May 8, 2025
Pacifica Clients Win Restraining Order Protecting Federal Funds for Unhoused People and Public Transit
A federal district judge yesterday entered a temporary restraining order (TRO) that protects hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds that communities in several states rely on to support unhoused people and fund public transit. Pacifica was lead counsel for a coalition of nine cities and counties that filed suit against the federal government to safeguard the funds. Pacifica’s clients include King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties, the City and County of San Francisco, the County of Santa Clara, and the Cities of Boston, New York, and Columbus, Ohio. The TRO prohibits federal agencies from conditioning funds on these local governments’ agreement to adhere to the Trump administration’s policies to eliminate all forms of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, help with the administration’s aggressive and lawless immigration enforcement, target and punish transgender people, and cut off information about lawful abortions.
The federal funds came under threat earlier this spring when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)—through the Federal Transit Administration (FTA)—placed new conditions on federal grants in an effort to coerce cities and counties into cooperating with President Trump’s numerous executive orders on these issues.
The conditions threatened $300 million to serve unhoused residents; they also threatened more than $446 million in FTA grants for transit services in King County.
In a complaint filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Pacifica argued that the funding conditions imposed by HUD, DOT, and FTA are unconstitutional because they undermine powers granted to Congress and those retained by the states.
By seeking to impose the conditions on federal grant programs established by Congress, the agencies are attempting “to coerce grant recipients that rely on federal funds into implementing President Trump’s policy agenda, and direct them to adopt his legal positions contrary to settled law,” the complaint argues. “By unilaterally imposing funding conditions Congress has not authorized and that even Congress could not constitutionally enact, Defendants usurp Congress’s power of the purse. These conditions bear little or no connection to the purposes of the grant programs Congress established. They also contravene bedrock separation of powers principles and violate numerous other constitutional and statutory protections, including (among others) the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering principle, and the Fifth Amendment’s void-for-vagueness doctrine, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).”
In her order granting the TRO motion, U.S. District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein held that Pacifica’s clients had shown “a likelihood that each of the conditions at issue violates the Separation of Powers doctrine by imposing on Plaintiffs certain conditions that were not approved by Congress and are not closely related to the purposes of the grants and the programs they fund, nor do the conditions serve the purpose of making the administration of the grants more efficient and effective.” The court also found that, without the TRO, Plaintiffs would suffer “patently irreparable and acute” harm, including “impacts on the vulnerable populations that Plaintiffs serve.”
The Pacifica litigation team includes Paul Lawrence, Jamie Lisagor, Sarah Washburn, Meha Goyal, and Luther Reed-Caulkins, with assistance from Gabby DeGregorio.
Click here to read the full complaint.
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