How Trump’s anti-DEI focus unraveled money for schools and more news from the states

Good morning, readers! We’re back with another busy edition of Daybreak. We’re starting off today’s lineup with news of an executive order out of Washington, D.C.

In case you missed it, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order that aims to reshape guidance surrounding childhood vaccines, standing alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and was met with immediate pushback, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports.

Members of the Rocky Mount City Council in North Carolina voted against a proposal to halt utility cutoffs after a tense meeting. The decision came after a family of three and their dogs were found dead in their mobile home last week, shortly after their electricity was cut off by the city for lack of payment. 

In election news, voters are headed to the polls in Alabama, Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont and Wisconsin today. We’ll have results for you tomorrow morning. See you then.

National: Since Trump began his second term with a vow to crack down on illegal immigration, more than a dozen states have enacted laws designed to keep ICE away from schools. But recent incidents show the limits of state and local authority when it comes to immigration enforcement.

Washington: Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson signed an emergency proclamation to temporarily suspend some state laws in order to fast-track the recovery process from wildfires ravaging parts of the state. The announcement comes as fires have burned over 700,000 acres this year, destroying more than 871 homes. 

Virginia: U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is asking the state’s college and university presidents and governing boards to review how they operate and make changes, with a specific focus on whether universities are delivering affordable, high-quality education while maintaining free speech, academic standards and accountability to the public.

Louisiana: A new state law prohibits merchants from adding surcharges to debit card transactions, but critics say the ban actually benefits the banks and credit card companies that created the fees. Supporters have promoted the measure as a consumer protection law. It does not apply to credit cards. 

Michigan: Voters will decide whether to upend campaign finance in the state when they head to the polls in November as outrage over money in politics intensifies pressure for changes. The ballot proposal is one of the most significant efforts to curb outside spending in state politics after a yearslong stalemate in Lansing.

Utah: Republican Gov. Spencer Cox is spearheading the state’s push to bolster quantum technology development with a new executive order that will create the Utah Quantum Initiative and the Quantum Coordination Council, a governing body to oversee the effort.

South Dakota: A judge has ruled in favor of a state law that helps rural healthcare providers buy discounted drugs and mark up their sale price to fill budget holes created by low Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates.

See the rest of the news of the day from all 50 states, plus our D.C. Bureau and Stateline, on News From The States.

Three years ago, a handful of Maine school districts struggling with student mental health needs applied for a federal grant to help them hire school counselors and social workers. The grant applications included a commitment to hiring staff that represented their particular community and understood its needs, Maine Morning Star reports. 

The grant — part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that Congress passed in 2022 in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting in Texas — provided about $1.7 million annually that the Maine Department of Education distributed among nine districts, most of them rural and small. 

Thanks to the grant, Skowhegan schools, which had seen a string of student suicides, was now able to offer students clinical counseling. In Lewiston, schools hired mental health professionals to help both students and staff cope with the aftermath of the 2023 mass shooting, said Assistant Superintendent Karen Paquette. And Somerville-area schools no longer had to rely on a single social worker to shuttle between five schools across three counties.

But last year, the grant — known as Expanding Access in School Environments, or EASE Maine — was inexplicably cut by the Trump administration.

Maine joined several other states in a lawsuit against those federal cuts last year, and in December a district court ordered the administration to release the mental health funding. Despite that order, Maine only received just over $688,000, which was less than half the annual allocation. 

It wasn’t until court proceedings in June that the Maine education department found out that the Trump administration’s opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion programs was the reason behind the grant’s termination; it was never put in any official notice, said Bethany Cunningham, EASE grant manager for the department.

The Nebraska Democratic Party and the national Working Families Party have sued Nebraska’s Working People Party to block it from the fall ballot, Nebraska Examiner reports. 

The two objecting parties are asking Lancaster District Court Judge Darla Ideus to stop Nebraska Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen from officially recognizing the party, and to declare that the party’s name is breaking state law because it is meant to confuse voters. 

The lawsuit filed Monday cites state law that says the secretary of state can reject a candidate’s filing if the state’s top election official determines that someone is not a “good-faith candidate” or is trying to cause confusion for voters. The law also says objections to party names can be considered. 

A lawsuit filed last week by the Nebraska Republican Party suing the America First Party also cites that law.