Resistance state: Tracking California’s lawsuits against the new Trump administration

California sued to block the Trump administration from freezing $10 billion in child-care funding for programs in five Democratic states. The Trump administration told the states — California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York — that it would freeze the money because of concerns about fraud. The states argue in their lawsuit that the funding freeze is unconstitutional because it undermines Congress’ authority over spending decisions. California uses the funding for programs that provide services to low-income families with children.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is leading the lawsuit.

California joined 19 states in suing the Trump administration over gender-affirming care, challenging a Dec. 18 declaration by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that health care facilities offering gender-affirming care to minors would be barred from Medicare and Medicaid. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Oregon, claims Kennedy exceeded his federal authority by attempting to define professional standards of care, superseding existing standards set at the state level. States argue gender-affirming care is medically appropriate and necessary, that Medicare and Medicaid statutes do not permit the secretary to unilaterally exclude providers from reimbursement simply for providing such care, and that Kennedy’s declaration violates Administrative Procedure Act requirements by failing to provide notice and public comment before establishing a new legal standard. Medical research and clinical data support that gender-affirming care can be safe and effective.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California and 21 other attorneys general are suing the Trump administration over a decision that would effectively defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is an agency created after the 2008 financial and mortgage-lending crisis. The agency has returned billions of dollars to Americans. It is funded through the Federal Reserve System, not Congress. The Trump administration in November published a notice saying the bureau could not request money from the Federal Reserve System at a time when the Federal Reserve is in the red. The Federal Reserve has incurred losses for the past several years. That change would force funding reductions at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. California and other plaintiff states argue that defunding the bureau would harm cause and prevent it from carrying out the services it is required to provide by law.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is leading the lawsuit.

California joins 21 states and the District of Columbia in suing the Trump administration for creating new rules that cut off food stamp eligibility for certain immigrants. This “could deprive thousands of legal permanent residents of food assistance and lead to devastating financial penalties for states,” said a press release from Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office. The suit alleges that the Trump administration is violating the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that requires the executive branch to explain its decisions and go through a detailed process of changing existing public policy. This is California’s 48th lawsuit against Trump in 44 weeks. Most include an Administrative Procedure Act complaint.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California and 19 other states plus the District of Columbia are suing the Trump administration because it changed a funding formula for homeless housing that capped how much of the support can be for permanent housing. Before the Nov. 14 policy change, the federal government permitted 90% of funding from the Continuum of Care (CoC) Program to go toward permanent housing. Now, the government says only 30% can go toward that type of housing. The policy move reflects the Trump administration’s belief that more funding should go toward temporary housing and shelters, since those can be built faster. Critics of the move say the nation’s homelessness problem needs long-term affordable housing, not just shelters. The states suing say the White House violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that requires the executive branch to explain its decisions and go through a detailed process of changing existing public policy. The lawsuit also alleges that the White House violated the U.S. Constitution, in part by creating financial and policy limitations on a program Congress never OK’d. This is California’s 47th lawsuit against Trump in 44 weeks.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California, 21 states and Washington, D.C. are suing the Trump administration to block it from a new rule that will place new limits on who can get their federal student loans forgiven. The rules are from the U.S. Department of Education and affect the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Congress created the program nearly two decades ago. Traditionally, it allows forgiveness for individuals with federal student loan debt who work in nonprofits or government jobs. The Education Department wrote new rules Oct. 31 that would bar forgiveness to borrowers who work for employers that engage in activity the Trump administration disfavors, such as transgender medical care for minors. The Trump admininstration is basing these exclusions on the president’s executive orders. The suing states say the new rules violate the Administrative Procedure Act because they create new criteria in the loan forgiveness plan that Congress never stipulated.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is leading the lawsuit.

