Federal Accountability

OAKLAND – California Attorney General Rob Bonta today announced that California is leading a multistate coalition in filing an amicus brief that supports affirmance of a district court order that granted the New York Attorney General’s motion to quash grand jury subpoenas issued by an Acting U.S. Attorney whose appointment violated the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution. The district court found that the Acting U.S. Attorney lacked authority to issue the subpoenas and disqualified him from any further involvement in prosecuting or supervising any investigations related to the subject of the subpoenas. The subpoenas sought to probe New York’s investigations into the Trump Organization and the National Rifle Association (NRA). The brief is being filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

“Respect for the Constitution is not optional,” said Attorney General Bonta. “The Appointments Clause exists to ensure accountability, transparency, and balance in our federal government. When that process is bypassed, it threatens not only the rule of law but also the ability of states to protect their residents from federal overreach.”

The coalition’s brief argues that adherence to the Appointments Clause is essential to preserving the separation of powers and protecting state sovereignty. It emphasizes that allowing improperly appointed officials to wield expansive grand jury authority risks undermining the integrity and reliability of the justice system.

Grounded in the history and purpose of Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the Appointments Clause was designed as a check on executive authority by requiring Senate advice and consent. As the brief explains, this process promotes the selection of qualified officials serving the national interest while ensuring that states, through their senators, have a voice in federal appointments— including for U.S. Attorneys whose decisions directly affect state residents. 

The brief also addresses the narrow statutory exception allowing temporary appointments as stopgaps while the Appointments Clause’s advice and consent process is completed, noting that such authority is strictly time-limited. This exception was misused in this instance because the Acting U.S. Attorney continued serving after the expiration of a prior temporary appointment, bypassing the constitutional confirmation process. 

In filing the brief, Attorney General Bonta was joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia.

Here is a copy of the brief. 

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today co-led a coalition of 23 attorneys general and the Governor of Pennsylvania in filing a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, which unlawfully attempts to interfere with States’ constitutional authority to administer elections by restricting voter eligibility and mail voting to lists of voters pre-authorized by the federal government. The power to regulate elections belongs primarily to the States — the President has no constitutional authority to make or alter laws governing federal elections. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the coalition asserts that Executive Order No. 14399, entitled Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections, is unconstitutional and ultra vires. Accordingly, the coalition asks the court to declare specified provisions of the executive order unlawful and void. If not enjoined, the coalition argues that the States will suffer significant, imminent, and irreparable injuries. Voters of all parties, in all states, and of every demographic utilize mail voting — including the President himself.

“Once again, President Trump is trying to rewrite the rules of our elections. But he lacks the authority to do so — full stop,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. “The U.S. Constitution clearly gives States the primary authority over elections and gives zero authority to the President. This latest executive order is just another unlawful attempt to restrict voting, fueled by his fear of losing the upcoming midterm elections and based on wholly unfounded allegations of voter fraud.”

“Trump is lighting democracy on fire with every harmful, and hateful action he pursues. California will not sit idle while he tries to limit which American citizens can participate in our democracy,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom. “No one is above the U.S. Constitution — see you in court, Mr. President.”
 
“What we are not going to do today is sit idly by while a bully steamrolls over our democracy. The people of California and our nation grasp the magnitude of the threat to our constitutional rights and together, we will not let them slip away,” said California Secretary of State, Dr. Shirley N. Weber, Ph.D. “We will fight tooth and nail to defend our right to vote and the democratic principles our country must uphold.”

The executive order at issue, among other things, purports to:

• Direct the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to develop lists of eligible voters pre-authorized by the federal government as eligible to vote, and threatens state and local elections officials with criminal prosecution for mailing ballots to voters deemed ineligible.
• Direct the U.S. Postal Service, an independent federal agency, to develop separate lists of voters pre-authorized as “enrolled” for mail-in and absentee ballots, and to transmit return mail and absentee ballots only from those on the list. 
• Not only threaten elections officials and others with criminal prosecution, but also threaten States with the loss of federal funding for any “noncompliance with Federal law,” laying bare a scheme to coerce States into implementing the President’s new mail voting program.
• Lengthen the existing period for elections officials to preserve elections records to facilitate threatened prosecutions, contradicting existing requirements in state and federal law. 

