By GEOFF MULVIHILL

The federal government has paused $27.5 million for organizations that provide family planning, contraception, cancer screenings and sexually transmitted infection services as it investigates whether they’re complying with the law.

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The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association says 16 organizations received notice Monday that funding is on hold. At least 11 Planned Parenthood Federation of America regional affiliates and all recipients of federal family planning, or Title X, grants in seven states, had funding withheld.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declined to say which laws or executive orders the groups are being investigated for violating, though NFPFHA said some of the letters cited civil rights laws. Trump has issued executive orders targeting programs that consider race in any way, some of which have been put on hold by judges.

Health and Human Services, which is in the midst of deep layoffs, also said that “no final decisions on any spending changes for Planned Parenthood have been made.”

Republicans have long railed against the millions of dollars that flow every year to Planned Parenthood and its clinics, which offer abortions but also birth control, cancer and disease screenings, among other things. Federal law prohibits taxpayer dollars from paying for most abortions.

Providers said the impact on health care will especially hit lower-income people.

“We know what happens when health care providers cannot use Title X funding,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement. “People across the country suffer, cancers go undetected, access to birth control is severely reduced, and the nation’s STI crisis worsens.”

The reproductive health association, whose members include most Title X grant recipients, said that about one-fourth of them received the letter, including all the recipients in California, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana and Utah. Mississippi law bans abortion at all stages of pregnancy.

George Hill, president and CEO of Maine Family Planning, which provides abortion services, said that if necessary his organization would go to court to seek the funds.

“The Administration’s dangerous decision to withhold Maine Family Planning’s Title X funds jeopardizes access to critical health care services for thousands of Mainers. Any delay in disbursement of federal grants will have a detrimental effect on our state family planning network and the patients we serve,” Hill said.

The Missouri Family Health Council, which pays for programs throughout Missouri and part of Oklahoma, including Planned Parenthood affiliates, also had its funding blocked.

Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which includes Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas, said regional clinics remain committed to providing health care despite the funding uncertainty.

“They want to shut down Planned Parenthood health centers to appease their anti-abortion backers, and they’re willing to take away birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing and treatment to get their way,” Great Plains Planned Parenthood President and CEO Emily Wales said in a statement. “If blocking health care for low-income patients is what the Trump administration means by ‘making America great again,’ then we want no part of it.”

Associated Press reporters Summer Ballentine and Amanda Seitz contributed to this article.

Supporters of the Housing Access Voucher Program say it’s needed now more than ever to curb rising homelessness, and as another federal rent subsidy is expected to run out of funding next year. But Gov. Kathy Hochul has yet to embrace the initiative.

Tenant organizers with the Housing Justice for All Coalition rallying at the Capitol building in Albany on March 19, 2024. They’re once again pushing for the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP) to make it into this year’s budget. Photo by Chris Janaro.

It’s rare for New York’s tenant and landlord groups to agree on housing policy. But for the sixth legislative session in a row in Albany, they’ve coalesced around at least one proposal: a state-funded voucher that would help people experiencing or at risk of homelessness afford rent.

Lawmakers have introduced a bill to establish the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP) each year since 2020, but it’s yet to make it into law, despite broad support. Sponsored by State Sen. Brian Kavanagh and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, the vouchers would function similarly to federal Section 8 subsidies, with tenants paying up to 30 percent of their income toward rent and HAVP covering the rest.

New Yorkers would be eligible if they’re unhoused or “facing imminent loss of housing,” as long as they earn less than 50 percent of the Area Median Income, equivalent to $77,650 for a four-person household in New York City, regardless of their immigration status.

Supporters say the vouchers would help combat rising rents and a surging statewide homeless population, which more than doubled over the last two years. In the city alone, more than 130,000 people were staying in the shelter system as of January, according to data tracked by City Limits.

“New York’s housing crisis demands bold, immediate action,” Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society said in a statement last month supporting the bill. “With homelessness rising at an alarming rate, we cannot afford to wait.”

Both the Senate and the Assembly included $250 million for HAVP in their budget proposals this year (the state budget was due April 1, but negotiations are currently in overtime). Gov. Kathy Hochul has yet embrace the proposal, however, and previously cited concerns about costs. Speaking to reporters last month, she said her focus was on building new housing to bring rents down, according to NY1.

But the bill’s supporters say housing more residents with vouchers will be cheaper in the long run than keeping them in homeless shelters.

“Direct rental assistance is a proven cost-effective method of ensuring people can stay in their homes and access new ones if so preferred,” the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), a group representing property owners and development, said in testimony to the State Legislature in February.

