San Diego has joined dozens of other jurisdictions nationwide in suing a trio of federal agencies for allegedly withholding billions in federal grant funding.
The lawsuit alleges that more than $12 billion in awarded funding is at stake as the government calls for “federal grant recipients to agree to promote the political agenda President (Donald) Trump campaigned on during his run for office and has continued espousing since.”
Among the Trump policies cited in the suit are the administration’s opposition to diversity and inclusion, “aggressive” immigration enforcement, exclusion of transgender people and stance on abortion access.
The lawsuit, filed in the Western District of Washington in May, alleges such conditions are unconstitutional and “bear little or no connection to the purposes of the grant programs Congress established.”
San Diego was awarded around $137 million in U.S. Department of Transportation grants and $225 million in U.S. Housing and Urban Development grants, which the city said will support affordable housing construction, street, bridge and infrastructure repair, homelessness services and more.
San Diego City Attorney Heather Ferbert called the administration’s stipulations on the awards “politically motivated and unlawful funding conditions.”
“We will fight to ensure San Diego continues to receive the resources it has earned and has been promised, without overreach from the federal government,” Ferbert said in a statement.
King County in Washington led a coalition of 30 other localities in filing the lawsuit challenging the funding conditions on federal grants under DOT and HUD’s Continuum of Care Program.
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The plaintiffs successfully obtained a court order temporarily enjoining DOT and HUD from pausing, withholding or terminating the grants. King County is expanding its litigation to add new localities, like San Diego, as well as further challenge federal grant conditions for all DOT, HUD and Health and Human Services grants, according to the
City Attorney’s Office
.
The amended complaint, filed Thursday, includes nearly 70 municipal agencies, among them cities, counties and transit, housing and port authorities. California is well represented, with the cities of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Oakland and San Francisco among the plaintiffs. Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York, Tucson and Milwaukee are part of the suit as well.
San Diego is the only local public agency that has joined the litigants.
City News Service contributed to this report.
