Governor Josh Shapiro said on Friday that he would watch “really carefully” and consider legal proceedings against the administration of President Donald Trump, if the dismantling of the US education department causes Pennsylvania to lose billions of federal financing for his schools.
Shapiro, a democrat in his first term and former prosecutor general, sued Trump’s administration last month, over $ 2.1 billion in federal funds for environmental and energy projects. The funds remained shortly thereafter, and the claim is still in progress in a federal court.
Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to “start eliminating” the American Education Department to deal with “breathtaking failures” in the current education system in the country, after he has already lowered their staff by half. It cannot fully eliminate the department according to the executive order and would require the approval of the Congress, because most of the department’s duties are saved.
»Read more: Trump signed the order to “start eliminating” the Education Department. Here’s what can happen next.
The recent GOP general prosecutor in Pennsylvania, Dave Sunday, said that he would apply the lawsuit as a last resort, not the reaction of the knee, in response to administration.
“We will not microme the federal government and I will not have comments on creating messages in response to events in DC,” he said on Thursday.
If Sunday refuses to sue Trump’s administration, Shapiro may ask for suing as Governor of Pennsylvania.
Shapiro told journalists in Pittsburgh after the event with open AI and Carnegie Mellon University to announce the arrangements from the Pilot Artificial Intelligence program that he would wait and see “what is the impact for students from Pennsylvania”, and also took any legal action, and said Trump to decide what the federal government looks like.
“The president pointed out that they do not intend to draw any dollars to our community.” So if anyone tries to take something from Pennsylvania, especially our students, they will have to go through me. “
»Read more: New Prosecutor General PA. He will not sue President Trump. What you need to know about the Republican Dave Sunday’s Dist to Be a “Boring AG”.
Shapiro’s answer differed from the reply of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, the second democrat, who quickly condemned Trump’s last order on Thursday as “unrestricted and unconstitutional.”
Republican leaders of the General Assembly accepted the idea of ​​access to federal dollars without federal restrictive requirements.
The leader of the majority of the Senate in Pennsylvania Joe Pittman (R., Indiana), on Thursday, expressed support for Trump’s order and said that “elimination of bureaucracy is a good thing.”
“Allowing more dollars flows directly to local communities, with their ability to apply them flexibly, it would be a general benefit of ensuring educational possibilities for all children,” added Pittman.
Before Thursday’s order, the leader of the home minority Jesse Topper (R., Bedford), who was a key member of the creation of a new education financing system in Pennsylvania, said in the Non -Profit PCN network, he would support the order if it meant that the federal funds would be transferred directly to Pennsylvania “without attaching zones”.
“In fact, we have been asking for this for years,” said Topper. “I think that there are many invasive bureaucracy at federal level.
“If we manage to limit it and still receive funds, I don’t know anyone in Pennsylvania, which will not be happy with it,” added Topper.
Proponents of public education in Pennsylvania are still afraid that the reduction of the American Department of Education will cause the financing of school districts in the whole state, including a huge role played by the financing of the title and in the education of students from families in families in an adverse economic situation.