“We have support from the landlords, so that’s unique. We’re in a unique position. I don’t understand why the governor doesn’t see it,” said Althea Matthews, a leader with the advocacy group VOCAL-NY’s Homeless Union.

Matthews, 67, spent three years in the shelter system herself, and says she was only able to move out through with the help of similar rental subsidy. She was one of thousands of New Yorkers to get an emergency voucher funded by the federal COVID-19 stimulus bill in 2022, which allowed her to rent an apartment that year where she lives currently.

The Trump administration last week announced that funding for those vouchers is expected to run out in 2026, four years sooner than expected, putting tenants like Matthews at potential risk of homelessness again.

Passing HAVP could help plug that gap, Matthews argues. “We need to have the HAVP passed now,” she said. “The time is now, because it’s going to get worse.”

A rep for the governor’s office did not respond directly to questions about Hochul’s current HAVP stance, but said budget talks are ongoing.

“Governor Hochul continues to negotiate in good faith with the Senate and Assembly to pass a budget that makes New York safer and more affordable,” a spokesperson said.

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post Tenant & Landlord Groups Both Support a Proposed State Housing Voucher. Why Hasn’t it Passed? appeared first on City Limits.

A 17-year-old is charged with multiple felonies after deputies carried out a search warrant last week and found eight firearms in his bedroom in St. Paul and another gun in a bag he was carrying, according to a court document filed Tuesday.

The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office Gun Unit had a warrant for the home in the 900 block of Burr Street in Payne-Phalen to look for illegal firearms and related items. They executed the warrant about 11:15 a.m. Friday.

“Deputies surveilled the house until the primary suspect came outside and jumped into a parked car,” according to a Facebook post from the sheriff’s office. “That’s when they nabbed him. With the element of surprise on their side, they swooped in and arrested the 17-year-old so he couldn’t get access to the weapons.”

The teen was wearing a cross-body bag and an investigator found a Glock handgun inside with an extended magazine, laser sight and auto-sear device/switch, according to a juvenile petition filed by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office. The switch converts a firearm into “a fully automatic machine gun” and investigators later test fired the gun and confirmed it was functioning as such, the petition said.

During the search of the teen’s bedroom, investigators found seven additional handguns and a short-barrel rifle, which had no serial number, the petition said. They also located a bullet-resistant garment, a gym bag with three empty magazines inside, a firearm receipt, ammunition and an auto sear not installed on a firearm.

The teen talked to investigators, “acknowledged possession of the found firearms and boasted about his ‘collection,’” according to the petition.

Teen remains in custody

The petition filed in Ramsey County District Court charges him with possession of a machine gun and of a firearm without a serial number. He is also charged with nine counts of possession of a firearm by a person under age 18. The county attorney’s office will seek to have the teen tried in adult court, the petition states.

The teen turns 18 soon, so “this was a couple weeks away from being a totally different case,” Ramsey County Judge Jacob Kraus said at his court appearance Tuesday.

Assistant Ramsey County Attorney George Joyer requested the teen stay in custody, saying the machine gun charge is “a very serious offense,” in addition “to the high volume of other weapons and additional accessories” found.

Multiple surveillance video displays are seen on a monitor inside a home where the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office carried out a search warrant Friday. There were high-end surveillance cameras outside of the home, according to the sheriff’s office. (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

The house had high-end surveillance equipment, the sheriff’s office post said.

The teen’s attorney, Ellen Seesel, said he requested to go home with his mother on electronic monitoring and “strict house arrest” because he wanted to go back to school. He’s due to graduate in a week or two, and the teen’s father told Seesel that he’s starting a program soon that means a lot to him.

Kraus decided the teen will remain at the Ramsey County Juvenile Detention Center. “I have significant public safety concerns about what they found, the amount of things they found, and the type of things that they found,” the judge said.

Previous gun case

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The teen had another gun case just over a year ago. The Pioneer Press is not naming him because of his age and because the current case is still in juvenile court.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office charged him in February 2024 with threats of violence. He was at the Wilder Recreation Center in St. Paul that month when someone saw him and another juvenile playing dice, and told them they needed to leave the building. The person said the juvenile, who was later identified as the teen in the current case, told him, “What are you going to do about it?” and pulled out a pistol, according to the juvenile petition in that case.

He was found guilty of a felony, ordered to complete 24 hours of community service and was on supervised probation until December. The case was then dismissed because he met conditions, the court docket shows.

“Unlawful Nationwide Injunctions by Radical Left Judges could very well lead to the destruction of our Country!”

So began a recent post by President Donald Trump on social media. He seeks to end the practice that allows a judge in a single district to issue an order that blocks his policies from taking effect nationwide. His proposal is unworkable in practice, but other reforms might be appropriate to address the concerns he shares with critics from both sides of the political aisle.

