Washington joined 23 other states and Washington, D.C., on Tuesday in filing a lawsuit to try to prevent the Trump administration's dismantling of AmeriCorps, the agency that conducts community service programs across the country.
President Donald Trump's efforts to cut the size of the federal government have decimated the three-decade-old agency, according to the lawsuit filed in federal district court in Maryland. At least 85% of AmeriCorps employees have been put on leave and told they will be fired, according to a news release from Washington Attorney General Nick Brown's office.
The agency supports more than 200,000 volunteers across the country, providing them with organizational support, stipends and benefits, with a staff of around 700 employees.
Last week, the federal government notified Washington that it had terminated its AmeriCorps grant programs in the state, part of $400 million in grants canceled across the country, the lawsuit says.
In Washington, grants went to a wide variety of organizations, including the state Department of Veterans Affairs, Girl Scouts of Western Washington and United Way of King County.
AmeriCorps programs operate in at least 32 of Washington's 39 counties, sending teachers and tutors into schools, volunteers into food banks, offering veterans services, doing environmental restoration and disaster response and other service opportunities.
"AmeriCorps provides hope and belonging in American communities nationwide," Brown said in a prepared statement. "But the president thinks public programs and public dollars are his to do with what he will, snatching them up through the same scheming that federal courts have already said is likely illegal."
The lawsuit argues that by slashing AmeriCorps' workforce and canceling its grants, the administration is effectively shuttering the agency, which was created by Congress.
"The Administration's abrupt decision to dismantle AmeriCorps flouts Congress's creation of AmeriCorps and assignment of agency duties; usurps Congress's power of the purse and thereby violates the Constitution's separation of powers," the lawsuit says. "The Administration is free to ask Congress to abolish AmeriCorps, but it cannot simply terminate the agency's functions by fiat or defund the agency in defiance of administrative procedures."
This is at least the 13th lawsuit — a pace of about one a week — against the Trump administration that Brown has filed or joined since Trump took office and launched initiatives to drastically reshape the federal government.
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