The attorneys general argue that the executive order would require States to upend their existing election administration procedures for upcoming elections and conduct statewide voter education at a dangerously quick pace — in some cases, within weeks of primary elections and mere months before the beginning of vote-by-mail for the general election. The coalition underscores that such drastic and rapid changes will undoubtedly create confusion, chaos, and distrust in state election systems, all while threatening to disenfranchise eligible voters.

President Trump’s first elections-related executive order, Executive Order No. 14248, sought to impose sweeping voting restrictions across the country and prompted a lawsuit last year co-led by Attorney General Bonta and a coalition of 19 attorneys general. The coalition both secured a preliminary injunction in that case, which remains in effect, and defeated President Trump’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit. Two other courts have preliminarily or permanently enjoined key provisions of that order. The Trump Administration has also demanded complete, unredacted voter registration lists from every State, taking legal action against States that refuse to cooperate. On behalf of Secretary of State Weber, Attorney General Bonta secured the dismissal, without leave to amend, of the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit that sought California voters’ sensitive and private information, including social security and driver’s license numbers, partisan affiliation, home addresses and voting history.

Attorney General Bonta is co-leading this lawsuit along with Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, and Washington Attorney General Nick Brown. They are joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued a statement following the U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments on President Trump’s unconstitutional attempt to terminate birthright citizenship. 

On his first day in office in 2025, President Trump issued an executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented parents or parents who are here on a legal, temporary basis. Attorney General Bonta immediately co-led a coalition in filing a lawsuit challenging the order and repeatedly obtained nationwide preliminary injunctions that blocked this order from ever taking effect. The Supreme Court is now considering the validity of this order in a separate case brought by a class of children who would lose citizenship under the order. Attorney General Bonta co-led another coalition of attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in that case last month.

“Birthright citizenship is foundational to American democracy. It’s the promise that any child born here is equal under American law, regardless of race, class, creed, or parental background. It’s a guarantee that every child born here has a personal stake in the American dream,” said Attorney General Bonta. “It tells you something that President Trump willfully chose to start his second term by trying to knock down this fundamental and longstanding right. Fortunately, I believe he will fail. Every court to date has rejected the President’s unlawful overreach of executive power, and after listening to oral arguments today, I’m optimistic that the Supreme Court will again affirm the constitutional right to birthright citizenship.” 

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta yesterday secured a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon blocking U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s December 18, 2025 declaration (Kennedy Declaration). The Kennedy Declaration claims that gender-affirming care fails to meet professionally recognized standards of care and that, as such, HHS may disqualify any doctors or hospitals that provide such care from federal healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid. By threatening to disqualify providers from Medicare and Medicaid, the Trump Administration has sought to bully doctors and hospitals into no longer providing medically necessary gender-affirming care. 

“This ruling marks a major victory in our fight against the Trump Administration’s cruel campaign against transgender Americans,” said Attorney General Bonta. “The Kennedy Declaration sought to unlawfully bully doctors and hospitals into halting crucial care for transgender individuals nationwide. I am pleased the court has ruled in our favor, and I will continue to fight to protect Americans and the providers they trust from this Administration’s hateful agenda.”

On December 23, 2025, Attorney General Bonta joined a coalition of 18 other attorneys general and one governor in filing a lawsuit challenging the Kennedy Declaration. 

In yesterday's ruling, the court granted the states’ motion for summary judgment, declaring that the Kennedy Declaration lacks the authority to establish superseding standards of care to exclude providers from federal healthcare programs.  

BACKGROUND

Attorney General Bonta is committed to defending transgender individuals’ right to safely access medically necessary gender-affirming care and to protecting medical providers’ ability to continue providing medically necessary care for their patients. In August 2025, Attorney General Bonta co-led a multistate coalition in filing a lawsuit that challenges the Trump Administration’s executive order attempting to restrict the provision of medically necessary gender-affirming care for individuals under the age of 19 by threatening providers with civil and criminal prosecution under specious legal theories. In December 2025, he joined a coalition of 19 attorneys general in filing amicus briefs opposing efforts by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to undermine the independence of scientific organizations that support medically necessary gender-affirming care. In late 2025, he filed amicus briefs opposing the U.S. Department of Justice’s (U.S. DOJ) subpoenas for private medical records, including patient records, related to gender-affirming care at Children’s Hospital Colorado, Boston Children’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In January 2026, he filed a lawsuit against Rady Children’s Health for unlawfully closing its gender-affirming care program for patients under the age of 19.