California and 24 other states plus the District of Columbia are suing the Trump administration with the goal of reinstating food stamp funding in November for 42 million Americans. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in letters on Oct. 10 and Oct. 24 that the federal government shutdown is forcing the giant agency to halt funding for the food aid, which 5.5 million Californians receive. But the plaintiff states say the department has more than $5 billion from one account and about $23 billion in another at its disposal in contingency funds that are not affected by the government shutdown. This is enough money to fund the program nationwide for all of November, the suing states say. The states also say that the federal government is sending billions of dollars in grants to farmers, despite the shutdown. The department has said it legally cannot use contingency funds to pay for benefits during a shutdown. But according to the suing states, the department said the contrary in publicly available stated policy. Funding is “available to fund participant benefits in the event that a lapse occurs in the middle of the fiscal year,” a department lapse of funding Plan said. The suing states say the federal government is violating the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires government agencies to explain changes to how funds approved by Congress are dispersed.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is leading the lawsuit.

California joins 22 states and the District of Columbia in suing the Trump administration for terminating $7 billion in funding Congress already approved for solar panels in low-income neighborhoods. Nationwide, 900,000 households could lose access to the green technology funds; California stands to lose a quarter of a billion dollars. The Environmental Protection Agency already approved dispersal of the funds, the states say. This multistate action is technically two lawsuits, and signals California’s first time following guidance issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on how to try to get money back from the Trump administration that states say was terminated illegally. The states are suing in the little-known Court of Federal Claims to get the money back for this solar program. States are also suing in a Washington federal district court to have a judge rule that Trump’s moves were illegal and to block his administration from further funding cuts tied to this Congress-approved solar panel program.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California joins 22 states and the District of Columbia in suing the Trump administration for terminating $7 billion in funding Congress already approved for solar panels in low-income neighborhoods. Nationwide, 900,000 households could lose access to the green technology funds; California stands to lose a quarter of a billion dollars. The Environmental Protection Agency already approved dispersal of the funds, the states say. This multistate action is technically two lawsuits, and signals California’s first time following guidance issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on how to try to get money back from the Trump administration that states say was terminated illegally. The states are suing in the little-known Court of Federal Claims to get the money back for this solar program. States are also suing in a Washington federal district court to have a judge rule that Trump’s moves were illegal and to block his administration from further funding cuts tied to this Congress-approved solar panel program.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

On Saturday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from federalizing Oregon’s National Guard. The judge’s reasoning was that Portland protestors critical of federal immigration law enforcement weren’t acting in a way that local law enforcement couldn’t manage. On Sunday, Trump instead decided to send 300 of California’s already federalized National Guard troops to Portland even though the facts on the ground hadn’t changed. California joined Oregon in seeking a new temporary restraining order to block Trump from sending the California troops. The judge, a Trump-appointee, sided with plaintiffs the same day and blocked Trump from sending federalized National Guard troops from any other state to Portland. In a decision she made from the bench, Judge Karin Immergut called Trump’s efforts a “direct contravention of the order” she made Saturday.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California, 19 other Democrat-led states and Washington, D.C. are suing the Trump administration to halt the U.S. Department of Justice from threatening to pull funding from organizations that support crime victims if those groups also use federal dollars to help crime victims who are in the U.S. illegally. This year, California and the organizations it contracts with received $94 million in Victims of Crimes Act funds. Last year the funds were used to help 1 million crime victims in California. The suit says this action violates the spending clause of the U.S. Constitution, because the new condition applies to existing grants, meaning California and the other plaintiff states couldn’t consider the changed rules before accepting their award. The new rule “jeopardizes vital services like helping victims file police reports, seek compensation, provide emergency shelter and transitional housing assistance, access legal advocacy And so much more,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a press conference. The suit also alleges that the rules violate the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires federal agencies to explain changes to existing policy. Also, the new rules violate existing policy that says eligibility for services “is not dependent on the victim’s immigration status.” California sued the Trump administration in August for another set of allegedly illegal policies concerning the Victims of Crime Act. “I wish President Trump would stop creating problems where there are none — and focus his energy on policies that actually reduce crime and protect public safety,” Bonta said in a press statement. This is California 41st lawsuit in 36 weeks of the Trump presidency.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is leading the lawsuit.

