Harris County has filed a third lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration, challenging its overhaul of the federal government and a slew of federal workforce cuts.
The county is suing along with a coalition of other local government entities and labor organizations across the United States — including the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees. The lawsuit requests that a judge declare that Trump has violated the U.S. Constitution by reorganizing the federal government without congressional authorization.
Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and County Judge Lina Hidalgo said Tuesday that additional hits to the workforce could lead to significant delays in recovery efforts and resource distributions during the upcoming hurricane season.
“We don’t need to discover in the middle of an emergency that the maps are delayed, that the information’s not there, that the people we need to talk to have been fired without a transition plan and indiscriminately,” Hidalgo said.
Since he was inaugurated in January for a second stint in the White House, Trump’s administration has reportedly considered funding cuts and layoffs for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency that includes the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center. The cuts could damage the way information is communicated in the event of a major weather disaster.
The lawsuit asserts the Trump administration has ordered agencies across the federal government to engage in a critical transformation of the federal bureaucracy for the purpose of eliminating waste. A Feb. 11 order from the president’s office implementing the Department of Government Efficiency, led by technology mogul Elon Musk, is also at the center of the 115-page lawsuit.
A press release on behalf of the plaintiffs from Democracy Forward is here, which contains a copy of the complaint. As the story notes, Harris County has also sued over public health funding cuts, and over resciended refugee health grants, a fight they quickly won. Earlier, the county signed onto an amicus brief in support of a previous lawsuit over NIH cuts. There’s no reason not to fight on as many fronts as we can. Keep it up, y’all.