Representing California in the multistate lawsuit, Attorney General Bonta, Governor Newsom, and CARB are joined by the City of Los Angeles, the City and County of San Francisco, and the County of Santa Clara 

SACRAMENTO — In response to President Donald Trump’s illegal attempt to overrule science and abandon an entire category of federal climate protections, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, alongside California Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Air Resources Board (CARB), today co-led a coalition of 25 attorneys general, the Governor of Pennsylvania,10 cities and counties in filing a petition challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rescission of the Endangerment Finding in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The Endangerment Finding is EPA’s formal acknowledgement that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles contribute to air pollution that drives climate change and endangers public health and welfare; it has served as the legal basis under the Clean Air Act for limiting climate pollution from vehicles. 

In comments previously submitted to EPA, the coalition argued that EPA’s rescission of the 2009 finding violates settled law, clear Supreme Court precedent, and the longstanding, robust scientific consensus regarding the harmful impact of greenhouse gases from vehicle emissions on human health and welfare. The Trump Administration’s decision to finalize its rescission will endanger hundreds of millions of Americans — particularly communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms. The Endangerment Finding rescission will cause unprecedented disruption to the regulatory landscape and result in significant increases in the emission of greenhouse gases, with catastrophic consequences for residents, industries, natural resources, and public investments. In the lawsuit, California and the coalition ask the Court to vacate EPA’s illegal rescission of the Endangerment Finding and restore EPA’s greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles, which three prior administrations — including the first Trump Administration — implemented and enforced. 

“With the unlawful rescission of the Endangerment Finding, President Trump and his EPA have abandoned their most important mission: protecting the health and welfare of the American people. The science doesn’t lie. Climate change and GHG emissions are harming public health and causing devastating and ever-worsening disasters. Our communities have felt the impact of destructive wildfires, watched families run from burning homes, inhaling toxic fumes, and we've seen entire communities wash away in severe floods. The President can’t keep his head in the sand — climate change is real and decades of settled science warned us this was coming,” said Attorney General Rob Bonta. “Let me be clear: This unlawful rescission is not about cutting ’red tape.’ The president is choosing Big Oil profits over our health, and betting that the American people won’t notice the cost until the bill comes due at the expense of our communities. We will not stand idly by while the federal government abdicates its responsibility to protect the public and follow the law. California will vigorously defend the Endangerment Finding in court and continue to fight to protect our communities, our health, and our natural resources.”

“This is what corruption looks like. Donald Trump is breaking the laws that protect Americans from climate pollution — all to enrich his Big Oil and his wealthy polluting allies,” said Governor Gavin Newsom. "Workers, families, and communities would pay the price, left choking on dirty air. No one is above the law in this country. Not even the president. We’ll fight this lawlessness in court.”

“The Trump Administration is failing to protect everyday people across this country in countless ways, including through their unlawful attempts to unwind decades of science-based policy,” said Yana Garcia, Secretary for Environmental Protection. “The truth is that climate change presents immediate threats to human health and to our environment, and rising temperatures threaten the welfare of American families by increasing household costs across this country every day. California remains committed to climate action and will keep fighting back because our people and our future deserve better.”

"The Trump Administration, in recklessly repealing the Endangerment Finding, is abdicating their responsibility to protect American lives," said CARB Chair Lauren Sanchez.  "California isn't going to sit back and watch while the federal government dismantles critical public health protections — we're going to fight back." 

"Federal air quality regulations are critical to protecting human health from the impacts of climate change," said Dr. Rita Nguyen, California’s Assistant Health Officer. "Climate change is a serious threat to human health as California experiences more frequent, more severe, and longer-lasting episodes of extreme heat. For instance, during the September 2022 record-breaking 10-day heat wave in California, there was a 5 percent increase in deaths – 395 more deaths than would be expected. Additionally, climate-related hazards like heat, wildfires, extreme weather, and poor air quality can disproportionately harm the mental health and well-being of children and youth, contributing to anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, decreases in learning, and other challenges that can have long-term consequences."

“We’re proud to stand with Attorney General Bonta and partners across California and the nation in defending science and protecting the health and safety of our communities,” said Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti. “At a time when federal actions threaten decades of progress, it is critical that state and local governments work together to push back and uphold strong, science-based standards. We won’t let unlawful federal actions put our communities, health, and economy at risk.”

