 22 state attorneys general, led by Letitia James of New York. They are likely to succeed on the merits of their suit, McConnell ruled.

The Office of Management and Budget last week issued a memo saying all federal funds would be paused, including those seen as promoting “woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.” In a separate suit, nonprofit organizations and small businesses immediately sued over the memo, and Judge Loren AliKhan of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., placed a stay on the memo Tuesday, blocking it until today. She then issued a temporary restraining order Monday.

The OMB quickly withdrew the unpopular memo, but Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, insisted that his executive order directing the freeze remained in effect. So the attorneys general took action too.

“Are there some aspects of the pause that might be legal and appropriate constitutionally for the Executive to take?” McConnell wrote in his ruling. “The Court imagines there are, but it is equally sure that there are many instances in the Executive Orders’ wide-ranging, all-encompassing, and ambiguous ‘pause’ of critical funding that are not. The Court must act in these early stages of the litigation under the ‘worst case scenario’ because the breadth and ambiguity of the Executive’s action makes it impossible to do otherwise.”

“Congress has not given the Executive limitless power to broadly and indefinitely pause all funds that it has expressly directed to specific recipients and purposes and therefore the Executive’s actions violate the separation of powers,” he continued.

He added that the pause was likely to do irreparable harm. “The States detail many examples of where the Executive’s overarching pause on funding that Congress has allocated will harm them and their citizens,” he noted. “These programs range from highway planning and construction, childcare, veteran nursing care funding, special education grants, and state health departments, who receive billions of dollars to run programs that maintain functional health systems.”

“And it is more than monetary harm that is at stake here,” McConnell wrote. “As Justice Anthony Kennedy reminds us, ‘Liberty is always at stake when one or more of the branches seek to transgress the separation of powers.’”

The Trump administration, through the Department of Justice, argued that the case was moot because the OMB memo had been withdrawn. “But the evidence shows that the alleged rescission of the OMB Directive was in name-only and may have been issued simply to defeat the jurisdiction of the courts,” the judge stated. “The substantive effect of the directive carries on.”

The temporary restraining order will stay in effect until the court takes further action, McConnell said. He plans to schedule a hearing to consider a preliminary injunction against the freeze. That would be a longer type of block on the freeze. Justice Department officials filed a document today saying they would comply with the temporary restraining order, as directed by the judge.

The AGs celebrated McConnell’s decision. “The power of the purse belongs to Congress — not the President of the United States,” James said in a press release. “Last week, I led a coalition of attorneys general in suing to stop this dangerous and chaotic policy, and we won a court order to stop it while our lawsuit proceeds. Now, New Yorkers can rest assured that federal funds for critical services — meals for our seniors, health care, community public safety, disaster relief, and so much more — are currently not at risk. I will continue to fight in court to defend the essential programs and services New Yorkers need.”

Judge AliKhan said early Monday that she planned to issue a temporary restraining order before her original order expires at 5 p.m. Monday. “I don’t want to hide the ball,” she said in a Zoom hearing Monday, The Hillreports. “I will note that I am leaning in favor of finding this not moot, because we do have, as recently as last night, individuals who are unable to access funding platforms.”

Kevin Friedl, senior counsel at Democracy Forward, which is representing the organizations and businesses that sued, said some are worried about grants from, for instance, the National Science Foundation. “The government has never suggested that basic physics research is somehow connected with wokeness or Marxist equity, or any of the other targets of the OMB memo, and they’ve never come forward with any other explanation for that or many other of the freezes that we’ve documented extensively,” he said, according to The Hill.

AliKhan went on to issue the order Monday afternoon. "The potential scope of the freeze is as great as $3 trillion and its effects are difficult to fully grasp," she wrote. "Plaintiffs point to news reports detailing far-reaching effects: preschools could not pay their staff; Los Angeles and North Carolina were denied disaster relief aid; and elderly Americans who relied on subsidized programs for food did not know if their next meal would come. The court concludes that the balance of the equities and public interest heavily favor granting Plaintiffs’ request."

"Defendants shall file a status report on or before February 7, 2025, apprising the court of the status of its compliance with this Order, including by providing a copy of the written notice described above," she added. She will schedule a preliminary injunction hearing as well.

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Trudy Ring

Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.
Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.