California,10 other states and Washington, D.C. are suing Trump after the Department of Homeland Security pulled emergency response funding from the plaintiff states and sent the dollars instead to other states. The lawsuit alleges the department did this as part of its effort to punish states it views as having “sanctuary” policies that limit local police enforcement involvement with federal officials in immigration enforcement. The department’s decision to do this came several days after a federal judge issued a permanent injunction blocking the Trump administration from tying another type of emergency response funding to whether a state has “sanctuary” policies. California was also a plaintiff in that earlier suit, which was filed in May. The latest suit is over the Homeland Security Grant Program which is designed to “prevent, prepare for, protect against, and respond to acts of terrorism.” The plaintiff states received about 50% of the $460 million they were supposed to get, the suit says. The suit quotes an internal memo in which Kristi Noem, the department secretary, wrote that states “whose policies she dislikes ‘should not receive a single dollar of the Department’s money.’” A day after California and the other states filed this suit, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that blocked the Trump administration from giving the plaintiff states less than they were owed.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is leading the lawsuit.

California and 20 other states are suing the Trump administration for requiring states to align their laws with the president’s immigration policies to continue receiving a share of the $1 billion in federal funds that go to crime victims. Though these grants through the Victims of Crime Act are unrelated to immigration, Trump’s Department of Justice issued a memo in July saying that funds couldn’t be used if states do not comply with Department of Homeland Security requests to give their agents access or “honor DHS requests.” The coalition of states in their suit says that this new condition “is arbitrary and capricious, exceeds U.S. DOJ’s legal authority, and violates the Spending Clause.” California is set to receive more than $160 million in Victims of Crime Act funds this year, which support expenses such as emergency shelter, sexual assault medical support, compensation for lost wages and funeral expenses. “Congress has never put civil immigration enforcement conditions on this funding because it has nothing to do with immigration. This is a brazen abuse of the president’s power,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a press conference. The states want the courts to prevent the Department of Justice from implementing the new rules. This is the 39th lawsuit California filed against Trump, his 30th week in office.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California joins 18 other states and Washington, D.C. in suing the Trump administration for decreasing how much money states receive to run federally funded energy programs, such as home weatherization and state conservation or efficiency projects. A portion of what the Department of Energy pays states historically supports “indirect costs”, such as the administrative and labor costs of maintaining a state agency that can manage the federal funds and ensure the money is used correctly. The Department of Energy slashed those “indirect costs” to states, which the suit says was done illegally because the costs were already negotiated. New York and Colorado had negotiated indirect costs that were about 40% of the projects they agreed to complete, the suit says. The Department of Energy in May lowered those rates to 10%. In Kentucky, this cut would mean losses of $230,000 annually for staff funding, the suit says. The department and other Trump administration agencies attempted to slash indirect costs for science and research grants to universities; those efforts were blocked by federal courts after states and campuses sued, including California. The latest suit wants a judge to block the new rates and deem them illegal. On Sept. 30 a federal judge made a summary judgment that the Trump administration’s actions violated the the Administrative Procedure Act.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California is co-leading 16 states and the District of Columbia in suing the Trump administration over an executive order on transgender health care. The executive order states that the U.S. government would recognize only two sexes, and that it would restict gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. California argues the executive order violates the Constitution and undermines state laws that require equal access to medical treatment.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is leading the lawsuit.

