Aug. 18 (UPI) — Two counties and two cities are suing the Trump administration over conditioning national security funding on local governments adopting sweeping election procedures, calling the requirement illegal federal overreach.
The Brennan Center for Justice filed the lawsuit Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of Nashville and Davidson County, Tenn., Harris and El Paso counties, Texas, and Columbus, asking it to declare the decision to impose election administration conditions on grants unlawful and enjoin its enforcement.
“This is the kind of federal overreach we’ve come to expect from the Trump administration,” Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin said in a statement emailed to UPI. “To threaten law enforcement and public safety funding our agencies rely on, to withhold dollars that protect our communities for a partisan power grab is not only improper, it’s dangerous.”
Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has taken a series of actions he says are to improve election integrity and security but that Democrats and civil rights advocates have described as efforts to interfere with and undermine U.S. elections.
In June, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, under the Department of Homeland Security, updated compliance requirements for Homeland Security Grant Program funds, which are to help local governments prevent terrorism. Conditions added include creating a plan for transitioning to hand-marked paper ballots, conducting a 5% post-election manual audit and citizenship verification for all poll workers and registered voters, among others.
FEMA said it will withhold 20% of the recipient’s total HSGP funding until receipt of proof of compliance with the new requirements.
The jurisdictions suing the administration described the withholding of funds as FEMA holding their money “hostage” and its new election-related conditions “arbitrary and capricious.”
“Never before has FEMA purported to regulate how states and counties run elections,” they said in the lawsuit, stating that such a change would require congressional authorization, which FEMA does not have.
“The power to administer elections belongs to the states, subject only to conditions imposed by Congress — not the president, not the secretary of Homeland Security and not FEMA.”
The plaintiffs state that FEMA has not provided a “reasoned explanation” for the change in funding administration while ignoring the legal, financial and logistical “chaos” the new conditions will cause with midterm elections less than two months away and the potential harm withholding anti-terrorism funds could cause.
“Holding cities hostage by threatening anti-terrorism funding if they don’t go along with the president’s absurd election manipulation is as dangerous as it is illegal,” Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein said in a statement.
“We’re fighting back to protect public safety and election integrity. We will not be bullied by this president and his administration.”
