Dem
47
GOP
53
Republicans hate it when a district judge somewhere makes a ruling for the entire country—unless it is a Texas judge banning abortion pills nationwide. So, they will surely not like the ruling of Rhode Island U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy, a Donald Trump appointee, that Trump's freeze on funds appropriated by Congress under the Inflation Reduction Act and other Biden-era laws is illegal. This is impoundment, and there has been a law since 1974 saying that a president who doesn't want to spend money appropriated by Congress has to ask Congress for permission and Congress gets the final say. She also rejected Trump's claim to have broad powers to pause spending, citing a Supreme Court ruling on the subject.
The suit was brought by six groups, including the Childhood Lead Action Project, which got $500,000 to combat childhood lead poisoning in Rhode Island, and the Woonasquatucket River Watership Council, which got $1 million for urban forestry work. But the judge ruled that her order applied nationwide, to all grants made under the IRA and the infrastructure laws signed by Joe Biden. She wrote: "It would be anathema to reasonable jurisprudence that only the named Nonprofits should be protected from the irreparable harms of the likely unlawful agency actions." She noted that the plaintiffs' rights do not come from the contracts they signed with the government. They come from the laws passed by Congress.
Technically, McElroy's order states that five government agencies, the Agriculture, Energy, Interior, and Housing Departments, along with the EPA, must release billions of dollars as specified in the two laws. It is a temporary injunction banning the agencies from withholding funds until she can hold a hearing on the merits of the case. (V)