Policy Would Block Trillions in Funding for Health, Education, Law Enforcement, Disaster Relief, and other Essential State Programs
Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul today co-led a coalition of 22 attorneys general suing to stop the implementation of a new Trump administration policy that orders the withholding of trillions of dollars in funding that Illinois and every state in the country relies on to provide essential services to millions of Americans.
The new policy, issued by the President’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), puts an indefinite pause on the majority of federal assistance to states. The policy would immediately jeopardize state programs that provide critical health and childcare services to families in need, deliver support to public schools, combat hate crimes and violence against women, provide life-saving disaster relief to states, and more. In Illinois, the policy jeopardizes the Attorney General’s ability to identify and hold accountable offenders who prey on children. Raoul’s office runs the Illinois Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, which relies on Department of Justice grant funding to investigate child exploitation crimes and trains law enforcement to do the same.
Raoul and the coalition of attorneys general are seeking a court order to immediately stop the enforcement of the OMB policy and preserve essential funding.
“On January 20, our nation experienced a peaceful transition of power. But January 20 was an inauguration – not a coronation, and the U.S. Constitution is clear: Congress is granted the power to appropriate funding. The executive branch cannot unilaterally disregard appropriations passed by a separate branch of government,” Raoul said. “This freeze will have a devastating impact on the funding for our state’s most vulnerable residents. It also makes our residents, including our children, less safe. My office’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force has arrested more than 2,300 sexual predators since 2006. Our children and our state cannot afford for us to not fight this unlawful policy.”
The OMB policy, issued late on Jan. 27, directs all federal agencies to indefinitely pause the majority of federal assistance, funding and loans to states and other entities beginning at 4 p.m. CST today, Jan. 28. As Raoul and the coalition note in their lawsuit, OMB’s policy has caused immediate chaos and uncertainty for millions of Americans who rely on state programs that receive these federal funds. Essential community health centers, addiction and mental health treatment programs, services for people with disabilities, and other critical health services are jeopardized by OMB’s policy.
Attorney General Raoul and the coalition also argue that jeopardizing state funds will put Americans in danger by depriving law enforcement of much-needed resources. OMB’s policy would pause support for the U.S. Department of Justice's initiatives to combat hate crimes and violence against women, support community policing, and provide services to victims of crimes. Additionally, Raoul and the attorneys general note that the OMB policy would halt essential disaster relief funds to places like California, where tens of thousands of residents are relying on FEMA grants to rebuild their lives after devastating wildfires in Los Angeles.
As part of their lawsuit, Raoul and the coalition of attorneys general argue that OMB’s policy violates the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act by imposing a government-wide stop to spending without any regard for the laws and regulations that govern each source of federal funding. The attorneys general argue that the president cannot decide to unilaterally override laws governing federal spending, and that OMB’s policy unconstitutionally overrides Congress’s power to decide how federal funds are spent.
Attorney General Raoul co-led this lawsuit with attorneys general of California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. They were joined in the filing by attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