“Climate change is an existential threat to humanity,” said San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu. “Rolling back the Endangerment Finding means fewer safeguards against the pollution that drives climate change and worsens air quality. This reckless and illegal move disregards decades of scientific evidence and harms communities already on the front lines of the climate crisis.”

Under the federal Clean Air Act, EPA is required to regulate pollutants from vehicles that cause or contribute to dangerous air pollution. The 2009 Endangerment Finding was the direct result of the landmark 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which confirmed that greenhouse gases are an air pollutant under the Clean Air Act. In response to that opinion, and after years of detailed scientific review, EPA acknowledged in 2009 that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles contribute to air pollution that harms public health and welfare in numerous ways. The agency then set standards to limit motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

In its proposal to rescind the Endangerment Finding, issued last summer, EPA claimed that an updated review of climate science “cast significant doubt” on the Endangerment Finding, based on a report by the Department of Energy’s “Climate Working Group” — a quintet of climate change contrarians hand-picked by the Secretary of Energy to dispute the scientific consensus. That group was quickly disbanded in the face of legal challenges and never released a final report. Their draft report, circulated last July and cited throughout EPA’s proposal, was met with an outpouring of criticism from scientists. And the group violated federal law so profoundly that even the Trump administration was “not contesting” the merits of legal challenges. Consistent with the administration’s failed attempt to contort science, it continues to seek to overrule decades of scientific consensus on climate change. Last month, EPA repealed the Endangerment Finding and eliminated all existing and future federal greenhouse gas standards for vehicles.

This federal rescission will cause an unprecedented disruption to 15 years of regulatory progress. As the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, the transportation sector will see increasing climate-destabilizing pollution, while American investment in future technologies, new factories, and jobs will decline, undermining U.S. leadership in this sector as well as in addressing climate change.

In the lawsuit, California and the coalition allege that EPA’s rescission of the Endangerment Finding violates the Clean Air Act as well as the Administrative Procedure Act. Specifically, the coalition highlights that EPA’s rescission rests on the flawed assertion — soundly rejected by the Supreme Court — that it lacks legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and ignores overwhelming and longstanding scientific evidence that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The coalition also argues that the rule’s elimination of all existing and future federal greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles violates the agency’s legal obligations and its fundamental responsibility to protect public health and welfare from environmental harm. 

In August 2025, following the Trump Administration’s initial proposal to rescind the Endangerment Finding, Attorney General Bonta testified before the EPA, highlighting the illegality of the proposed rescission and the agency’s reliance on flawed and unscientific sources to deny climate change. In the fall of 2025, he co-led a coalition of 23 attorneys general and seven counties and cities in submitting two comment letters, urging the EPA to abandon this illegal proposal.

Attorney General Bonta co-leads the lawsuit alongside the attorneys general of Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut. They are joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia. In addition, this challenge is joined by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro; City of Boston, Massachusetts; City of Chicago, Illinois; City of Cleveland, Ohio; City of Columbus, Ohio; City and County of Denver, Colorado; City of Los Angeles, California; City of New York, New York; City and County of San Francisco, California; County of Santa Clara, California; and Harris County, Texas.

OAKLAND — As part of a coalition of 16 attorneys general, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a motion asking the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington to enforce its December 19, 2025 order, which required the U.S. Department of Education (Department) to set aside its unlawful discontinuation decisions on school mental health funding programs established by Congress and to issue new decisions in full compliance with the law. On March 2, 2026, the Department decided to only award grantees six months of funding instead of providing funding for the full year, as is standard practice. The Department’s decision to deny grantees’ access to a full year of funding violates the Court’s order because the decision will effectively end some grantee projects and severely burden many other grantees. Without the certainty of a full year of funding, some grantees will lose essential staff and will be unable to properly plan and budget for the fall semester.

“The Trump Administration’s noncompliance must come to an end. In California and nationwide, grantees have issued layoff notices, and even though they take effect months later, the ongoing uncertainty complicates planning and staffing for critical programs that support students’ mental health,” said Attorney General Bonta. “My fellow attorneys general and I will not give the Trump Administration a free pass. We urge the Court to hold the Administration fully accountable for failing to comply with its order.”

