Attorney General Bonta Secures Emergency Order Protecting over $600 Million in Public Health Funding

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued the following statement in response to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granting his motion for a temporary restraining order, which blocks the Trump Administration from terminating more than $600 million in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) grants for 14 days. The planned cuts exclusively target four Democratic-led states: California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota. The attorneys general of each of those states filed a lawsuit yesterday alleging that the funding cuts would irreparably harm their states and are based on political animus. The court’s accompanying opinion states, in part, that “recent statements plausibly suggest that the reason for the direction is hostility to what the federal government calls ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’ or ‘sanctuary cities.’”

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: If President Trump and those who work for him want to stop losing in court, they should stop breaking the law,” said Attorney General Bonta. “My fellow attorneys general and I will continue standing up for public health and the well-being of the people we serve. We are confident that the facts and the law favor a permanent block of these reckless and illegal funding cuts.”