Last updated August 22, 2026. This page tracks active litigation between the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the federal government. It will be revised as dockets move.
Since January 2025, Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office has filed or joined dozens of lawsuits against federal agencies and officials, most as part of multistate coalitions. Some have already ended, a few in final judgments. Others sit before the First Circuit or the Supreme Court right now. This tracker covers the docket, not the politics: each entry lists what the plaintiffs claim, what the government argues where the record shows it, and where the case stood on the date above.
A note on scope. We list only cases we could verify against court records, the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, or comparable primary sources. Massachusetts participates in more coalition suits than appear here; where we could not confirm the Commonwealth’s role or the current posture, we left the case out. For ongoing coverage, see our legal news section.
Funding and grants
Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Agriculture
D. Mass., No. 1:26-cv-11396. Filed March 23, 2026. Massachusetts leads twenty states and the District of Columbia challenging conditions USDA attached to nutrition and agriculture grants, including certifications that funds will not support what the agency calls “gender ideology” or programs serving undocumented immigrants. The states argue the conditions are ambiguous, coercive, and unrelated to the programs’ purposes; USDA has moved to dismiss.
Status (Aug. 22, 2026): Preliminary injunction granted June 5, 2026, blocking enforcement of the conditions. The government’s motion to dismiss is pending; the states filed an amended complaint on August 14, 2026. Stakes: school meal, SNAP administration, and food security funding that flows through state agencies.
Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Education (loan forgiveness)
D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-13244. Filed November 3, 2025. Massachusetts leads twenty-one states and D.C. against a final rule, effective July 1, 2026, that would strip Public Service Loan Forgiveness eligibility from employers the Department deems engaged in activities with a “substantial illegal purpose.” The states say the rule is pretextual and exceeds the Department’s authority; the Department defends it as a lawful exercise of program administration.
Status (Aug. 22, 2026): Summary judgment briefing before Judge Myong J. Joun ran through April 2026; a decision is awaited. Stakes: PSLF eligibility for Massachusetts state and municipal employees, hospital workers, and nonprofit staff.
Massachusetts v. USDA (SNAP shutdown suspension)
D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-13165. Filed October 28, 2025. During the fall 2025 government shutdown, USDA suspended November SNAP benefits despite available contingency funds, and Massachusetts led twenty-six states, D.C., and two governors in suing. Judge Indira Talwani ordered the benefits released by November 13, 2025, and blocked a later directive requiring states to claw back full payments.
Status (Aug. 22, 2026): The emergency phase ended when the shutdown did; the case remains open, with deadlines held in abeyance in early 2026 while USDA guidance settled. Stakes: over a million Massachusetts residents receive SNAP; the case sets ground rules for the next funding lapse.
New York v. Trump (federal grant pause)
D.R.I., No. 1:25-cv-00039. Filed January 28, 2025. Twenty-two states and D.C., Massachusetts among them, challenged the Office of Management and Budget’s January 2025 directive pausing federal grant disbursements government-wide. The states argued the pause violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the separation of powers; the government maintained it was a lawful review of spending priorities.
Status (Aug. 22, 2026): A preliminary injunction entered March 6, 2025 remains the operative order in our last docket review; the government’s appeal is docketed in the First Circuit as No. 25-1236. Stakes: the baseline rule for whether federal grants already awarded to Massachusetts can be frozen en masse.
Massachusetts v. National Institutes of Health
D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-10338. Filed February 10, 2025. Massachusetts led the state coalition challenging NIH’s cap of indirect cost reimbursement at 15 percent for research grants, a change the states said would cost Massachusetts institutions hundreds of millions of dollars a year. NIH defended the cap as within its discretion.
Status (Aug. 22, 2026): Judge Angel Kelley entered a permanent injunction in 2025, and the First Circuit affirmed after consolidating the states’ case with parallel university association appeals. The judgment stands unless the government obtains Supreme Court review. Stakes: research funding at UMass, the Boston teaching hospitals, and every NIH-funded lab in the state.
Education and data
Massachusetts v. Department of Education (student data demand)
D. Mass., No. 1:26-cv-11229. Filed March 11, 2026. Massachusetts leads seventeen states challenging the Department’s rapid rollout of the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement, a survey requiring colleges and states to hand over expansive student-level data. The states claim violations of the Administrative Procedure Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act; the Department describes the survey as a transparency measure.
Status (Aug. 22, 2026): Preliminary injunction granted April 3, 2026, halting the survey for the plaintiff states, with follow-on relief for intervening higher education groups. Stakes: privacy of student records held by Massachusetts public campuses and the compliance burden on admissions offices.
New York v. McMahon (Department of Education reduction in force)
D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-10601. Filed March 2025. Massachusetts joined the state coalition, and a companion case brought by Somerville’s public schools was consolidated into it, challenging the layoff of roughly half the Department of Education’s staff and the executive order directing the agency’s closure. The states argue only Congress can dismantle the Department; the government frames the cuts as workforce management.
Status (Aug. 22, 2026): Judge Joun’s May 22, 2025 preliminary injunction was stayed by the Supreme Court on July 14, 2025, allowing the layoffs to proceed while the case continues. Merits litigation and the First Circuit appeal (No. 25-1500) remain pending. Stakes: federal special education oversight, civil rights enforcement, and student aid processing that Massachusetts districts rely on.
