Dallas County, buoyed by a recent Harris County court win, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration over the clawback of $70 million in public health funds.
Dallas County’s lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 5, claims the demand last spring that $11.4 billion in unspent pandemic-era funding be returned to federal coffers was an illegal one. The argument mirrors one made in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of 23 states — all led by Democratic governors — and the District of Columbia, that the rescinding of the unspent money awarded under one president cannot be seized under a different one. The states’ court battle is ongoing.
Texas did not join the states’ lawsuit, despite losing an estimated $700 million.
In Dallas County’s case, the public health department lost $70 million in federal funding funneled through the Texas Department of State Health Services and as a result, the county had to lay off nearly two dozen employees. The sudden loss in funding will cause “significant harm” to Dallas County, the lawsuit states.
“The funding, which Dallas County received through new grant programs during the COVID-19 pandemic, was not limited to the duration of the pandemic and was generally expected to address the effects of the pandemic and prepare Dallas County for future public health crises,” Dallas County’s lawsuit states.
The federal government’s reasoning for the clawback — that the grants are no longer needed because the pandemic had ended — “is based on factors that Congress did not intend
Defendants to consider and improperly assumes without support that the funds were only intended for pandemic-related use,” Dallas County’s lawsuit states.
Dallas County’s case is now before U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, the same judge who last summer ordered the return of $20 million in slashed federal public health funds to Harris County.
See here and here for the background. Harris County, along with numerous other local entities, filed suit in April and got that ruling in June. I don’t know why Dallas didn’t join in at the time, and I don’t know why it took them another six months to hop on the bandwagon, but that’s a question you Dallas folks can ask your county commissioners. It ought to be straightforward from here, so best of luck with it. Any other counties out there that still haven’t acted on this, what in the world are you waiting for?