California is co-leading 22 states and the District of Columbia in suing the Trump administration for stripping federal Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood. By law, federal funds cannot be used for abortion in the U.S., but a recent tax bill backed by Trump and Republicans in Congress includes a provision that prohibits Medicaid payments for any medical services done by large nonprofit health clinics that “primarily” provide abortions, including Planned Parenthood. Beyond abortions, Planned Parenthood is a major provider of health care to low-income people and receives Medicaid reimbursement. The suit says the law’s Defund Provision is unconstitutional for several reasons, including for having unconstitutionally vague language and for infringing on the First Amendment rights of Planned Parenthood. The suit also faults the law and federal agency implementing it — Health and Human Services — for forcing states to act against their own self-interest by punishing Planned Parenthood, even though the clinics provide health care using state and federal dollars. “The Defund Provision will prevent Planned Parenthood health centers from providing healthcare to millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid for their essential healthcare needs,” the suit says. It seeks a court order to halt the implementation of the law’s Defund Provision.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is leading the lawsuit.

California, 18 other Democrat-led states and Washington, D.C. are suing the Trump administration to halt the U.S. Department of Agriculture from collecting sensitive information about people who receive federal food vouchers, known as SNAP. The Trump administration told states to provide the data by July 30 or risk losing federal funding to administer the program. California receives $1.3 billion annually to distribute about $12 billion a year to 5 million residents who rely on the food vouchers, called CalFresh in California. About 13% of the state’s population receives the aid.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is leading the lawsuit.

California, Washington, D.C. and 18 other states are suing the Trump administration for barring undocumented people in the U.S. from accessing federally funded child care, domestic violence support, soup kitchens and other safety net programs. The Trump administration changed federal rules that have been in practice for nearly 30 years, the suit alleges. Following a Clinton-era law called Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, states “needed to verify a person’s lawful status before allowing them to access certain federal programs — Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, for example. But federal agencies consistently informed States that PRWORA did not require them to check papers before allowing individuals to access other, vital community programs,” the suit said. But that changed about two weeks ago after the U.S. Justice Department stripped those permissions for individuals without proper legal status and now required states to screen people’s immigration status before receiving services. Other agencies that oversee education and workforce programs acted similarly. “Many programs cannot realistically conduct verification at the door, such as 24/7 crisis hotlines, emergency services for individuals suffering an overdose, and homeless shelters,” the suit said. Meanwhile, not all residents with legal status carry identification when trying to access basic needs services. The suit says the new rules deviate from what the original law restricted, such as applying restrictions on college benefits access to early-education and K-12 services, too. The suit says the rule changes violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the U.S. Constitution. The suit also wants a judge to prevent the new rules from being enforced.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California is co-leading a multi-state lawsuit against the Trump administration for writing new health care rules that the suit says will cause an estimated 1.8 million people to lose their health insurance and result in millions more needing to pay increased insurance premiums, copays and deductibles. The suit also challenges a rule that would exclude gender-affirming care as a so-called “essential health benefit” under the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare. The attorneys general argue that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rule is “arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law, and violates the Administrative Procedure Act.” The coalition of 21 states is seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the rules targeted in the suit from taking effect in the plaintiff states before Aug. 25, when the rules are set to kick in. The says that the new set of rules “truncates and eliminates enrollment periods, makes enrollment more difficult, adds eligibility verification requirements, and erects unreasonable barriers to coverage—making sweeping changes that reach far beyond and bear little relation to the primary harm HHS asserted as its justification: fraudulent enrollment by insurance brokers and agents.”

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is leading the lawsuit.

California and 20 other states are suing the Trump administration for terminating a federal program that awarded grants to proactively rehabilitate areas at risk of disaster before disaster strikes. In the past four years, the program, through the The Federal Emergency Management Agency, has selected almost 2,000 communities in both Republican- and Democratic-heavy states to receive $4.5 billion in Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grants. All of those were terminated in early April. In California, at least three projects worth more than $80 million were cancelled, including ones in Kern County and Sacramento. Another went to Rancho Palos Verdes in Southern California to help the city combat landslides that have destroyed homes and roads and have put 40,000 people at risk, the suit says. The suit argues that the administrator of FEMA was appointed illegally and that the grants were terminated against the rules set out by Congress and therefore should be restored. The suit also wants a new round of grant funding to go out to states.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

