BALTIMORE — Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown is continuing relentless legal action against President Donald Trump's executive agenda.
On March 11 the Trump Administration announced intentions to cut the U.S. Department of Education in half, potentially leading to 50 percent of its workforce being let go.
Before the plan was made official, Brown as he's done on several prior occasions, joined up with 21 other Democratic Attorneys General to file a lawsuit.
“President Trump’s attempt to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education threatens to strip Maryland schools of critical resources, leading to larger class sizes, fewer services for students with disabilities, and deepening inequities between well-funded and struggling districts," said Brown in a Thursday press release. "The impacts wouldn’t just affect grade school students; young adults’ may not be able to pay for college with federal student loans and grants, forcing them to change their hopes and dreams."
Brown and company filed the lawsuit in Massachusetts, a setting viewed as more favorable for winning temporary restraining orders.
Newly sworn-in Education Secretary, Linda McMahon, has vowed to implement Trump's policies, calling for an eventual end to the department, ultimately handing control back to the states.
Trump and McMahon have each acknowledged the move requires an act of Congress.
As for government funding, Congress constitutionally controls the government's purse strings, meaning only they can technically allocate funding.
Yet the executive branch, for which the Department of Education falls under, assumes discretion of how the agency spends that money, which typically falls in line with administrative policies and priorities.
According to Brown, though, programs Trump is looking to slash serve nearly 18,200 school districts and over 50 million K-12 students at roughly 98,000 public schools and 32,000 private schools nationwide, not to mention more than 12 million post-secondary students.
As for employee terminations, some recent court rulings have recognized Trump's wide-ranging Article II authority, under the Constitution, to slim down the federal workforce with mass layoffs or firings.
Other judges ,however, have pushed back lately suggesting Trump's actions were unlawfully executed, often times on procedural grounds.
On Thursday, for example, a Bill Clinton appointed judge in San Francisco, California ordered the administration to reinstate thousands of probationary employees fired last month from the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, and Treasury.
The ruling came just weeks after the same judge said he didn't have authority to order reinstatement. It appears the judge reversed course after Trump's Office of Personnel Management refused to testify about a supposed order demanding the firings.
Meanwhile, Maryland's case against the Education Department is just the latest brought by Brown.
Last week, the same coalition of attorneys general sued to stop Trump from laying off federal probationary workers, which he claims could negatively impact Maryland's economy.
Earlier this week a Maryland judge, appointed by former President Barack Obama, seemed skeptical of Trump's efforts, but didn't issue an immediate ruling.
In February the group of AG's targeted Trump's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and National Institute of Health (NIH), accusing the agencies of "unlawfully cutting funds" for health research at universities.
That too was filed in Massachusetts, where the states were granted a temporary reprieve.
Other favorable outcomes pursued by Brown in Massachusetts include a freeze on grants for training teachers, along with Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship.
In nearby Rhode Island, a second Obama appointed judge, sided with Brown and his fellow AG's blocking Trump's pause on federal financial assistance to states.
Brown also had early success in stalling billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) access to Treasury data.
That case was brought before an Obama appointed New York judge in a late night emergency motion, without the government present to defend themselves. Another judge appointed by former President Joe Biden later took over the case, issuing a preliminary injunction. Unions have filed similar litigation in Maryland over DOGE's access to Social Security. A hearing for that case is scheduled on March 14.
There's an additional appeal pending in a case filed by Baltimore City, for which Brown has supported, but is not officially tied to, barring Trump from clamping down on DEI funding. At the same time, the Education Department is defending against a separate DEI related lawsuit from teacher advocacy groups.
Such court decisions have raised separation of power concerns, sparking questions of whether Trump will comply or defy, considering courts have no true enforcement mechanism against a sitting President with sweeping immunity and control of the DOJ, whose tasked with implementing judicial orders.
Some critics, including Musk himself, have openly supported the idea of Trump ignoring the courts.
Several attorneys, including Vice President JD Vance, have called out judges for they perceived to be illegal rulings.
"If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal," Vance posted on Musk's social platform X, following the DOGE ruling in New York. "If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power."
Although Trump has called the rulings "crazy," he's repeatedly pledged to abide and appeal.