Blow to Trump: Court blocks his plans

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali stated in a 24-page opinion that federal agencies did not have congressional authority to add such conditions to federal grant programs.

Ali also concluded that the conditions failed to meet the legal standards governing such requirements, dealing a setback to the Trump administration’s efforts to influence the conduct of elections ahead of the November midterm elections in the United States, in which Democrats are seeking to take control of one or both chambers of Congress and limit Trump’s power.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its grant-management agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The grant conditions were the latest in a series of Trump administration actions aimed at influencing how elections are conducted, an area traditionally under the authority of individual states.

The lawsuit was filed by the City of Columbus, Ohio; Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee; and El Paso and Harris County, Texas, along with two other Texas counties — Dallas and Travis.

“The end result is exactly what we wanted,” said Tyler Chance Yarbrough, Nashville and Davidson County’s legal director.

Harris County Commissioner Leslie Briones accused the Trump administration of using community safety as a “bargaining chip” in partisan politics.

A similar lawsuit was also filed by 25 state attorneys general or governors.

During the summer, when announcing the counterterrorism grants, FEMA outlined the election-related requirements and said that 20% of the funding allocated to states and urban areas would be withheld until those requirements were met.

The program provides more than $1 billion to state, local and tribal governments, with the funds intended for programs aimed at preventing terrorist attacks in public places, online, along borders and in connection with elections.

The requirements included verifying the citizenship of all registered voters and election workers, developing plans to transition to hand-marked paper ballots in jurisdictions using electronic systems with barcodes or QR codes, and providing evidence that each jurisdiction conducts an audit of election results.

The cities and counties that filed the lawsuit argued that FEMA does not have the authority to impose such conditions, either under the law governing its operations or under the U.S. Constitution.

The court’s decision represents another legal dispute between the Trump administration and local authorities over jurisdictional authority regarding the conduct of elections and the conditions under which states and local communities can receive federal funding.