On June 30, a day before education grants worth more than $6 billion were to arrive to states, the U.S. Department of Education terminated them. Now, California is co-leading a lawsuit against the department with 24 other states and seeking a preliminary injunction. California stands to lose more than $900 million in grants, which support learning for students who are learning English as a second language, migrant students, after-school programs, classroom technology and more. Summer learning programs had to shut down because of this move, Attorney General Rob Bonta said during a press conference. The suit says the affected six grants must be delivered to states based on a formula Congress put into law. The suit argues several laws were broken, including one that limits the executive branch’s ability to halt funding for a program Congress approved for spending. This is the eighth education-related lawsuit California has filed against the Trump administration.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California joined 15 states and Washington, D.C. in a suit those other states filed in June seeking to halt the Trump administration from returning gun accessories that allow semi automatic weapons to act as fully automatic machine guns if the trigger is held down. The suit is in response to a court settlement in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives said it would return thousands of forced reset triggers, as these tools are are called. The states’ suit argues that this move is illegal and undermines previous agency thinking. “ATF’s long standing position is that federal firearms laws proscribe the distribution and possession of devices like the (forced reset triggers) because they convert firearms into machine guns that can fire hundreds of uninterrupted rounds of ammunition with a single pull of the trigger,” the states’ suit argues. These accessories are illegal in California under penal codes 16930 and 32900, which ban “multiburst trigger activators.”

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California leads 19 other states with Democratic leaders in suing the Trump administration for sharing Medicaid patient data with the federal agency that leads immigration enforcement. The lawsuit says that the states “bring this action to protect their State Medicaid programs, and to prevent them from being used in service of an anti-immigrant crusade, or other purposes unrelated to administration of those programs.” The suit argues that as patients find out, they may disenroll from Medicaid, leaving them without health insurance, which can strain hospital systems and worsen public health. A third of Californians are on the state version of Medicaid, called Medi-Cal. The suit cites a news report that Health and Human Services sent data to Homeland Security that “was personally identifiable, not anonymized or hashed, and it included Medicaid beneficiaries’ immigration status and addresses, among other details.” The suit wants Homeland Security to destroy the files it has and block Health and Human Services from further sharing any Medicaid data with Homeland Security.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is leading the lawsuit.

California and 15 other states with Democrats who are attorneys general are suing the Trump administration over its cancellation of existing mental health grants, a loss of roughly $200 million for California alone. This is money that goes to counties that support schools with many low-income students so that students can receive therapy and other mental health services. Another pot of money trains new mental health providers since there’s a national shortage of therapists, including in schools. The grants fall under two programs: Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program (MHSP) and its School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program (SBMH). Congress approved these grants recently, in 2018 and in 2020, respectively. The lawsuit alleges that the grants were discontinued in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. Among the allegations is that the U.S. Department of Education used new criteria to defund existing grants. The states want the cancellations reversed. The suit claims the states suing would be “forced to lay off school-based mental health service providers, cutting off much-needed mental health services to their rural and low-income schools.” A federal judge issued a partial preliminary injunction on Oct. 27 that restores funding to grant recipients, including around 20 in California.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California and 21 other states led by Democrats filed a lawsuit targeting a main tool that the Trump administration has used to terminate about $10 billion in grants across federal agencies. Federal regulations say an agency can cancel an award if it “no longer effectuates . . . agency priorities” — the language the Trump administration is using in its grant termination letters. But the lawsuit argues that the federal agency behind those regulations wrote in 2020 that federal agencies “are not able to terminate grants arbitrarily.” Lawyers for the states want the judge to halt the Trump administration’s use of that regulatory clause in terminating grants.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California is suing to restore clean vehicle rules it adopted during Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, including a policy that would phase out and ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035. President Trump signed measures that block the mandates from taking effect. California’s lawsuit argues Trump illegally revoked state environmental policies by intentionally mischaracterizing them as rules it could negate; ignoring the Administrative Procedures Act; violating the Congressional Review Act; and violating constitutional protections that allow states to set their own laws and policies.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is leading the lawsuit.

