Source Government Executive
“A federal judge found that the Trump administration violated the Constitution, the Administrative Procedure Act and federal spending laws when it ordered the stripping down of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and the Minority Business Development Agency to their “statutory minimums.”
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Afederal judge in Rhode Island on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction protecting three independent agencies targeted by a March executive order aimed at downsizing “unnecessary” independent agencies to their “minimum functions required by law,” finding that the Trump administration likely violated the Constitution, federal spending law and rules governing policy changes in government.
A coalition of 21 state attorneys general sued to block the executive order’s implementation in relation to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and the Minority Business Development Agency, three agencies that provide services or grants to state and local governments.
Not protected by this week’s ruling are the Smithsonian’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homeless, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund and the U.S. Agency for Global Media—though another judge has ruled against the administration in a separate case challenging USAGM’s shuttering.
In a 49-page decision, U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr., an Obama appointee, found the President Trump’s executive order seeks to claw from Congress its power both to establish and disband federal agencies and to set the funding levels for those agencies.
“By issuing the Reduction EO—which effectively directs withholding the funds that Congress recently statutorily appropriated to IMLS, MBDA and FMCS, resulting in the cessation of several of their programs—the executive is usurping Congress’ power of the purse, by disregarding congressional appropriations; and vested legislative authority to create and abolish federal agencies.”
“Here, there is an absence of any reasonable explanation from IMLS, MBDA and FMCS,” he wrote. “The Reduction EO—with which these agencies sought to comply through their challenged policies—stated that the ‘non-statutory components and functions’ of IMLS, MBDA and FMCS shall be ‘eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.’ But the defendants have not shown that any analysis was conducted to determine whether ‘components and functions’ of IMLS, MBDA and FMCS are statutorily required, and which are not.”
At IMLS, between five and 10 workers remain, compared to their prior headcount of 77, with no employees staffing offices that perform statutorily mandated work, like the Office of Research and Evaluation. And at FMCS, which helps federal agencies, state governments and private sector employers and their union counterparts to avoid impasses, litigation and ultimately strikes and other work stoppages, only 15 employees remain to do the work of more than 200.
“Congress directed FMCS to ‘make its conciliation and mediation services available in the settlement of’ grievance disputes arising ‘over the application or interpretation of an existing collective-bargaining agreement,’” McConnell wrote. “Yet FMCS has ceased its grievance mediation services as of March 14, 2025.”