It didn’t take long for Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford to hitch himself to a lawsuit to stop President Donald Trump from taking a sledgehammer to the Department of Education.
Along with 20 other attorneys general, Ford filed a motion, pleading for a preliminary injunction to slam the brakes on layoffs and the hasty rearrangement of services within the department.
“The President is acting unlawfully again,” Ford declared, with all the righteous indignation of a man who’s seen one too many government paychecks. “And this time, his actions would leave many of Nevada’s children out in the cold.”
If there’s one thing politicians agree on, children should be kept warm—whether by the fires of bureaucracy or the heat of a good legal brawl.
“Ripping away resources from our children and expecting them to succeed is not only cruel, it is also against the law,” Ford continued, shaking a metaphorical fist at Washington. “President Trump does not have the authority to dismantle the Department of Education by decree. As long as he continues to act unlawfully, I will continue to step in.”
Ford alleges that since Trump’s order went into effect, mass layoffs have already begun sweeping through the Department of Education, snuffing out the Office of Civil Rights locations like candles in a storm. He claims that funding for state school systems is in limbo, a fate usually reserved for political promises and budget surpluses.
The lawsuit contends that the President’s attempts to dismantle the department are unconstitutional since it was established by Congress, and even in these topsy-turvy times, the executive branch must tip its hat to the legislative one before tearing down a government institution.
Meanwhile, in the Nevada Legislature, Assemblymember Selena Torres-Fossett has decided that if the feds want to pull the rug from under public education, Nevada ought to nail it to the floor. She introduced a bill—AB94—to add state-level protections for the Department of Education, ensuring that, even if Washington loses its head, Nevada schools don’t lose their funding.
Armed with statistics like a gambler with a fresh deck of cards, Torres-Fossett laid out just how much Nevada stands to lose. She says students and schools have received nearly $6 billion in funding, including aid for homeless children, special education, and low-income students trying to claw their way into higher education.
She rattled off a laundry list of federal dollars flowing into the state’s schools, from $315 million in special education funding to $621 million in Pell Grants, creating a picture of a system propped up by Uncle Sam’s wallet.
“The Department of Education ensures that not only is every state providing the same high-quality instruction matching national standards,” Torres-Fossett said, likely envisioning a world where federal oversight still counted for something. “But the other reason the federal Department of Education is important is because it’s also what’s investing funds back into our schools.”
Her bill, if passed, would essentially keep Nevada marching to the beat of federal education standards—even if the federal band gets kicked out of the parade.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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