One thing COVID-19 won’t change is our commitment to holding the Trump administration accountable for corrupt and unlawful actions that hurt people. We’ve got 119 cases under our belts right now, including our ongoing fight against the administration’s illegal sabotage of the Affordable Care Act which is undermining Americans’ access to quality healthcare during this public health crisis.

In 2020, so far, we’ve —
  • Won a federal court ruling that the Trump administration broke the law to install anti-immigrant hardliner Ken Cuccinelli to run U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The court set aside two of his directives that eviscerated important legal protections for asylum seekers and gave our clients another chance to have their asylum claims heard.
  • Forced the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to meet its legal obligation to facilitate enforcement of anti-discrimination laws that protect women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses. In a court-approved settlement, CFPB agreed to court-ordered deadlines to implement a crucial data collection and disclosure requirement. This victory marks a milestone for addressing credit barriers that small business owners face across the country, crucial now more than ever given the need for small business lending to weather the COVID-19 crisis.
  • Challenged the Department of Health and Human Services’ unlawful refusal to enforce anti-discrimination protections in federal grants, which could allow grant recipients to deny critical services to LGBTQ+ populations, people of different religions, women, and others in need of HHS-funded programs, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Sued Sec. Mike Pompeo and the State Department with a coalition of international human rights organizations for unlawfully creating and operating an advisory committee, known as the Commission on Unalienable Rights, that is working behind closed doors to gut international human rights protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and restrict the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls.
  • Defended the authority of a key agency — the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs at the Department of Labor — that protects workers at federal contractors from discrimination. We moved to intervene on behalf of two unions, the Communications Workers of America and United Steelworkers, in a lawsuit Oracle brought to strip away that crucial authority.
  • Forced the Department of the Interior to disband its illegal trophy hunting council — the International Wildlife Conservation Council — composed of hunting and gun industry representatives. We’re still fighting to uncover the council’s records and stop Sec. David Bernhardt from implementing its policy recommendations.
  • Demanded investigations by the Inspector General of the Department of Commerce and the Scientific Integrity Officer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration into whether Trump appointees at NOAA overruled scientific analyses by career staff to allow oil and gas companies to conduct underwater blasting surveys, which risk harming the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

We are grateful for the dedication and determination of health care workers and everyone on the front lines helping to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. This is a difficult time, and there is a lot of uncertainty. But making sure the government follows the law remains important, and you can count on us to keep doing that.

Stay up to date with our work on Twitter and Facebook. And, as always, thank you for your support. We hope you and your loved ones are doing as well as possible.

Anne Harkavy
Executive Director
Democracy Forward