States Sue to Block Trump's Destruction of IMLS

On April 4, a coalition of 21 state attorneys filed an emergency action in federal court in Rhode Island seeking to block the Trump administration’s bid to shutter the Institute of Museum and Library Services as well as six other agencies as outlined in a March 14 executive order.

“President Trump is leading a campaign to dismantle vast swaths of the federal government,” alleges the suit, led by attorney generals Peter Neronha (Rhode Island), Letitia James (New York), and Anne Lopez (Hawaii). “But whatever the President’s policy preferences, he cannot override the congressional enactments that authorize federal agencies, appropriate funds for them to administer, and define how they must operate.”

The seven-count complaint argues that the administration’s “Closure Order” and the actions it has taken to implement the order, are “illegal several times over,” specifically citing multiple violations of "the Administrative Procedures Act," "the Appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution," and "the Separation of Powers Doctrine." It asks the court for a declaration the closure order and subsequent decisions made to fulfill that order be are “unconstitutional and/or unlawful” and for an order to “preliminarily, and permanently” enjoin the administration from shuttering the agencies.  

“The Closure Order compels seven agencies to abandon all of their discretionary programs without engaging in a shred of reasoned analysis—and the agencies have carried out that categorical directive just as the President instructed. The Administrative Procedure Act violation is palpable,” the complaint states. “Second, by stripping these agencies well past the studs, the Administration has flouted Congress’s directives. All of the agencies subject to the Closure Order were established by Congress and given a detailed set of statutory duties. In their spree to gut these agencies Defendants have eliminated many of the programs that the agencies are statutorily required to carry out… Third, and for much the same reasons, the orders violate the Constitution’s separation of powers, which assigns Congress the power of the purse, and the Take Care Clause, which entrusts the President with the responsibility to faithfully carry out the laws Congress enacted.”

The complaint also notes that Trump’s executive order targeting IMLS and other agencies came just a day after he signed a continuing budget resolution that appropriated funds for IMLS and the other six agencies targeted "to operate at full strength" through the end of the fiscal year.

“The Executive may not decline to spend those funds by slashing the agencies’ staff to the bare minimum, shuttering most of their offices and programs, and refusing to use or disburse the money that Congress appropriated,” the complaint goes on to aruge. “If the President disagrees with Congress’s decision to support the Nation’s libraries and museums, and enable the peaceful mediation of labor disputes, he is free to seek legislation abolishing the agencies that perform these—and many other—vital functions. One option that our Constitution does not give the President is to shutter the agencies himself, in defiance of the administrative procedures that Congress required to be followed, the appropriations that Congress ordered to be spent, and the separation of powers that every officer of our government has sworn to uphold.”

IMLS Details

The lawsuit comes after a whirlwind two weeks that saw deputy labor secretary Keith Sonderling sworn in as IMLS acting director, followed by most of the IMLS staff being placed on paid administrative leave as of March 31.

Days later, news began circulating that several IMLS grantees—including the state libraries in California, Washington, and in Connecticut—had been informed by Sonderling that their grants had been terminated. Those terminations came despite two separate letters warning Sonderling that the agency was bound by law to fulfill its duties—a March 24 letter from the board of the National Museum and Library Services, which is tasked  by law with advising the agency, and a March 26 letter from the bipartisan group of senators who authored the Museum and Library Services Act (MLSA) of 2018.

A subsequent letter from the IMLS advisory board revealed that Sonderling had not responded to the board’s outreach before acting to slash the agency.

In their April 4 complaint, the state attorneys general fill in even more details about what’s been happening at IMLS. For example, the agency has reportedly placed 85% of its staff on leave, the suit notes, apparently recalling just a handful of employees needed to wind down IMLS operations.

Furthermore, the complaint notes that Annie Norman, the highly respected state librarian from Delaware, received an email on April 3 from the Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel “terminating her Board membership,” despite having just been reappointed to a new five-year term in December 2024. According to subsequent social media posts, it appears that the entire National Museum and Library Services board may have been terminated, although Words & Money has not yet been able to confirm.

In terms of grants, the complaint notes that Sonderling informed Washington’s state librarian that the remainder of the library’s $3,948,629 grant award had been terminated, effective April 1, because it was “inconsistent with IMLS priorities” as “mandate[d]” by Trump’s executive order. “That grant was supposed to run until 2027, and the State Librarian received the grant termination notice on the same day that she submitted a drawdown request seeking reimbursement for approximately $1 million,” the complaint states, adding that the sudden cancellation “may cause the library to fail to meet its financial obligations.”

The state libraries of California and Connecticut received similar notices, the complaint adds, with Sonderling reportedly canceling the remaining $3.4 million California’s $15.7 million grant, and the remaining $984,000 of Connecticut’s $2.1 million award. More grant terminations are almost certain to follow, the complaint goes on, because without staff “IMLS is not capable of processing new grant applications or servicing existing grants.”

Because IMLS grants are used by many state libraries to pay the salaries of its employees, the complaint also lays out the potential impact in many of the states that are suing: IMLS funds are used to pay the salaries either in part or in full for 12 full-time state library department employees and 12 temporary employees in Arizona; 34 in California; 13 in Connecticut; 20 in New Jersey; 14 in New Mexico; 55 in New York; 12 in Oregon; 6 in Rhode Island; 16 in Vermont; 32 in Washington; and 17 in Wisconsin; Delaware pays “50% of the salaries of state employees” with federal funds; Maryland pays “the full or partial salaries of 10 employees and 3 consultants” with IMLS funds; and in Rhode Island, “45% of the budget of its Office of Library and Information Services (“OLIS”), including the equivalent of 6 full-time employees, was covered by IMLS’s Grants to States Program.”

In addition to paying the salaries of “critical staff members,” the complaint also lays out the array of programs that could be scrapped without IMLS funding, including: “reading and literacy programs for children, teens, and adults; providing braille and audio services to library patrons who are unable to utilize traditional print materials; providing access to the internet; providing access to library materials to those who are homebound or live in rural areas; and providing access to statewide resources such as databases, interlibrary loan software, digital library eBook and eAudio content, and online reference programs. Plaintiffs States also use this federal funding to provide resources to their communities related to job training, business development, and digital, financial, and health literacy.”

The “disruption” in grant funding will result in the “severe diminution of library and museum services,” the complaint argues, suggesting that states will also be required to “furlough or terminate local librarians and museum staff, curtail or shutter programs for training and recruitment of new staff, and cut back or eliminate critical services.”

In addition to the lead plaintiffs in New York, Rhode Island, and Hawaii, the suit has also been joined by Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.