A federal judge on Monday blocked the authority of President Donald Trump’s administration to withhold some federal counterterrorism funding from states that don’t meet its election administration demands.
Courts have largely rejected the administration’s previous efforts, which reflect untrue claims about widespread voting fraud and come ahead of November’s midterm elections where Democrats seek to take control of one or both chambers of Congress and check Trump’s power.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington, D.C., wrote in a 24-page opinion that federal agencies didn’t have the authority from Congress to add such conditions to the grants, and that the conditions didn’t meet legal thresholds requiring them to relate to the underlying grant purpose.
Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor its subagency handling the grants, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, immediately responded to a request for comment. The grant conditions were the latest in a line of actions by Trump’s administration to shape how elections are run, a task that has long been the job of states.
The plaintiffs that sued were Columbus, Ohio; Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee; and El Paso and Harris counties in Texas.
Over the summer, a FEMA antiterrorism grant announcement included a list of election-related requirements, saying that 20% of grants for states and urban areas would be withheld until they comply.
The program includes more than $1 billion for states and local and tribal governments for a variety of programs aimed at preventing terror at crowded places, online, with border security — and around elections. FEMA expects to award 56 grants.
they never had the authority, so therefore the authority wasn’t blocked. the judge ruled that the administration doesn’t have the authority to do this.
the importance of the wording is subtle, but saying that they were blocked plays into the narrative that they could just get stuff done if it weren’t for activist judges, rather than the truth which is they’re breaking the law and the judges are judging them to have broken the law.
The Supreme Court will let them though, obviously they don’t have the authority in law as you say, but given the Supreme Court just revived their post office rule bullshit was it? I wouldn’t expect them to side with the constitution, and I haven’t for a very long time.
If the Supreme Court is so supreme, where’s the guac, ground beef and sourcream? Exactly.