Non-Profit Legal Group Democracy Forward Moves Into Second Year of Challenging, Overturning and Exposing Corrupt and Unlawful Acts by the Trump Administration
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Democracy Forward was launched in 2017 to challenge unlawful and corrupt Executive Branch actions that hurt communities and families across America. Over the past year, Democracy Forward has taken legal action against the Trump Administration across multiple fronts — including 47 lawsuits against 17 federal agencies — representing dozens of clients across the country to overturn the Administration’s unlawful actions and expose its broken promises and ethical transgressions.
Democracy Forward is proud to be representing and working with cities, counties, veterans, family farmers, sexual assault prevention advocates, immigrant rights groups, labor organizations, environmental non-profits, public health groups, and a wide array of other Americans fighting back against the harm caused by the Trump Administration.
“Time and time again, we’ve seen the Trump Administration flout the law and rig the government to help their friends at everyone else’s expense, but Democracy Forward was created to fight back, and we will be relentless,” said Democracy Forward Executive Director Anne Harkavy. “Our team is dedicated to challenging, overturning, and exposing the Trump Administration’s unlawful and unethical actions that harm the American people.”
In year one, Democracy Forward’s has succeeded on many fronts. So far, we have:
- Halted the Trump Administration’s unlawful funding cuts to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs grantees and exposed the anti-evidence Trump appointees who directed those illegal cuts.
- Uncovered Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke’s use of wildfire funds to pay for his unrelated private helicopter rides as fires raged through the West Coast. Our work led to Congressional inquiries into Zinke’s “troubling pattern of disregard for taxpayer dollars.”
- Forced EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to reinstate grant funding to the award-winning newspaper the Bay Journal — a grant that was unlawfully rescinded by a political appointee unhappy with the news outlets coverage of President Trump’s environmental policies.
- Revealed the role former for-profit college executives played in Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s decision to roll back protections against predatory student loans after DeVos refused to answer Congressional questions.
- Challenged Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s rollback of critical protections intended to help family farmers and ranchers hold big agribusiness accountable for predatory and retaliatory practices.
- Fought to reinstate equal pay protections for women and families that the Trump Administration unlawfully revoked.
- Challenged the Administration’s misleading, biased and harmful report on terrorism that advances a false and discriminatory view that immigrants and Muslims pose a threat to national security.
- Sued to reverse the Department of Education’s unlawful rollback of Title IX protections for student sexual violence survivors.
- Challenged the FDA’s decision to delay regulation of e-cigarettes and some tobacco products and leave open companies’ ability to market tobacco products that appeal to kids.
- Sued the Department of Transportation to reverse the Administration’s unlawful rollback of protections for airline travelers with disabilities.