Most recently, nationwide injunctions have been used to block more than a dozen of Trump’s executive orders, addressing wide-ranging issues including the definition of birthright citizenship, the firing of federal employees and a ban on transgender service members in the military. Such orders can slow down a presidential administration from rapid, drastic change, but that, of course, is the very point of checks and balances.

Trump is not the first chief executive to see his plans thwarted by a nationwide injunction, but we have seen a significant uptick in the past 20 years, perhaps as our country has become more politically polarized and more segregated into red and blue states.

Hot-button issues

Indeed, hot-button political issues usually draw their use.

Nationwide injunctions blocked President Barack Obama’s repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military and a rule requiring employers to provide insurance coverage for gender transitions and abortions.

They also halted President Joe Biden’s plans to impose vaccine mandates and provide student loan relief, among other initiatives.

An injunction is a court order directing a party to take certain action or to refrain from doing so. The classic example of an injunction is a command to stop a party from using a wrecking ball to demolish a building during a dispute over property rights. Most often, parties to litigation seek injunctions at the outset to preserve the status quo while a lawsuit plays out, likely over several months or even years. A court will grant an injunction when the plaintiff can show a substantial likelihood of success on the merits and a risk of irreparable harm, considering the effects on each party and the public interest.

Three types of injunctions

There are generally three types of injunctions.

The first, a temporary restraining order is, by design, nimble, quick and short-lasting. A temporary restraining order (TRO) may be granted even without hearing from the opposing party when swift action is needed to prevent irreparable harm, such as the imminent deportation of an immigrant whose status to remain in the country is in dispute.

But a TRO may last only 14 days. A court would then hold a full hearing with both parties and decide whether to issue the second type of injunction, a preliminary injunction, while the litigation ensues.

At the conclusion of the case, the court may enter the third type, a permanent injunction, if satisfied that the law so requires.

Nationwide or “universal” injunctions apply, as their names suggest, to parties throughout the entire US. Critics oppose them, saying they allow a district court judge in a case involving only one set of litigants to make decisions that apply to everyone in the country.

But ending nationwide injunctions would create more problems than it solves. Without them, a federal judge who finds a substantial likelihood that an executive order violates the law could block its implementation only in that district, leading to a patchwork of rulings across the country. That would make policies impossible to administer. Would birthright citizenship be available to babies born in one judicial district but not the others? Would transgender service members be permitted to serve in the military if assigned to a base in one part of the country but not another? And what happens when they are transferred to a new base?

A better remedy

A better remedy than ending nationwide injunctions is to change how they work.

One modification has already occurred. The Judicial Conference of the United States, a committee of judges who decide policy for federal courts, last year announced a change to limit the practice of forum shopping in certain cases. This tactic occurs when litigants file their case with a judge who is likely to be friendly to their cause. Until that change, it was possible to find a small division of a larger judicial district with a single judge, to whom assignment of a case was guaranteed.

For example, during the Biden administration, litigants incorporated an entity in Amarillo, Texas, to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortions. By bringing the case in that district, the plaintiffs were certain to draw Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who had previously worked as a lawyer for a conservative religious rights organization and had written about his opposition to abortion. Unsurprisingly, Kacsmaryk entered a nationwide injunction banning the drug, inviting howls of protest from critics.

Under the new policy, any case that has the potential to result in a statewide or nationwide injunction must be randomly assigned to a judge drawn from the entire district. The change will help promote fairness and public confidence in court decisions.

Commentators and scholars have suggested other changes.

Steve Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, has proposed limiting the availability of universal injunctions to only situations where nationwide uniformity is essential, such as cases involving border enforcement.

Other proposals have been brought forward by lawmakers. One bill would allow plaintiffs to file any case seeking a nationwide injunction in federal court in Washington, the district where executive orders are issued, to limit efforts to shop for red or blue districts. Another plan would require three-judge panels to decide cases involving nationwide injunctions to limit the influence and appearance of political bias of a single judge. Instead of ending nationwide injunctions, an unworkable idea, these changes might address the real problems that concern critics.

Subverting the checks of the framers?

But for Trump, nationwide injunctions seem to be a convenient scapegoat for undermining public confidence in the judiciary. What might really be at issue is the right of the courts to check his authority at all, as envisioned by the framers of our Constitution when they created our government’s constitutional separation of powers structure.

According to Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, “Our objective, one way or another, is to make clear that the district courts of this country do not have the authority to direct the functions of the executive branch. Period.”

That vision is far more radical than any of the judges criticized by Trump.

Barbara McQuade is a professor at the University of Michigan Law school, a former US attorney and author of “Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America.”