Andrew Janz photo

Fresno’s City Attorney Andrew Janz said his office and other municipalities have won a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration over withheld grant funding.

Janz said the temporary restraining order was issued by Chief Judge Richard Seeborg of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Fresno, and other cities including Eureka, Lake Tahoe and Sacramento County filed the lawsuit last week over Trump’s threats to cut federal grant dollars from municipalities that fail to remove wording centered around gender and diversity from official city plans.

“The Administration placed the City and its taxpayers in an impossible position: either violate the Constitution, accept illegal conditions unauthorized by Congress, and place City staff in legal jeopardy; or forfeit hundreds of millions of dollars of federal grants already appropriated by Congress,” Janz said in a statement.

He said cutting the funds would have been devastating to the city’s budget, safety and local infrastructure.

Janz said, no administration, whether Democratic or Republican, may lawfully impose political ideology on local governments by holding congressionally approved funding “hostage.”

Last week, the Housing of Urban Development sent a warning email to the City of Fresno about the language in its local Community Development Block Grant plan, the complaint read.

HUD threatened to withhold grant money for the plan unless the city removed references to “equity” “environmental justice”, and cannot use the funds to “promote gender ideology.”