When Education Secretary Linda McMahon told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham this week that the staffing cuts were a step toward the total shutdown of the department, she said she was echoing President Donald Trump’s “mandate.”
“His directive to me, clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education, which we know we’ll have to work with Congress, you know, to get that accomplished,” McMahon said. “But what we did today was to take the first step of eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat.”
Democratic attorneys general from 21 states are now using her words to cement their legal argument: The reduction in force effectively dismantles the Department of Education, which McMahon does not have the authority to do.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the coalition of state attorneys general argued that the Department of Education was no longer able to function or carry out its statutory obligations after Tuesday’s reduction in force, and have sued the Trump administration for violating the Constitution’s separation of powers principle and the Administrative Procedure Act. McMahon’s interview was cited in the lawsuit.
“Bottom line, we want the court to declare that President Trump’s directives violate several provisions of the Constitution, but also the Administrative Procedure Act. He’s supposed to take care that the laws are faithfully executed,” Nevada Attorney General and former educator Aaron D. Ford told NOTUS. “We indicate in our lawsuit that he is not doing that by essentially calling for a cessation of all work. We indicate that it violates what we call ‘separation of powers’ in the Constitution, where Congress gets the right to create and direct agencies on what their responsibilities are, and a complete cessation of that responsibility violates the separation of powers.”
The Department of Education announced Tuesday that it would be terminating 1,315 employees, moving to reduce the staff by half from the beginning of the year. The plaintiffs argued that the firings have left components of the department, like the Federal Student Aid arm, the Office for Civil Rights and the Office of the General Counsel diminished in their ability to carry out statutory functions.
Senate Republicans were given assurances during McMahon’s confirmation hearings that she would work with Congress to abolish the Department of Education — as the law requires. The Trump administration has also said it would continue to carry out its statutory requirements with a reduced staff.
So far, Republicans say McMahon hasn’t crossed a line yet.
Sen. Jim Justice said that while he has concerns about the recent cuts, those concerns are tantamount to the need for change.
“I think any of us have concerns. It’s just natural. But at the same time, any of us that are business people know we have to do something. We’re going to awaken to a crisis like you can’t imagine where we’re broke,” Justice told NOTUS. “Let’s give it a chance to start working.”
When asked if the Department of Education would be able to fulfill its statutory obligations, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he didn’t know, but that he was a proponent of working to send as much of the department’s work as possible back to the states.
Democrats, on the other hand, see an administration grabbing power from Congress. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said, based on recent events, that she thinks the Trump administration is trying to dismantle the Department of Education without Congress.
“I’m hearing a lot of concerns,” Sen. Tim Kaine, another HELP Democrat, said, referencing the student loan glitch. “My major worry, frankly, is with the size of cuts, is how we implement the IDEA, and make sure that localities and states are following the law.”
The Office for Civil Rights, which investigates disability-related civil rights claims and enforces civil rights laws, was the subject of some of the agency’s deepest cuts. Half a dozen local offices are set to be closed.
“Ask them to tell a parent of a kid with special needs that the services they’re receiving through the Department of Education, that they’re not going to receive anymore, is not essential,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin told NOTUS. “Rural school districts are going to lose funding and no longer provide quality education to kids. Students, particularly girls, who are protected from things like sexual harassment, assault in the school place by the Department of Education. If those services are not essential — frankly, the callousness with which this administration, those who are enabling it, have acted, is astonishing.”
—
Violet Jira is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.