The Trump administration cannot proceed with plans to rescind $602 million in public health grants from four Democratic-led states, a federal judge in Illinois ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Manish S. Shah determined the four states — Colorado, Illinois, California and Minnesota — were likely to succeed in their claim that the government’s desired termination of the grants was based on “arbitrary, capricious, or unconstitutional rationales.”
Shah, an appointee of former President Obama, blocked the administration from taking any action for 14 days while litigation is ongoing.
The states’ attorneys general sued several Trump officials on Wednesday, about a week after the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced it had ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to claw back millions in funding from blue states.
Those cuts were targeted at “states fraught with waste and mismanagement,” according to an OMB spokesperson.
The states framed the administration’s directive as “part of their ongoing campaign to punish Plaintiff States using the tool of federal funding for partisan political purposes,” arguing that it would harm “essential public health infrastructure” as well as the testing and treatment of deadly diseases.
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