by Staff Report
HARTFORD, CT — A coalition of 19 attorneys general, including Connecticut’s William Tong, has secured a permanent injunction and blocked provisions of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order No. 14248 from taking effect, according to a statement from Tong’s office.
According to the statement, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted the coalition’s motion for a permanent injunction against the order, issued on March 25, 2025, that attempted to conscript state election officials in the campaign to impose documentary proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration, and withhold various streams of federal funding from the states if they fail to comply.
“This was a blatantly unconstitutional effort by the president to unlawfully commandeer state elections and micromanage how we vote,” Tong said. “We sued, we stopped him, and we will continue to fight back against any and all efforts by this president to disenfranchise voters and control our elections,” Tong said.
The coalition filed a lawsuit challenging the order in April 2025, secured a preliminary injunction blocking unlawful provisions of the order in June 2025, and successfully defeated the Trump Administration’s motion to dismiss in September 2025. The coalition filed a motion for a permanent injunction in December 2025, and the court heard oral argument in February 2026.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford co-led the filing of the April 2025 lawsuit. Joining them were the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
In April 2026, Connecticut also joined a coalition of 23 attorneys general and the governor of Pennsylvania in challenging Executive Order No. 14399, the second elections-related order issued by Trump. Executive Order No. 14399 attempts to interfere with states’ constitutional authority to administer elections by restricting voter eligibility and mail voting to lists of voters pre-authorized by the federal government, Tong said. The coalition filed a motion for summary judgment later in April 2026 in order to permanently block those changes, which the court has yet to fully rule on.