President Donald Trump speaks during a summer soiree on the South Lawn of the White House, Wednesday, June 4, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
President Donald Trump has issued a series of executive orders that are both vague and illegal, a lawsuit filed by the City of Seattle alleges.
During the first two days of his second term, the 45th and 47th president issued an executive order targeting “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) initiatives followed by an executive order purporting to stand up for women and against “gender ideology extremism.”
Each order variously seeks to limit – and ultimately root out – federal government funding to states, counties, municipalities, agencies, and federal contractors – with clampdowns focused on programs and entities deemed to be promoting DEI and transgender acceptance.
This week, in a 42-page complaint, the Emerald City asked a federal judge in Washington to put a kibosh – in the form of an injunction – on Trump”s efforts to restrict such contracts and grants.
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“Plaintiff challenges the Anti-Diversity and Gender Orders as violations of Separation of Powers, the Spending Clause, the Fifth and Tenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, and the Administrative Procedure Act,” the lawsuit reads. “These Orders are unlawful because they are arbitrary and capricious, contrary to constitutional rights, and issued in excess of the President’s authority.”
The plaintiffs allege the federal government is attempting something not entirely unlike a full-scale revamp through the use of executive orders like the ones being directly challenged in the lawsuit.
The filing spends considerable time chiding Trump for the number of orders he has issued this year – and concomitant efforts of federal agencies to effectuate those orders through policy directives.
From the Thursday filing, at length:
In his first 100 days since assuming the Office of the Presidency for a second-term, President Donald J. Trump endorsed an unprecedented number of Executive Orders—143, to be exact. Many of these Executive Orders are nothing more than short-cut attempts to advance the Trump Administration’s agenda by circumventing the law via executive fiat. The ultra vires, unconstitutional actions by the Trump Administration addressed in this Complaint threaten Plaintiff City of Seattle with vague directives designed to eliminate lawful policies and programs in the workplace. Plaintiff risks losing committed federal grants and contracts if it does not abide by newly and improperly imposed (and impossibly vague) funding conditions, and faces unjustified False Claims Act investigations and lawsuits, as well as significant financial hardship and uncertainty, based on forced adherence to the Trump Administration’s unlawful interpretation of federal anti-discrimination laws in connection with projects that bear no relationship to its decrees.
While broad-based in its rhetorical jabs, the lawsuit is only challenging the two aforementioned executive orders. The complaint seeks to enjoin the orders themselves as opposed to any specific funding rescissions caused by the orders. The filing alleges those orders alone have left Seattle’s leaders “confounded” and in jeopardy of losing “funds needed to support critical local programs and services.”
“We should not have to forgo our own local policies in order to obtain that money that has already been provided to us,” Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison said in a statement to The Seattle Times.
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Seattle says they stand to lose upwards of $370 million due to the orders. The lawsuit says this number includes “funds to support major safety initiatives and vital infrastructure projects.”
Losing access to such funds would violate myriad constitutional precepts, like the separation of powers, and the federal law governing administrative agency actions, the plaintiffs allege.
“These Orders seek to interfere with congressionally authorized federal grants,” the lawsuit continues. “The power to appropriate and spend money, such as through the issuance of federal grants, is conferred by the Constitution on Congress and Congress alone. An Executive Order does not have the force and effect of law and cannot be issued to usurp congressional authority or to advance unconstitutional or illegal policies.”
The lawsuit has been assigned to Senior U.S. District Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein, a Jimmy Carter appointee.
