Attorneys for Institute of Museum and Library Services acting director Keith Sonderling and his codefendants have responded to the lawsuit filed earlier this month by the American Library Association (ALA) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). The ALA and AFSCME argue that the White House executive order curtailing the IMLS lacks legal authority, defies the Constitution, and has “begun to cause—and if not halted, will continue to cause—serious and irreparable harm” to the ALA, its more than 47,000 members, and library workers represented by AFSCME. Along with Sonderling, the defendants include President Donald Trump, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, DOGE acting administrator Amy Gleason, and the IMLS and DOGE themselves.

Known as ALA v. Sonderling, the case is an effort by the ALA and AFSCME to restore the IMLS, bring back its furloughed employees, and ensure that contractually agreed-upon grants to states and other recipients are disbursed. District court judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia, an appointee of President George W. Bush, has set a motion hearing for April 30, a few days ahead of a planned May 4 reduction in force.

Attorneys for the defendants argue that a preliminary injunction “would disrupt the agencies’ efforts to comply with” the executive order and “the President’s priorities.” They say that, in its present incarnation, the IMLS itself has reviewed its awards programs and “determined that the grants were ‘no longer consistent with the agency’s priorities.’” And they do not believe that the ALA or AFSCME have “organizational standing to lodge broad claims” of irreparable harm to members, or “to remedy any alleged injury stemming from IMLS’s re-structuring that is not otherwise linked to a concrete and particularized injury in fact to a named party.”

The attorneys also challenge the definition of statutory congressional appropriations for fiscal year 2025, suggesting that “the appropriations are not to any of the Plaintiffs; rather, the appropriations are to IMLS.” If acceptable in court, this would mean that an agency with changed priorities can rescind what were understood as congressionally mandated grants or services. “The mere fact that a grant agreement is funded through an appropriation does not mean that the routine execution of that grant agreement takes on a statutory—let alone constitutional—dimension,” the attorneys aver.

The attorneys additionally call for a bond to be posted “should the Court be inclined to order any injunctive relief,” thus making the plaintiffs at least temporarily responsible for fulfilling grants or covering payouts. The defendants’ team writes, “Without such a protective measure, there may be no way to recover the funds lost to United States taxpayers if the Court were later to find that the Defendants were ‘wrongfully enjoined.’”

Further, in the event of an injunction, the attorneys ask for a seven-day grace period to allow the Solicitor General to “seek a stay pending appeal.”

Similarities to ‘Rhode Island v. Trump’

ALA v. Sonderling bears some similarities to Rhode Island v. Trump, another lawsuit filed by 21 states’ attorneys general. On the defense side, the same legal team is attending to both cases, and is comprised of acting assistant attorney general Yaakov Roth, deputy assistant attorney general Eric Hamilton, assistant federal programs branch director Joseph Borson, and U.S. Department of Justice attorneys Abigail Stout, Julia Heiman, and Heidy Gonzalez.

A motion hearing in the Rhode Island case took place April 18, with the plaintiffs seeking an injunction against the executive order that has hobbled IMLS and two more agencies named in the suit.

Like ALA v. Sonderling, Rhode Island v. Trump contends that the U.S. president cannot by executive order dismantle an agency and programs created by Congress. In Rhode Island, however, plaintiffs argue mainly for reinstatement of a robust IMLS. They do not call specifically for IMLS staff to be returned to the office, though they believe victory in the case will have that corollary effect.

ALA v. Sonderling, in contrast, decries what plaintiffs term the “evisceration” of the IMLS and asserts that defendants “violated the Constitution by unilaterally dismantling a federal agency” that was created by Congress. The plaintiffs also argue that the defendants’ “actions violate the constitutional separation of powers, the Spending Clause, the Take Care Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act, and that they are ultra vires,” or lacking legal authority.

As Rhode Island v. Trump and ALA v. Sonderling proceed, another case suggests how a court might approach the IMLS-related lawsuits. In Abramowitz et al. v. Lake et al., also filed the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, judge Royce Lambert delivered a verdict on April 22 blocking the Trump administration from dismantling Voice of America and two independent broadcast networks of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, two agencies also named in the same executive order calling for the dismantlement of the IMLS.