More than a dozen states joined California on Monday to prevent the Trump administration from decimating the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
A lawsuit signed by the attorneys general of the involved states claims that the administration’s decision to fire about 10,000 full-time employees and close half of the HHS divisions and regional offices is illegal and unconstitutional.
“The Trump administration does not have the power to incapacitate a department that Congress created, nor can it decline to spend funds that were appropriated by Congress for that department,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in announcing the litigation. “HHS is under attack, and we won’t stand for it.”
The lawsuit decries the “Make America Healthy Again” directive inspired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who ran as a Democrat and independent presidential candidate before dropping out of the race last August to endorse Trump. The attorneys argue that Kennedy seeks to alter the priorities of federal health offices in accordance with his long-held — and highly controversial — views on medicine and public health.
“We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said when the HHS cuts were announced at the end of March. “Over time, bureaucracies like HHS become wasteful and inefficient even when most of their staff are dedicated and competent civil servants.”
The suit alleges that on April 1, when HHS employees received termination notices, many of the department’s functions ceased.
“There was no one to answer the phone, factories went into shutdown mode, experiments were abandoned, trainings were cancelled, site visits were postponed, application portals were closed, laboratories stopped testing for infectious diseases such as hepatitis, and partnerships were immediately suspended,” the suit states.
HHS had lost roughly 20,000 of its 82,000 employees as of January; the suit claims this has contributed to damages across states, including fewer processed complaints involving retailers selling tobacco illegally and a halt to funding for early childhood programs.
One of the five regional offices the HHS identified for closure is in the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in downtown San Francisco, where there were around 318 federal employees as of April.
Other states joining the lawsuit are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, as well as Washington, D.C.