How communities are stopping the White House's illegal power grab

Lessons learned from the fight over education funding

Ever since former DOGE leader Elon Musk brought out a chainsaw at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, it’s been clear the Trump administration is willing and eager to break the law in order to cut, freeze, or hold up federal funds. And it’s not just bluster — the White House quickly moved from flashing power tools to abusing executive branch oversight mechanisms with shaky (or non-existent) legal justifications. Trump’s budget director, Project 2025 architect Russell Vought, has repeatedly claimed the power to delay spending as long as he wishes, or even to cut it permanently.

Read more: Russ Vought’s Article I takeover

If you're thinking that it sounds illegal for federal agencies to cut funds without going to Congress, you are right. Legal experts widely agree that delaying funds because of a policy disagreement with the spending bill Congress has passed is unlawful. And there are real world consequences for the American people. The Trump administration has hit pause on funding for research at the National Institutes of Health; for opioid abuse, rape, and domestic violence prevention; for afterschool and English language learning; and more.

The refusal to spend allocated funds for critical programs hurts all of our communities (check out this infuriating map for details on cuts in your community).

Fighting back works

Here’s the good news: When communities get organized and stand up to fight for essential funds they deserve, they can win.

In early July, the White House announced that more than $6.2 billion dollars in funding for education programming — more than 10 percent of federal education funding — would be indefinitely delayed because the money was “under review.” This decision threw schools and afterschool programs across the country into chaos as they rushed to figure out how to keep doors open and plan for the upcoming academic year.

A coalition of 24 states and Washington, D.C., quickly sued, arguing that the president cannot unilaterally refuse to spend money that Congress has appropriated. The states quickly filed for a preliminary injunction, asking the court to order the release of the funds as the case proceeded. The court set a hearing for the case for mid-August — rapid action in the famously slow court system but dangerously slow progress for programs at risk of closing their doors.

That’s where coordinated community action comes in. While every situation is different and not all advocacy strategies are helpful in all situations, the immediate, united, and well-coordinated response from the education community demanding the money allocated by Congress contains lessons the pro-democracy movement should carry into future fights.

First, we must refuse to be divided. The $6.2 billion in withheld funding supports a wide range of programs from afterschool programming, English language learning, migrant education, academic enrichment, and professional development of staff and teachers. Advocates stood together and demanded the release of all of the funding — refusing to be drawn into divisive negotiations that would pit different parts of the community against one another. Large national organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club of America, Save the Children, and YMCA stood in solidarity with smaller programs serving immigrant students (such as a summer camp for kids learning English in Maryland and Migrant Education Student Academies in California), school districts, and local nonprofits (such as Save Our Schools Arizona) with a single message: release all of the funds, now.

Read more: Why collective action is the only way.

Second, targeted activism and storytelling are key. Organizations like the Afterschool Alliance quickly pulled together one-stop shops to make advocacy easy and effective with tons of resources to support individuals making their voices heard. Program providers and parents across the country reached out to policymakers more than 100,000 times to explain the impact withholding these funds would have on their families and communities. Advocates wrote hundreds of letters to the editor, pitched hundreds of local news stories, and held local events to make sure their communities were aware of the threat. By July 7, just a week after the funds were withheld, Americans had sent more than 50,550 messages to Congress, state attorneys general, and governors urging their help in getting the funding released.

Third, bipartisanship is still possible — and effective. On July 10, 150 House Democrats sent a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and budget director Russell Vought calling on the White House to release the funds. On July 16, they were joined by 10 Senate Republicans, who delivered their own letter to Vought calling for all of the withheld funds to be released to the states. Their message was simple: “Withholding these funds will harm students, families, and local economies.” This was the same message flooding their phones, inboxes, and district offices from citizens, constituents, and program providers.

Within 48 hours, the administration released over a billion dollars for afterschool programming. In the end, strategic, unified community action won out — the remainder of the withheld funding was released on July 28.

How you can help

While the fight for education funding was a resounding win, critical funds for programs such as Head Start are still being unlawfully withheld by the administration at the expense of our children and communities.

One important bucket of frozen funding is critical funding for libraries across the country. The American Library Association (ALA) is fighting for the release of those funds in court. However, like we saw with the education funds, a multi-pronged strategy is essential.

Visit the ALA page here for information on how to take action today — whether you have five minutes or an hour — to demand the release of essential library funding.

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Update on spending transparency case

Over the weekend, following a court ruling that the Trump administration was blatantly violating a federal transparency law, the White House restored the website that makes public how and when it is allocating taxpayer dollars. It had been illegally taken down for five months.

We’re still evaluating whether the White House is actually complying with the law fully and posting all required spending data. But even the information already restored gives communities a powerful tool to push back on illegal funding cuts.

To make this easier (the official government website is not exactly user-friendly), Protect Democracy built OpenOMB.org, a searchable database to make apportionments easy to find and track. Explore it for yourself:

Read more: Is the president following the law when it comes to spending?