More than a dozen Democratic attorneys general from across the country joined together to file a lawsuit against the Department of Housing and Urban Development on Monday over the agency’s efforts to dismantle fair housing enforcement.
“HUD is attempting to impose vague, ideologically motivated and unlawful conditions on program funding,” Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said at a Monday press conference. “If these actions are left unchallenged, discrimination in housing is almost certain to increase.”
The lawsuit, led by Raul and California Attorney General Rob Bonta, was also joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
In the 82-page lawsuit filed in a U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the Democratic states’ counsel argues the recent administrative decision under President Donald Trump’s appointee to lead HUD, Scott Turner, goes against the congressionally mandated mission the agency is charged with.
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“Defendants lack authority to restructure Congress’ civil rights enforcement scheme, suppress enforcement of housing discrimination protections, or coerce states to weaken or disregard their own laws as a condition of receiving funds appropriated to enforce the FHA,” the filing reads.
HUD did not respond to a request for comment.
Since his nomination, Turner has reduced the staff of the agency’s fair housing office, affecting offices around the country; moved to cut its funding; and taken steps to reverse several fair housing policies protecting transgender individuals and families with members lacking legal immigration status.
“Defendants’ actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) and the United States Constitution, and threaten to dismantle a crucial mechanism for combatting housing discrimination in the United States,” Monday’s lawsuit reads.
Testifying before the Senate earlier this year, two civil rights lawyers who were dismissed from HUD under Turner testified that the agency was dramatically scaling back civil rights investigations.
“Current HUD leadership has enacted numerous policies designed to stop enforcement of the law, including by systematically punishing those who attempt to properly enforce the law or who blow the whistle on unlawful practices at the agency,” Palmer Heenan testified in January.
Heenan went on to detail a three-fold strategy he said was being utilized by the current agency leadership to limit fair housing practices.
“Getting rid of civil rights staff, constant interference in standard operating procedures, and weaponization of civil rights laws,” he continued. “HUD leadership has systematically starved fair housing enforcement staff in order to prevent HUD from enforcing the law through firings, coerced resignations, and reassignments.”
Turner, testifying before the House Financial Services committee in January, argued the fair housing regulations in place had “turned HUD into a national zoning board and robbed the local communities of their zoning powers.”
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