


Democratic lawmakers filed an amicus brief Thursday to assert President Donald Trump doesn’t have the authority to “abolish the Department of Education.”
This brief was added to the NAACP’s lawsuit against the Trump administration over its changes to the Education Department. The NAACP is legally challenging the department’s recent layoffs and the cancellation of some grants. It claims these actions are unconstitutional because they lack congressional authority and, therefore, violate the separation of powers.
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Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Elizabeth Warren (D-MS), and twenty other Democratic Senators signed on to the brief. Also included were Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Bobby Scott (D-VA), and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the ranking members of the House Education and Judiciary Committees, along with over 150 Democratic representatives.
“The law couldn’t be clearer: the president does not have the authority to unilaterally abolish the Department of Education,” Warren wrote in a statement to ABC News.“Donald Trump is not a king, and he cannot single-handedly cut off access to education for students across this country.”
Raskin was notably part of a meeting between McMahon and about a dozen Democratic House members in April, just weeks after the NAACP filed its lawsuit against the Trump administration. The civil rights group was prompted by President Donald Trump’s executive order to weaken the Education Department.
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While the department’s employees are laid off and the funds are transferred to states, the president made it clear that it will still handle “Pell Grants, Title I funding, [and] resources for children with disabilities and special needs.”
Of the Education Department’s initial 4,133 staff, 259 accepted a deferred resignation package, 313 accepted a $25,000 separation payment, and 63 probationary employees were let go last month. In addition, 1,315 more people will soon be laid off, leaving a little more than half the original workforce, at 2,183.