California’s attorney general is suing Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, for sending California school districts a letter requiring them to swear that they will not permit transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports. The suit argues that this violates state law and federal equal protection laws. The suit also argues that the U.S. Justice Department’s interpretation is “animated by discriminatory animus against transgender people, including transgender students and athletes.” The U.S. Justice Department asserts that transgender women are men and that allowing them to compete in women’s sports violates the rights of girls to fairly compete in sports. The Justice Department sent the letters in early June. It threatened legal action against districts that did not comply. Twenty-one states, including California, do not bar transgender students from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity. The state suit seeks several things from a judge, including declaring that California broke no federal laws, districts need not sign the letters and that no federal funds can be held up if districts don’t comply with the letters.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is fighting this case solo.

California is suing President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for taking over the state’s National Guard. Trump said he deployed the troops to quell protests that erupted in the Los Angeles area after immigration agents began arresting people they say are in the country without authorization. While the president has the power to federalize a state’s National Guard, California Attorney General Rob Bonta says how Trump went about it is illegal. Trump cited a government code that allows for the president to take over a state militia if there’s an invasion, rebellion or regular forces cannot “execute the laws of the United States.” Bonta says none of those conditions was met and that local police agencies, among the largest in the country, were able to control protesters and make arrests without Trump’s involvement. It’s rare for a president to federalize the National Guard without a state governor’s consent; it last happened in 1965, when Lyndon B. Johnson sought to protect civil rights advocates in Alabama. A day later, Newsom sought an immediate temporary restraining order to prevent the Trump administration from deploying 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles. The suit argues that involving the troops harms state sovereignty, drains California’s resources and “escalates tensions and promotes (rather than quells) civil unrest.” Newsom’s suits say there’s no need for the military. “To put it bluntly, there is no invasion or rebellion in Los Angeles; there is civil unrest that is no different from episodes that regularly occur in communities throughout the country, and that is capable of being contained by state and local authorities working together,” the suit said. “And nothing is stopping the President from enforcing the laws through use of ordinary, civilian mechanisms available to federal officers.”

This case was resolved in California’s favor. California fought this case solo.

Sixteen states, including California, are suing the Trump administration to halt its cuts to science research grants and funding for university operations. The suit argues the cuts are unconstitutional. At issue is the National Science Foundation, a federally funded agency created in 1950 that awards science research grants, with specific orders from Congress to expand funding opportunities to women, racial and ethnic minorities and people with disabilities. The agency has terminated 1,752 research awards, often for reasons related to the Trump administration’s quest to de-fund diversity-related measures. The agency also wants to significantly lower the cap on how much it supports campuses in maintaining their research labs needed for work supported by the federal grants. California and other states persuaded judges to halt similar caps on lab support at the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California is among 20 states contesting moves by the Trump administration that would compel them to participate in federal immigration enforcement efforts if they accept grants from the Department of Homeland Security. The states argue that new conditions on Homeland Security grants illegally usurp Congress’ power to decide how to spend federal money. A federal district judge sided with California and the other plaintiff states on Sept. 24, ordering the federal government to longer condition DHS funding on compliance with the new immigration law enforcement policies. The judge called the federal government’s actions “unconsistutional.”

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California is leading 20 states in challenging an April 2025 order from the Trump administration that tied the allocation of transportation grants to immigration enforcement. The states argue that the order is illegal because it usurps Congress’ power to set spending priorities. They also contend the order could compel state and local agencies to participate in federal immigration enforcement.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is leading the lawsuit.