Health care
Massachusetts v. Oz
D. Mass., No. 1:26-cv-12962. Filed June 29, 2026. Massachusetts and Democratic officials in roughly half the states sued the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services over its rules implementing the new Medicaid work requirements, including how states must verify work hours and apply medical frailty exemptions. The states say the rules conflict with the statute and shift unlawful burdens onto beneficiaries; CMS says it is implementing what Congress enacted.
Status (Aug. 22, 2026): Early stage; no dispositive rulings yet in our review. Stakes: MassHealth coverage rules for hundreds of thousands of working-age enrollees.
Elections and environment
California v. Trump (2026 elections order)
D. Mass., No. 1:26-cv-11581. Filed April 3, 2026. Massachusetts is among twenty-four states and D.C. challenging Executive Order 14399, which the states say asserts federal control over mail ballot delivery and voter eligibility through pre-cleared federal lists. The administration argues the order enforces federal election law.
Status (Aug. 22, 2026): The district court granted summary judgment for the states on June 25, 2026. The First Circuit denied a stay on July 25, 2026, and the government asked the Supreme Court for emergency relief on July 27 (No. 26A124), an application still pending as amicus briefs arrived in early August. Stakes: how Massachusetts runs its September primary and November election if the order takes effect.
California v. Trump (2025 elections order)
D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-10810. Filed April 2025. A nineteen-state coalition including Massachusetts challenged Executive Order 14248, which directed documentary proof of citizenship for federal voter registration and other changes to election administration. The states contend the Constitution assigns those rules to states and Congress.
Status (Aug. 22, 2026): Judge Denise Casper preliminarily enjoined key provisions as to the plaintiff states on June 13, 2025; the case remains pending in the District of Massachusetts. Stakes: registration procedures for Massachusetts voters, particularly first-time registrants.
Massachusetts v. EPA
D.C. Circuit, No. 26-1061. Docketed 2026. Massachusetts petitioned for review of EPA’s rescission of the 2009 endangerment finding, the scientific determination underpinning federal greenhouse gas regulation. The states argue the rescission is arbitrary and contrary to the record; EPA says the original finding overstepped its Clean Air Act authority. A parallel petition by public health groups (No. 26-1037) is on the same track.
Status (Aug. 22, 2026): Petition pending before the D.C. Circuit; briefing in progress. The symmetry is hard to miss: the Commonwealth won the 2007 case that produced the endangerment finding, and is now defending it under the same caption. Stakes: vehicle emissions standards and the legal footing for state climate programs.
Suits against the Commonwealth
As of the date above, we found no active Justice Department lawsuit naming the Commonwealth, its officials, or its municipalities as defendants. DOJ has sued other jurisdictions over sanctuary-type policies, including New Jersey, Illinois, Minnesota, and the City of Newark, but no verified complaint against Massachusetts has appeared on a docket we reviewed. If that changes, this section will carry the caption and status first.
Recently closed
Three cases came off the active list this year. The birthright citizenship challenge, New Jersey v. Trump (D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-10139), with Massachusetts as a plaintiff, was effectively resolved when the Supreme Court held in Trump v. Barbara on June 30, 2026 that children born here to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens, striking down Executive Order 14160. The offshore wind permitting case, New York v. Trump (D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-11221), closed June 15, 2026 after the government dropped its appeal from Judge Saris’s December 2025 judgment vacating the permitting halt. And Massachusetts v. Kennedy (D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-10814), over terminated NIH research grants, ended by joint stipulation after the Supreme Court’s partial stay in the companion public health association case.
How to read this tracker
Most entries above turn on preliminary relief. A restraining order or preliminary injunction pauses a policy while the court decides the case; it reflects a prediction about the merits, not a final ruling. Final judgments, like the NIH indirect cost decision, resolve the case in the trial court but can climb the appeal ladder: district court, then the First Circuit (or D.C. Circuit for agency review petitions), then the Supreme Court. Emergency applications on the Court’s interim docket can flip the operative rule overnight, as the July 2025 stay in the Department of Education case showed, without deciding who ultimately wins.
What to watch this fall
The nearest flashpoint is the Supreme Court’s pending stay application in the 2026 elections case (No. 26A124), which could land any week and will control whether Executive Order 14399 operates during the fall election cycle. Judge Joun’s summary judgment decision in the loan forgiveness case is ripe, with the challenged rule effective since July 1, 2026. In the USDA conditions case, the motion to dismiss and the August 14 amended complaint tee up rulings this autumn, and the endangerment finding petitions will likely be set for argument in late 2026 or early 2027. We will update each entry as orders come down.
Frequently asked questions
Can a state sue the federal government?
Yes. States regularly sue federal agencies and officials, most often under the Administrative Procedure Act, which lets courts set aside agency action that is arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law. A state must show standing, meaning a concrete injury such as lost funding or new compliance costs, and these suits seek orders blocking federal action rather than damages.
What does a preliminary injunction mean?
It is a court order pausing the challenged policy while the lawsuit proceeds, entered when plaintiffs show they are likely to win and would suffer irreparable harm without it. It is not a final decision; a higher court can stay it, or the eventual judgment can go the other way. Since the Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling in Trump v. CASA, courts have less latitude to extend injunctions nationwide, so relief often covers only the states that sued.
Where are these cases heard?
Most Massachusetts-led suits are filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston, with appeals going to the First Circuit and then, if the Justices agree to hear them, the Supreme Court. Coalition cases sometimes land in other districts, such as Rhode Island, when another state leads. Challenges to certain agency rules, like the endangerment finding rescission, go straight to a court of appeals, usually the D.C. Circuit.