Gongwer News Service
The Department of Attorney General has filed just under 40 lawsuits against President Donald Trump and his administration since he took office, but “slow walking” has been common in the enforcement of these court orders.
Attorney General Dana Nessel said at a press conference recently that although her federal actions have led to many preliminary injunctions and permanent halts of action from the administration, there has not been “100% compliance” on court rulings in favor of the states.
The Department of the Attorney General has found that if a federal agency doesn’t immediately cooperate, they eventually do comply with the court order, but sometimes the federal government needs a push, like a motion to enforce.
State coalitions filed motions to enforce in four of the 39 federal actions.
In one such case, the court ruled the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency could not fund grants based on states’ compliance with federal immigration standards. The states were not seeing a change in policy, so they filed a motion to enforce.
Neil Giovanatti, assistant attorney general, said the state reached out to attorneys for the federal government continuously, but the problem may be staffing levels at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Many federal attorneys have been fired or retired early, and the department has had trouble recruiting, Giovanatti said, which is unusual. He said often times, the federal attorneys will come into a meeting with little knowledge of what the agencies are asking for.
“I think that's a problem of their own making, in terms of the way that DOJ is being run right now,” Giovanatti said.
The motion to enforce the block on FEMA fund conditions was filed and granted by the U.S. District Court of Illinois in October.
However, Nessel also filed suit last month against the Department of Homeland Security for continuously interfering with grants already provided to the states, reducing FEMA’s role and putting more burden on state for emergency management.
The first motion to enforce was filed in February with litigation concerning a policy meant to pause all disbursements of federal funding to the states through the Office of Management and Budget. The motion to enforce a preliminary injunction on this action was granted on Feb. 10.
The department filed a second motion to enforce this decision in late February and to release $100 million in FEMA funds. This was granted by the court in April.
The fourth motion to enforce was against the termination of all employees of the Minority Business Development Agency in October. The court said the motion was moot, because the federal government revoked the termination notices.
With this fling, the Court wrote a reference to other compliance issues, making it clear it was only moot because of the revocations, creating a precedent that “it is never acceptable to violate a court order, and that such violations may in some circumstances warrant further Court action,” .
None of the four motions remain pending.
Just under half of the federal actions have received preliminary injunction or summary judgments from the court, with seven of the suits being dismissed or receiving permanent blocks on administrative actions.
Over half of those preliminary injunctions have received an appeal motion from the federal government, slowing down the court processes.
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