In one of his executive orders, President Trump decared a national energy emergency to promote oil and gas development. Fourteen states, co-led by California, sued, arguing that the order harms people’s health and environmental safety and also violates laws Congress passed to keep water clean. “Unlawfully bypassing proper permitting procedures for hundreds of projects currently proposed in and around the Nation—and presumably many more in the future—will result in significant and irreparable harm to state natural and historic resources and the people and biota that rely on those resources for drinking, farming, recreating, and habitat,” the suit argues. The states want a judge to deem the order illegal and to halt permits based on it.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 16 other attorneys general are suing the Trump administration for blocking billions in federal funding for electric vehicle chargers. The funding, approved by Congress, was meant to cut pollution, boost electric car access, and create green jobs. But under Trump’s direction, the Federal Highway Administration is trying to cancel state EV plans and freeze the $5 billion program. California says it could lose more than $300 million and thousands of clean energy jobs.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is leading the lawsuit.

A coalition of 18 attorneys general, including California’s, is suing the Trump administration over its policy on halting the approval of wind energy infrastructure. The suit says 10% of the nation’s electricity comes from renewable wind technology. The figures are similar in California, which has numerous state goals that rely on renewable sources of energy in the next one to two decades. Wind energy development helps toward those goals, the suit says. The suit alleges that the Trump administration violated a law that specifies how agencies are supposed to make federal changes, known as the Administrative Procedure Act.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California is joining a group of 20 state attorneys general, all Democrats, that is suing the Trump administration for laying off some 20,000 workers at the massive Department of Health and Human Services, a sprawling government apparatus with a budget of $2.6 trillion that oversees Medicare, Medicaid, drug safety, public health, disease detection and federal preschool programming. The suit alleges that the department’s leader, Robert F. Kennedy, plus other senior officials, violated a law passed by Congress that specifies how a department is supposed to make changes to its operations. It also alleges the layoffs and restructuring violate the U.S. Constitution by contravening Congress. The suit says the mass firings — about a quarter of the department’s workforce — prevent the department from implementing existing laws and regulating food and drug makers.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California is co-leading 23 states whose attorneys general, all Democrats, are suing the Trump administration for reducing the workforce of the nation’s volunteer program, AmeriCorps, by 85%. The staff cuts have resulted in AmeriCorps terminating service grants to 1,031 programs across the country. Like most of these court challenges, the lawsuit argues that the Trump administration violated congressionally approved procedures for changing existing programs and violated the U.S. Constitution. California received $133 million last year in federal support for its volunteer programs that included more than 6,000 volunteers. State funds also contribute to volunteerism in California. AmeriCorps helped to support the humanitarian response to the Los Angeles fires in January. In all, Trump seeks to cut $400 million from the program nationally, or more than 40% of its budget, California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, said in a press conference. On June 5, a judge partially sided with the states and issued a preliminary injunction ordering the Trump administration to restore the cancelled grants in the states that sued while the case proceeds. However, the judge said states don’t have standing to ask for the government to rehire the laid off AmeriCorps staff.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is leading the lawsuit.

California is co-leading a lawsuit with 18 other states contesting a U.S. Department of Education threat to withhold funding from schools with diversity, equity and inclusion programs. California receives $7.9 billion a year in funding from the education department. In the lawsuit, California and other states allege the administration’s policy is unconstitutional because it would contradict spending powers that belong to Congress.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California is the first state to sue the Trump administration over its tariff policies. The suit, filed by both Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, argues that Trump is exceeding the power granted to him in a 1970s law that allows a president to declare an economic emergency. The suit says tariffs aren’t a tool the president can use and that only Congress can approve those taxes on imports. The suit is asking a federal judge in California to block and reverse the tariffs. California is the nation’s largest importer and second-largest exporter. The suit claims the state will lose billions of dollars in economic activity from the tariffs. A federal judge on June 2, 2025 dismissed the case, finding that the dispute belongs in the Court of International Trade.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is fighting this case solo.

