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Attorney General William Tong joined a coalition of 16 attorneys general filing a lawsuit challenging actions by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), including threats to withhold funding from state and local fair housing enforcement agencies for not following HUD guidance.
The HUD guidance bars Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP) agencies from using funds to “promote gender ideology” or to “fund or promote elective abortions.”
The guidance also bars the use of funding in a manner that "facilitates the subsidization or promotion of illegal immigration or abets policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation.”
The Tongfare coalition believes HUD has imposed "illegal conditions" on the funding, and argues these actions "threaten to weaken America’s fair housing enforcement system," undermine equal access to housing, and will almost certainly lead to increased discrimination in housing.
“People deserve fair access to safe, affordable housing regardless of who they love, how they identify, the language they speak or the rental assistance they may receive. But the Trump Administration is threatening to defund Connecticut and other states unless we allow landlords to discriminate based on sexual orientation, gender, language, source of income, and a bunch of other practices clearly prohibited under state law. We need housing to be more affordable and more accessible, and we’re suing to stop Donald Trump from making that even harder,” said Attorney General Tong.
Sixty years ago, Congress enacted the Fair Housing Act to address pervasive housing discrimination. Congress also created a partnership between HUD and state and local agencies, known as the Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP), to enforce this landmark civil rights law in tandem with state fair housing laws. The FHAP has had strong bipartisan support in Congress and stable funding since it was established in 1980.
In the lawfare being waged today, Attorney General Tong and the coalition allege that the Trump administration is "seeking to illegally undermine this partnership by attacking states’ ability to combat housing discrimination under their own democratically enacted state laws."
Through the FHAP, HUD refers allegations of housing discrimination to state and local partner agencies for investigation and enforcement. These agencies receive HUD funding, which they use to process housing discrimination complaints, train staff, and support community outreach and education.
In September 2025, HUD issued guidance aimed at removing race-based and other policies that ran counter to civil rights principles and departed from the plain text of the Fair Housing Act. HUD also noted that "previous enforcement directives, based on ideology but not statute, rendered it “impracticable” to complete investigations in a timely manner."
The way the Tongfare coalition sees it, HUD is "attempting to impose vague, ideologically motivated, and unlawful conditions on program funding" -- the irony is rich. Tong and the coalition assert that the administration’s actions will "raise the costs of enforcing state and federal fair housing laws in their states" and also argue that "HUD’s vague conditions will sow confusion over enforcement."
The coalition’s lawsuit alleges that HUD’s guidance violates the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies implement rule changes.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul are leading the coalition. Joining Attorney General Bonta, Attorney General Raoul and Attorney General Tong in filing the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
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