Public Citizen has filed 17 lawsuits (so far) against the regime since Donald Trump returned to power.
We recently got favorable rulings in two of our lawsuits against the Trump administration.
We’ve emailed you about each of these cases before, so if you read one of our earlier updates, we understand if you skip this one.
But we know that keeping up with email can be hit or miss, so we wanted to pass along the good news again in case you hadn’t seen it.
RESTORING TRANSPARENCY ABOUT ALLOCATION OF AGENCY FUNDING
Ruling in our favor, a federal judge ordered the administration to restore a critical database about the funding allocated to various agencies. That database went dark after Russell Vought — one of the primary architects of the infamous Project 2025 manifesto — took charge of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
- While its name may sound a bit dull, the Office of Management and Budget is actually one of the most critical agencies in the entire federal government because it oversees a vast amount of what the executive branch does.
- In February, Donald Trump put Vought in charge of OMB. Vought believes that Trump has virtually limitless power — including the power to ignore Congress.
- By law, OMB is required to publicly post information about the funds allocated to each federal agency (officially known as the Public Apportionments Database). But in late March — under Vought’s leadership and in clear violation of the law — OMB took that database off of its website.
- On April 8 — representing Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) — Public Citizen filed suit in federal court challenging OMB’s removal of the Public Apportionments Database from its website.
On July 21, the court ruled in our favor and ordered OMB to restore the Public Apportionments Database.
The judge wrote that “there is nothing unconstitutional about Congress requiring the executive branch to inform the public of how it is apportioning the public’s money” and that the administration is “required to stop violating the law!”
PREVENTING CLOSURE OF JOB CORPS CENTERS NATIONWIDE
Ruling in our favor, a federal judge ordered the administration not to close the 99 nationwide Job Corps centers as our lawsuit over the regime’s attacks on the storied Job Corps program goes forward.
- In 1964 — as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” — Congress created the landmark Job Corps program to provide vocational and academic training to low-income young people.
- For six decades, Job Corps has helped millions of at-risk youth by providing job training, housing, and assistance with GEDs.
- The Job Corps program has continued with ongoing bipartisan support in Congress — even when President Richard Nixon wanted to shrink it and President Ronald Reagan wanted to eliminate it altogether.
- But then Donald Trump was reelected, and tried to do what Nixon and Reagan couldn’t. In May — in flagrant defiance of the law — the Trump regime announced that it was suspending the Job Corps program and closing all 99 Job Corps centers nationwide.
- Public Citizen — with Southern Poverty Law Center as co-counsel — filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court challenging the Trump administration’s unlawful decision to close the Job Corps centers.
On July 25, the court ruled in our favor and put on hold the Trump regime’s decision to close the Job Corps centers.
The judge wrote that the administration’s actions were “unprecedented” and that it “unequivocally” acted “unlawfully” in its scheme to kill the storied Job Corps program.
MORE ABOUT TAKING THE TRUMP REGIME TO COURT
The Trump administration is unilaterally, unconstitutionally, and unlawfully dismantling the federal government — our government — from Cabinet-level departments that have their own stately buildings here in Washington, D.C., to smaller agencies that go largely unnoticed as they do the routine, unheralded work that makes for a functioning country.
Public Citizen is doing everything we can — within our modest means — to fight back at every turn. It’s David and Goliath for sure, but we will never back down. Even where we haven’t (yet) notched definitive victories in court, we are slowing down the regime and making it work a lot harder in pursuit of its desire for absolute power.
The OMB and Job Corps cases are just two of the 17 lawsuits we have filed (so far) against the administration since Trump returned to power. Are these lawsuits alone enough to fully defeat Trump and MAGA? Of course not. But are they a meaningful part of the pushback needed to collectively save our country? No doubt about it.
What you and Public Citizen are doing together matters. What hundreds of other organizations, big and small, are doing matters. What millions upon millions of our fellow Americans are doing matters. We believe that to our core. We take solace in that. And we draw inspiration from that. We hope you do, too.
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For progress,
- Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
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