Attorney General Bonta Supports Challenge to Unlawful Election Conditions on Counterterrorism Funding

OAKLAND - California Attorney General Rob Bonta today co-led a multistate coalition in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in support of a challenge to the Trump Administration's imposition of unlawful election-related conditions that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) attached to federal counterterrorism funding. After six local governments in Republican-led states won in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, FEMA appealed and asked the D.C. Circuit to stay the judgment so that it can enforce the conditions while the appeal proceeds, a request today's brief urges the court to deny. Attorney General Bonta and a multistate coalition challenged these same conditions in a separate lawsuit filed in July 2026.

"The Trump Administration is once again making the safety of our communities collateral damage in its partisan agenda," said Attorney General Bonta. "Time and time again, this administration has tried to weaponize critical federal funding to force states into submission, and time and time again, the courts have rejected these unlawful power grabs. Counterterrorism funding exists to protect our communities from real threats, not to advance baseless election conspiracy theories. The safety of our communities is not a bargaining chip, which is why I urge the D.C. Circuit to deny the request to stay the district court ruling."

Congress established the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) in direct response to the horrific events of September 11, 2001, to help states and local governments prevent, prepare for, protect against, and respond to acts of terrorism. California and its cities receive $150 million in HSGP funding each year for these purposes. Over the last 18 months, FEMA has embarked upon aggressive and unprecedented efforts to use hundreds of millions of dollars appropriated for HSGP - and other federal grant programs - to extract unrelated policy changes from the states. Attorney General Bonta has successfully challenged similarly unlawful attempts to impose immigration conditions on transportation, homeland security, and Victims of Crime Act funding.

The conditions challenged here are part of this broader effort to leverage Congressionally-appropriated funding, requiring states to take a range of actions consistent with the President's election agenda, including adopting hand-marked paper ballots and using the inaccurate SAVE Act database to verify voter eligibility, to receive HSGP funds. California and the coalition have a strong interest in ensuring secure elections and maintaining public trust in the process, and complying with FEMA's unlawful conditions would interfere with this duty.

Today's amicus brief was filed in the municipalities' case, Nashville v. DHS. In the brief, the multistate coalition argues that FEMA's attempt to condition this homeland security funding would:

• Undermine the States' constitutional entitlement to regulate federal elections.
• Be exorbitantly expensive to implement and would impair the administration of elections.

In filing this brief, Attorney General Bonta and Attorney General Kwame Raoul lead the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the Governor of Kentucky.