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Pursuant to federal statutory and regulatory requirements, each year the Department of Education makes around 25% of the funds for these programs available to states on or about July 1 in order to permit state and LEAs to plan their budgets for the academic year ahead. The plaintiff states have complied with the funding conditions set forth under the law and have state plans that the Department of Education has already approved. And the plaintiff states have received these funds, without incident, for decades, including as recently as last year. However, this year, on June 30, state agencies across the country received a notification announcing that the Department of Education would not be “obligating funds for” six formula funding programs on July 1.
The litigation asserts that it is “unconstitutional, unlawful, and an arbitrary decision” to freeze $6.8 billion in funding for six longstanding programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education just weeks before the school year in many parts of California is set to start. State officials estimate that California’s share of those withheld funds amounts to $939 million, which will result in forcing many educational programs to end as well as have immediate impacts on ongoing summer learning programs.
Attorney General Bonta co-leads, with the attorneys general of Colorado, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, the coalition of 23 attorneys general and two states. The attorneys general argue that the funding freeze violates federal funding statutes and regulations governing the federal budgeting process, including the Antideficiency Act and Impoundment Control Act, and violates the constitutional separation of powers doctrine and the Presentment Clause. In the lawsuit, they are asking the court for declaratory and injunctive relief.
Bonta and his colleagues assert what is commonly taught in civics education that it is Congress, not the Executive Branch, that possesses the power of the purse. The Constitution does not provide the Executive Branch power to unilaterally refuse to spend appropriations that were passed by both houses of Congress and were signed into law. In the filing today, the Court was asked to declare the funding freeze unlawful – as courts have repeatedly done in other multistate cases – and block any attempts to withhold or delay this funding.
A copy of the lawsuit is available here. A copy of the motion for a preliminary injunction is available here.
-Kevin
Kevin Gordon
President | Capitol Advisors Group
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