Fresno and several other California municipalities have obtained a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration regarding the withholding of federal grant funding. The legal action was prompted by threats from the administration to cut grant dollars from cities that do not remove language about gender and diversity from their official city plans.
Andrew Janz, Fresno’s City Attorney, stated that Chief Judge Richard Seeborg of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued the restraining order. The lawsuit was filed last week by Fresno along with cities such as Eureka, Lake Tahoe, and Sacramento County.
“The Administration placed the City and its taxpayers in an impossible position: either violate the Constitution, accept illegal conditions unauthorized by Congress, and place City staff in legal jeopardy; or forfeit hundreds of millions of dollars of federal grants already appropriated by Congress,” Janz said in a statement.
Janz added that losing these funds would have had a severe impact on Fresno’s budget, public safety services, and infrastructure projects. He emphasized that no presidential administration has the authority to enforce political ideology on local governments by leveraging congressionally approved funding.
Last week, according to the complaint, the Department of Housing and Urban Development sent a warning email to Fresno about language included in its Community Development Block Grant plan.