Spurred by episodes of devastating loss from school shootings, Congress established and funded the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program (MHSP) in 2018 and the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program (SBMH) in 2020 to increase students’ access to mental health services. On or about April 29, 2025, the Department notified grantees — including state education agencies, local education agencies, and institutes of higher education — that their grants would be canceled for allegedly conflicting with the Trump Administration’s priorities. In the press, the Trump Administration admitted that it targeted the States’ grants for their perceived diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. In July 2025, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition filed a lawsuit against the Department over the discontinuation of the grants, and in December 2025, the coalition secured a permanent decision declaring that the Department acted illegally and requiring the Department to make new continuation decisions.

In the motion to enforce, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition assert that:

• The Department is continuing to violate the Court’s order. In their most recent act of noncompliance, the Department put new, unnecessary rules in place that achieve the same result as canceling some grants and severely hinder other grantees’ ability to serve students.
• By claiming the grants “will continue under protest,” the Department is making grantees jump through unnecessary hoops — like filling out complicated reimbursement forms that historically have only been required for grantees who mismanaged funds and forcing grantees to submit a meaningless performance report before any new data is available.
• The Department has also threatened to withhold six months of funding that grantees would have normally received and need for the fall semester. 

MHSP addresses the shortage of school-based mental health service providers by awarding multi-year grants to projects that expand the pipeline for counselors, social workers, and psychologists through partnerships between institutes of higher education and local educational agencies. SBMH funds multi-year grants to increase the number of professionals that provide school-based mental health services to students through direct hiring and retention incentives. The ultimate goal of the programs is to permanently bring 14,000 additional mental health professionals into U.S. schools.

The programs have been an incredible success. In their first year, the programs provided mental and behavioral health services to nearly 775,000 elementary and secondary students nationwide. Sampled projects showed real results: a 50% reduction in suicide risk at high-need schools, decreases in absenteeism and behavioral issues, and increases in positive student-staff engagement. Data also showed recruitment and retention efforts are working — in the first year of the programs, nearly 1,300 school mental health professionals were hired and 95% of those hired were retained. Importantly, these newly hired school-based mental health providers were able to create an 80% reduction in student wait time for services. The grants have helped schools hire hundreds of psychologists, counselors, and social workers who have served thousands of students, including in the state’s most economically disadvantaged and rural communities. By all markers, these programs work. 

Joining Attorney General Bonta in filing the motion are the attorneys general of Washington, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued the following statement on a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upholding a preliminary injunction in multistate litigation, co-led by California, challenging the Office of Management and Budget’s $3 trillion federal funding freeze. At risk in California was an estimated $168 billion in annual federal funding. 

“Today, the First Circuit affirmed what we all know to be true: The Trump Administration’s sweeping directive to unilaterally freeze all federal funding in its first days in office was deeply harmful, reckless, and wholly unreasoned,” said Attorney General Bonta. “Since this case was first filed, state attorneys general have stood together dozens more times to successfully block the President’s unlawful actions. Whether it’s Medicaid, clean energy, disaster recovery, or education funding at risk — or in this case, all of the above — we won’t back down, and we won’t stop winning. As Attorney General, I’ll continue to stand up for Californians up and down the state against whatever the President throws at us next.” 

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued a statement on a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to grant a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump Administration’s burdensome new requirements that colleges and universities submit data linking race to admissions, financial aid, and student performance. While the Trump Administration claims to be seeking this data to assist it in enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, its unprecedented new demands make it all but impossible for colleges and universities to submit usable data for review. Instead, the coalition is concerned that this unreliable data will be used to initiate costly and harmful investigations and enforcement actions against colleges and universities to further partisan political ends.  

“With the way this Administration has aggressively worked to roll back civil rights protections, its recent claims of wanting to enforce civil rights laws are more than a little fishy,” said Attorney General Bonta. “I’m pleased the court has put a temporary stop to the Trump Administration’s unprecedented and unrealistic demands for mass troves of education data while we continue to make our case.” 

