A federal judge on Monday blocked the Federal Emergency Management Agency from withholding anti-terrorism funds from local governments that don’t change how they run elections.
It marked the latest blow to the Trump administration’s attempts to rewrite election rules.
In June, FEMA made counterterrorism grants available but said it would withhold 20 percent of the funding from states and local governments that didn’t agree to use a federal database to check the citizenship status of voters, make plans to stop using certain types of voting equipment and modify other aspects of how they run elections.
Cities and counties sued, arguing that FEMA didn’t have the authority to condition counterterrorism grants on how they run their elections. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali in Washington, D.C., agreed with them.
“The statute does not authorize FEMA to withhold counterterrorism grants until states and high-risk urban areas achieve policy objectives on their own dime,” wrote Ali, who was appointed by President Joe Biden.
FEMA’s suggestion on how elections should be run “may be a laudable goal,” Ali wrote, “but it is not a counterterrorism goal.”
The counterterrorism grants typically total $1 billion to $2 billion a year. The ruling bars FEMA from holding back part of that money by tying it to the election conditions.
“Today’s win is the result of cities and counties standing together against blatant federal overreach that jeopardized public safety,” said Abbie Kamin, the county attorney for Harris County, Texas, one of the local governments that filed the lawsuit.
FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department did not immediately say whether it would appeal the ruling.
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