Gov. Josh Shapiro says he’ll consider legal action against the Trump administration if education cuts affect Pa. students
Shapiro, a Democrat in his first term and former state attorney general, has already sued the Trump administration once, after Pennsylvania’s new GOP Attorney General Dave Sunday declined to do so.
Gov. Josh Shapiro said Friday he will be watching “real closely” and will consider legal action against President Donald Trump’s administration if the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education causes Pennsylvania to lose billions in federal funding for its schools.
Shapiro, a Democrat in his first term and former state attorney general, already sued the Trump administration once last month, after more than $2.1 billion in federal funds for environmental and energy projects were frozen. The funds were unfrozen shortly after, and the suit is still pending in federal court.
Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to “begin eliminating” the U.S. Department of Education to address “breathtaking failures” in the nation’s current education system, after already slashing its staff by nearly half. He cannot fully eliminate the department by executive order, and would require congressional approval, since much of the department’s responsibilities is written into law.
» READ MORE: Trump signed an order to ‘begin eliminating’ the Department of Education. Here’s what could happen next.
Pennsylvania’s new GOP attorney general, Dave Sunday, has said he will use lawsuits as a last resort, rather than a knee-jerk reaction, in response to the administration’s actions.
“We will not micromanage the federal government, and I will not have news-making commentary in response to happenings in D.C.,” he said Thursday.
If Sunday declines to sue the Trump administration, Shapiro can request to sue in his capacity as governor of Pennsylvania.
Shapiro told reporters in Pittsburgh following an event with Open AI and Carnegie Mellon University to announce the findings from a pilot artificial intelligence program that he is going to wait and see “what the impact is to Pennsylvania students” before taking any legal action, and said Trump has the right to decide what the federal government looks like.
“The president indicated that they’re not going to pull back any dollars to our commonwealth. If they do, I’ll be prepared to take action,” Shapiro said, noting his previous lawsuit and advocacy he has said pushed the federal government to restore the frozen funds. “So if anybody tries to take anything from Pennsylvanians, particularly our students, they’ll have to go through me.”
Shapiro’s response differed from that of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a fellow Democrat, who quickly on Thursday condemned Trump’s latest order as “unconscionable and unconstitutional.”
Republican leaders in the state General Assembly welcomed the idea of accessing federal dollars without federal restrictive requirements.
Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana), in a statement Thursday, voiced support for Trump’s order and said “eliminating bureaucracy is a good thing.”
“Allowing more dollars to flow directly to local communities, with their ability to use them flexibly, would be an overall benefit to providing educational opportunities for all children,” Pittman added.
Ahead of Thursday’s order, House Minority Leader Jesse Topper (R., Bedford) who has been a key member in the creation of Pennsylvania’s new education funding system, said on nonprofit cable network PCN he would support the order if it meant that federal funds would be given directly to Pennsylvania for education “without strings attached.”
“That’s actually something we’ve been asking for for years,” Topper said. “I do think there’s a lot of intrusive bureaucracy from the federal level in terms of education.
“If we can limit that and still receive the funds, I don’t know anybody in Pennsylvania that’s not going to be happy about that,” Topper added.
Public education advocates in Pennsylvania still fear that the shrinking of the U.S. Department of Education will cause funding cuts to school districts across the state, including the large role that Title I funding plays in educating students from economically disadvantaged families.