HUD guidance eviscerates enforcement of fair housing laws 

OAKLAND — Co-leading a coalition of 16 attorneys general, California Attorney General Rob Bonta today announced a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) over guidance it issued that significantly weakens fair housing protections and makes it harder to hold landlords accountable for discrimination. The Fair Housing Act (FHA), a federal law, prohibits discrimination based on seven protected traits: (1) race, (2) color, (3) national origin, (4) religion, (5) sex, (6) familial status, (7) disability. Critically, the FHA establishes a floor — not a ceiling — for protection against housing discrimination, meaning that states can expand the scope of protections beyond what the FHA mandates. Many states have chosen to do so. For example, California also provides fair housing protections for traits such as gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, ancestry, source of income, and veteran or military status. HUD generally refers housing discrimination complaints to state and local agencies for potential action. However, HUD issued guidance in September 2025 threatening to decertify those agencies — thereby cutting off complaint referrals and funding — if they consider protections other than those required by the FHA, while simultaneously imposing new unlawful funding conditions. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the lawsuit by the attorneys general alleges that the guidance violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the U.S. Constitution and threatens to dismantle a crucial mechanism for combating housing discrimination. They ask the court to halt the Trump Administration’s implementation of the guidance.

“All levels of government — local, state, and federal — should be laser focused not only on building more housing, but also ensuring that everyone can access a home free from discrimination. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration thinks otherwise. HUD, without legal authority, is effectively undermining state laws that offer stronger protections than federal law,” said Attorney General Bonta. “My fellow attorneys general and I are united in our answer: not on our watch. HUD’s guidance is unlawful and would only roll back the progress we’ve made to keep our families safe from discrimination that limits where they can live.”

Congress enacted the FHA in 1968 to address the pervasive nationwide problem of housing discrimination and tasked HUD with enforcing this landmark civil rights law. Recognizing the scope of the challenge, Congress envisioned a strong partnership between HUD and state and local agencies. This partnership has operated for decades through the Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP). Through the FHAP, HUD funds state and local agencies whose fair housing laws are substantially equivalent to — that is, provide at least the same protections as — the FHA, and refers housing discrimination complaints to them. State and local agencies use FHAP funds to process housing discrimination complaints, train staff, and engage in community outreach and education.

In addition to requiring state and local agencies to weaken their fair housing laws, the HUD guidance at issue establishes a number of conditions that they must meet to qualify for FHAP funding, including:

• Disparate impact condition. HUD’s guidance prohibits state and local agencies from pursuing claims premised on disparate impact liability, even where state law expressly recognizes disparate impact as a cognizable theory of liability. Disparate impact liability prohibits discrimination based on the effects of a housing policy, even if the intent of the policy was not to discriminate.
• Anti-abortion condition. HUD’s guidance imposes an abortion-related funding condition on state and local agencies. The guidance, however, fails to explain what it means to “facilitate” or “promote” abortion, how FHAP agencies might do so, or why this condition unrelated to the administration of fair housing law is being imposed upon FHAP funding recipients.
• Immigration condition. HUD’s guidance prohibits FHAP funding from being used to “subsidize” or “promote” illegal immigration. However, the guidance does not explain what those terms mean.
• Gender ideology condition. HUD’s guidance prohibits state and local agencies from using funds to promote “gender ideology.” However, the definition of “gender ideology” is so imprecise that states and FHAP agencies would be required to guess what it means.

The attorneys general note that these conditions come after HUD gutted its own fair housing enforcement capabilities by slashing its headcount and significantly reducing the number of housing discrimination cases it charges. The agency also fired employee whistleblowers after they publicly sounded the alarm about its decimation of fair housing enforcement. 

In California, the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) collaborates with HUD under the FHAP. CRD does critical work to protect Californians from discrimination in housing. For example, in December 2025, CRD announced reforms at more than two dozen apartment complexes across California following an undercover fair housing test that identified evidence of potential discrimination against applicants who have previously been involved with the criminal justice system. HUD’s guidance prohibits CRD and other state and local agencies from pursuing these claims if they want to continue receiving FHAP funding.

Attorney General Bonta and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul are co-leading today’s lawsuit. Joining them are the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued the following statement in response to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois’s decision granting a preliminary injunction that continues to block the Trump Administration from terminating more than $600 million in public health funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The planned funding cuts exclusively target four Democratic-led states: California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota. The attorneys general of each of those states filed a lawsuit last month alleging that the cuts would irreparably harm their states and are based on political animus.

“Public health funding is not a political bargaining chip,” said Attorney General Bonta. “Over and over, courts have shut down the Trump Administration’s efforts to punish states that have adopted policies it disagrees with. This case is no different. The President should be ashamed of himself. We’re talking about funding that protects children from lead poisoning, that is used for the testing and treatment of HIV, and that allows us to track disease outbreaks. With this order, this funding will continue to flow — and we won’t stop fighting until these cuts are blocked for good.”