Federal Judge Blocks Trump Administration’s Anti-DEI Grant Conditions

A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration’s push to attach anti-DEI strings to federal grant money. The court ruled this week that the executive branch overstepped its constitutional authority by imposing the conditions on a group of West Coast cities and counties.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick granted a preliminary injunction Thursday barring the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and the Interior from enforcing the contested conditions against 11 local governments, concluding in a 68-page order that the restrictions likely run afoul of both the separation-of-powers doctrine and the Administrative Procedure Act.

“What defendants seek to do likely violates the Constitution (separation of powers and Spending Clause) and the Administrative Procedures Act,” Orrick wrote.

The suit was filed by the cities of Fresno, Santa Clara, Redwood City, Santa Cruz, Stockton, Beaverton, Corvallis and Hillsboro, along with Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara counties, all of which argued the administration attached ideological requirements to grants Congress had already approved for public safety, disaster preparedness, policing, fire protection, water conservation and crime victim services.

Orrick sided with the localities, finding the new certification requirements “have nothing to do with or contradict the Congressional purpose” behind the underlying grant programs, and affirming that spending authority ultimately rests with Congress rather than the White House.

“Plaintiffs maintain that ‘[n]othing in the Constitution or federal statutes authorizes Defendants to impose the Challenged Conditions, or anything of the kind, on funds administered through congressional grant programs,'” Orrick wrote. “I agree.”

The conditions at issue required grant recipients to certify they were not running programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion in violation of federal anti-discrimination law, along with separate provisions encouraging cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and compliance with related executive orders. The administration has said such conditions are a legitimate use of executive authority to ensure federal dollars aren’t used to fund discriminatory practices, and the Justice Department is expected to appeal Thursday’s ruling.

Orrick found that letting the conditions stand while the case proceeds would jeopardize funding for programs including anti-terrorism initiatives, disaster mitigation, flood protection, wildfire preparedness, law enforcement training, forensic science, and human trafficking and crime-victim services — writing that the disruption would “irreparably injure plaintiffs and their ability to provide critical services, as well as would threaten public safety.”

The preliminary injunction will remain in effect while the underlying lawsuit moves forward, leaving the administration’s broader anti-DEI funding strategy in legal limbo pending the expected appeal.

Thank you for referencing that article MtnClimber.

Federal Judge Blocks Trump Administration’s Anti-DEI Grant Conditions

FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument

The only specific powers that the states have expressly constitutionally given to the constitutionally limited power (hint), unconstitutionally big federal government to get involved in social engineering are Bill of Rights protections, but also including the criterion (e.g. race, sex) protected by the voting rights amendments, these limited powers arguably an extension of Congress's constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers imo.

In other words, all that Trump's institutionally indoctrinated advisors should have to argue against elite, desperate Democratic vote-winning, 16th Amendment (16A; direct taxes)-facilitated, unconstitutional federal grants is that they don't pass the Madison Test imo.

Regarding the Madison Test, note that the 14th Congress in the time of President James Madison (4th pres.), Madison generally regarded as the father of the Constitution, had found some EXISTING tax revenues and got all happy about spending it. So Congress drafted the Bonus Bill of 1817 to use the taxpayer dollars to improve military readiness and commerce by authorizing the construction of roads and canals intended to facilitate moving troops and manufactured goods. But Congress had based the bill solely on the General Welfare Clause (GWC) which turned out to be a BIG mistake.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States [emphasis added]; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

More specifically, while Madison AGREED with Congress that the bill would improve transportation, he diplomatically clarified in his veto explanation that while the GWC authorizes Congress to tax and spend, he reminded Congress that the Constitution's drafters, Madison himself a major player, had intended for the clauses that followed it in Section 8 to limit what Congress could spend tax dollars for, no mention of roads and canals for Congress's purpose for the Bonus Bill. Madison also noted that the bonus bill didn't even pass Congress's traditional "wild card" excuse for justifying spending, the infamous "Necessary and Proper Clause."

The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation within the power to make laws necessary and proper [emphasis added] for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States. —President James Madison, March 3, 1817: Veto Message on the Internal Improvements Bill

Note Thomas Jefferson's advice on interpreting Congress's limited powers complimented Madison's veto.

In every event, I would rather construe so narrowly as to oblige the nation to amend, and thus declare what powers they would agree to yield, than too broadly, and indeed, so broadly as to enable the executive and the Senate to do things which the Constitution forbids. —Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793.

Getting back to 16A, it is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for organized crime, front-ended by deep state Congress, and desperately needs to be repealed.

Consider that most post-17th Amendment ratification federal lawmakers discovered long ago that they could promise voters who have evidently never really studied the fed's constitutionally limited powers every unconstitutional federal social spending program under the sun to get themselves elected. Constitutionally naïve voters eventually took the bait and elected these crooks, and then reelected them!

Then once in office, criminal-minded lawmakers abuse their 16A powers by simply fulfilling their campaign promises for unconstitutional federal spending, scandalously ignoring their constitutional Article I, Section 8 spending limits when doing so.

The 17th Amendment, popular voting for federal senators, needs to disappear too.

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