About 19 states plus DC filed a brand-new lawsuit against the Department of Justice yesterday. The target: the 1984 Victims of Crime Act — money Congress authorized for funeral expenses, witness protection, and forensic exams. The president is holding it unless states agree to change their immigration laws. Bryan: "This may be one of the ones we remember in a few years."
New Jersey v. Department of Justice (25-cv-00404) was filed the day before this episode, making it the newest case in the morning report. The 1984 Victims of Crime Act authorizes federal grants to states for crime victim services — funeral expenses, witness shielding, forensic exams. Congress authorized the money; the president's role is distributing it. The Trump administration had been conditioning these grants on states agreeing to change their local immigration laws — the same funding-as-leverage strategy Bryan had flagged across multiple policy areas. Approximately 19 states plus DC joined together to sue DOJ, demanding the grants be paid without the immigration conditions. Bryan flagged this as potentially significant: it represented states choosing this particular funding stream — money for crime victims — as the hill to fight on, and the coalition was large enough to suggest a coordinated litigation strategy.
Spending Clauseconditions on federal grantsVictims of Crime Act (1984)10th Amendment
Constitutional question: The Spending Clause gives Congress power to condition federal grants on states' compliance with federal requirements — but those conditions must be (1) clear and unambiguous, (2) related to the federal program's purpose, and (3) not coercive. Conditioning crime victim assistance grants on immigration enforcement has no nexus to the VOCA's purpose; the amounts at stake may also be coercive in the South Dakota v. Dole sense. The administration's strategy of using funding leverage across multiple unrelated programs raises the structural constitutional concern that South Dakota v. Dole tried to limit: the Spending Clause cannot be used to transform the federal government's power to spend into a general power to regulate state policy.
USAID employees suing over their terminations got class certification today — and the class is wider than expected. Personal service contractors are included. The injunction protecting them is still paused pending appeal. But if that appeal goes their way, a very large group of people gets their jobs back.
Doe 4 v. Musk (25-cv-00462) is a USAID case brought by laid-off employees challenging their terminations in the DOGE-driven agency wind-down. The court had previously issued a preliminary injunction halting the terminations, but that injunction was stayed pending an interlocutory appeal — a pause of a pause, as Bryan acknowledged. The August 19 development was the court's class certification decision: the court defined which plaintiffs would be included in the class action. Bryan had expected the court to cut personal service contractors from the class, but it didn't — almost everyone who worked at USAID was included, including the contractors. The one exclusion: non-citizens living outside the United States were not included because the case rests on constitutional claims, and those protections do not extend extraterritorially to foreign nationals abroad. The practical stakes: if the appellate court lifts the stay and reinstates the preliminary injunction, every member of the certified class — a large group — would have their employment protected for the duration of the litigation.
Class certification under Rule 23preliminary injunctionstay pending appealpersonal service contractor inclusion in classextraterritorial constitutional claimsUSAID shutdown
Constitutional question: The underlying constitutional claims center on whether terminating USAID employees and contractors without proper process, and shutting down a congressionally-created agency by executive action, violates the separation of powers and the Appointments and Removal Clauses. The exclusion of foreign nationals from the class reflects the limits of constitutional protection: the Fifth Amendment due process clause extends to persons within U.S. jurisdiction, but its reach to non-citizens abroad is significantly narrower. For the included class members, the constitutional claim is that their terminations — carried out by DOGE-directed leadership that may not have been lawfully appointed — were constitutionally infirm regardless of whether the agency shutdown was otherwise lawful.
A Trump-appointed judge issued a preliminary injunction in April stopping the government from withholding federal funds. Four status conferences later, $760 million in already-awarded low-income senior housing funds is still inaccessible. The judge: "The court struggles to see how HUD's inaction can be construed as anything other than a serious violation of this order that exhibits blatant disregard for it."
Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council v. Department of Agriculture (25-cv-00097) is a federal funding case where the government has continued withholding billions in already-awarded funds despite a court order requiring payment. The judge — notably a Trump appointee — issued a preliminary injunction in April enjoining the government from withholding funds. What followed was a four-month enforcement saga: four status conferences over three subsequent weeks as the court tried to get the government into compliance. The government kept assuring the court that HUD had resumed processing payments. The court kept finding that it hadn't. As of August 19: $760 million in funds already awarded for low-income senior housing remained inaccessible. The judge's statement was direct — calling the government's inaction a "serious violation" of the April order showing "blatant disregard" for the court's authority. She ordered the government to file a response explaining what specific actions it had taken since the April order, with a status report due August 27.
PI compliancecontempt enforcementHUD non-payment of already-obligated fundsImpoundment Control Actstatus conferences as enforcement mechanism
Constitutional question: When a court issues an injunction, compliance is not optional — it is a constitutional obligation enforced by the court's contempt power. The Impoundment Control Act also constrains the executive here: funds that Congress has appropriated and HUD has already awarded to specific grantees cannot be withheld by executive preference. The judge's "blatant disregard" language signals that she is documenting the government's behavior in anticipation of using contempt sanctions as the next enforcement step. The case is a live test of whether district courts can practically compel the executive branch to obey their orders when the executive has decided non-compliance is preferable to compliance.
Louisiana drew new congressional maps after the 2020 census that a district court found violated the Voting Rights Act. Louisiana appealed. On Friday, the Fifth Circuit affirmed: the maps are discriminatory and must be redrawn. Bryan: the VRA test is "insanely complex" — three preconditions, one with four parts, then a nine-part balancing test. He put the opinion in the subject matter library. Break out the highlighters.
Nairne v. Ardoin (22-cv-00178) is a Louisiana redistricting case filed in 2022 challenging the state's new congressional maps drawn after the 2020 census. The plaintiffs alleged the maps violated the Voting Rights Act by drawing congressional district lines to discriminate based on race — specifically, by diluting the voting power of Black voters in a state with a substantial Black population. The district court agreed: the maps violated the VRA and needed to be redrawn. Louisiana appealed to the Fifth Circuit. On the Friday before this episode, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court: the maps do violate the Voting Rights Act and Louisiana must redraw them. Bryan had cut this story from the main morning report for time and posted it as a separate afternoon report. He used the occasion to describe the VRA's analytical framework as "insanely complex" — three preconditions (the second of which has four sub-parts), followed by a nine-part balancing test (the Gingles/Zimmer framework) — and directed listeners to the full opinion in his subject matter library as an example of common law in action.
Voting Rights Act Section 2Thornburg v. Gingles three-part precondition testtotality of circumstances nine-factor balancingracial gerrymanderingFifth Circuit affirmance of district court
Constitutional question: The Voting Rights Act's Section 2 implementing the Fifteenth Amendment's guarantee that voting rights shall not be denied or abridged on account of race. Louisiana's redistricting litigation has been high-profile — the Supreme Court had already addressed related Louisiana mapping questions in Allen v. Milligan (2023). The Fifth Circuit's affirmance here sends the case back to the district court for remedial proceedings: Louisiana must submit a new map that complies with the VRA. The case illustrates how post-census redistricting can function as a tool for racial vote dilution, and why the VRA's multi-part analytical framework — complex as it is — exists: simple line-drawing can accomplish what explicit racial exclusion cannot.
