One Battle After Another

And a new fight for rural schools

Oscar nominations are out, and it feels like One Battle After Another is already a lock to win Best Picture. Maybe Sinners pulls off an upset, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

In that spirit, before I bring you into our latest fight, I want to give you a sense of how last year stacked up.

In short: We won practically every major lawsuit against a federal agency.

In total, we protected roughly $1.5 billion of your tax money, keeping it here in North Carolina.

That averages out to roughly $4 million per day - or about 5% of the entire state budget.

So we’re talking real money.

But it’s not just money - these wins protected jobs, public education, medical research, health care, infrastructure, disaster response, law enforcement, and food for kids.

That’s a solid track record, but keep in mind, these wins represent only a handful of the 10,000 active cases at our office. We’re very busy.

Our latest battle: Funding for rural schools

Our newest battle with a federal agency was, once again, forced on us.

With just weeks left in the year, the Department of Education abruptly told us that they were cutting $50 million from North Carolina schools.

And the cut would take place on January 1st - in the middle of the school year.

Of the $50 million cut, most of it would hit rural schools - including a number of counties hit hard by Hurricane Helene.

This funding comes from a nearly 50-year-old program that gives schools local control to support students in practical ways. Depending on their local needs, schools use that money to provide things like after-school programs, literacy and career prep, food support, and mental health services.

So cutting that program is bad, but “bad” is different than “unlawful.”

Here’s why it’s also unlawful:

When schools applied for the funding, they told the Department exactly how they would use it. The Department pre-approved all the plans. Gave them the green light. Funded them.

So schools hired staff based on that green light. They built programs relying on that approval.

Now - without even alleging any misuse of the funding - the Department is pulling the rug out.

Can’t do that.

Federal law says that once Congress funds a program and grants are awarded, a department can’t simply change its mind midstream unless there’s evidence that funds are being misused.

So we’re going to court. (Here’s a video I did explaining our case.)

If this feels familiar, it’s because we won a similar lawsuit last year against the Dept of Ed when they tried to abruptly cut $165 million for NC schools on one week’s notice.

We’ll see how this unfolds, but I like our odds. I’ll keep you posted.

A quick note on the Lighthouse Fund

Here’s a question I get a lot:

“What should our message be?”

And that’s a good question, but here’s a better one:

“How do we reach people with a message?”

Figuring out message reach is much harder than figuring out message content.

One big way we’re reaching people is by running videos like the one I linked above as an ad on various social media platforms. It’s all about reaching independent voters before the campaign heats up, just to stay on their radar.

That effort is called the Lighthouse Fund, and if you can, I’d appreciate your support for it either here, if you use ActBlue to donate, or here if you don’t use ActBlue.

And thanks for helping us keep the light on.

Best,

Jeff