The federal government gave states extra time to use COVID-19 grant money to help K-12 students recover the learning loss they experienced during the pandemic. In March, the U.S. Department of Education terminated access to that funding, denying California $200 million alone. California, Washington, D.C. and 15 other states sued the Education Department to unfreeze that grant money. The suit said the terminated funds will lead to staff layoffs and limit student learning, particularly low-income students who struggled in the online environment during the pandemic. The states want to undo the funding freeze and block the department from any other grant terminations. The funding was supposed to expire in 2024 but the Biden administration offered extensions through March 2026.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California is one of 21 states suing over a Trump administration order that abruptly canceled funding to agencies that support libraries, museums, minority-owned businesses and workplace mediation. Those cuts trickled down to states and local communities, including stripping grants from libraries. The Trump administration has said it cut the funding in an effort to cull “bureaucracy and bloat.” California and other states counter that the Trump cannot withhold funding that was approved by Congress.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California is co-leading a lawsuit with 15 other states that alleges the Trump administration illegally canceled billions of dollars of grants for medical and health research organizations. Among many other organizations, the grants funded research at the University of California and the California State University system.

This case was resolved in California’s favor. California led the lawsuit.

California is leading a lawsuit with 18 other states that alleges President Trump issued an unconstitutional executive order on election administration. Trump’s order would require people to show proof of citizenship to vote and it would prohibit states from counting ballots received after election day, among other changes. California and other states contend Trump does not have the power to order those changes because the Constitution gives states and Congress authority over elections.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is leading the lawsuit.

California, the District of Columbia and 22 other states are suing the Trump administration over its cancellation of more than $11 billion in grants to local and state health agencies. The administration told news agencies the grants originated from the COVID-19 pandemic, and it would “no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic.” California and other states argue that the clawbacks were “arbitrary and capricious,” and that they violate the Administrative Procedure Act. The states further contend that the cuts will cause lasting harm to local public health programs.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is leading the lawsuit.

California is co-leading a coalition of 19 other states and D.C. in suing the Trump administration to reverse the layoffs of nearly half of the staff at the U.S. Department of Education, arguing that the firings prevent the federal agency from fulfilling its duties that were enshrined in laws passed by Congress. The Department of Education funds college loans, special education, grants to high-poverty schools, among other programs. It also collects data about student achievement and enforces civil rights laws on campuses.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is leading the lawsuit.

California joined 20 states to challenge the mass firing of recently hired or promoted federal employees by the Trump administration. Twenty-one agencies are named in the complaint including the departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Treasury and Agriculture. The states argue that the agencies have illegally bypassed required procedures when firing federal workers. According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, nearly 140,000 federal employees live in California as of September 2024; more than 13,000 have been employed for less than a year, which makes them especially vulnerable to the administration’s targeted layoffs.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California is leading a challenge over the termination of grant funding for K-12 teacher preparation programs. California stands to lose $148 million in funding used to address the state’s teacher shortages, particularly in supporting underserved communities and filling high-need math and science positions. The state argues the Trump administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act when terminating the funding.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is leading the lawsuit.

California and 13 other states sued Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency in a D.C. federal court. The coalition argued that the White House granted Musk and his department “unprecedented access” to sensitive government data without Congressional approval. The suit asked a judge to halt Musk and his department’s activities through a temporary restraining order. The judge on the case denied that restraining order on Feb. 18 2025.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

California is joining 21 other states in suing the Trump administration for its plan to slash the “indirect cost rates” that universities receive from the federal government to conduct federally funded health and biomedical research. The suit alleges that the administration is violating federal law and how Congress said the funds should be used.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

Attempting to block the Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk, from accessing the sensitive personal data of Americans maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, including bank accounts and social security numbers.

This case is currently making its way through the legal system. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

The Trump administration on Jan. 27 released a memo that appeared to freeze all federal grants, except money provided directly to beneficiaries. California and other states sued immediately, arguing that the order illegally interfered with funding allocated by Congress and that it jeopardized critical resources for health care, natural disasters and services for children.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is joining others in the lawsuit.

One of President Trump’s Day 1 executive orders would revoke the right of guaranteed citizenship to anyone born in the United States. California and 17 other states are suing to block that order, arguing it conflicts with protections in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration while the case is resolved. California is joining others in the lawsuit.