(The Center Square) – With a coalition of 26 states, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has joined a lawsuit against the federal government to secure more than $1 billion in funds previously appropriated to Illinois by Congress.
The money is intended for national security and disaster relief.
The core complaint of the lawsuit is against withholding federal funds on the condition that states share voter rolls, shift back to paper ballot systems, impose voter ID requirements and other election-related policies backed by President Donald Trump’s administration in the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility America, or SAVE, Act.
Meanwhile, at least 26 across the country already participate in a similar federal SAVE program, sharing voter information with the federal government, with Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia appearing on the suit while also sharing data through the program.
Last week, Raoul joined Attorneys General Rob Bonta from California, Jennifer Davenport from New Jersey, and Peter Neronha of Rhode Island on a video call to discuss the lawsuit.
“President Trump refuses to listen to the courts when they tell him that he cannot exceed the authority of his office and he cannot extort states into doing what he wants,” Raoul said. “The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security are again trying to impose unrelated and unlawful conditions on funds that Congress appropriated for the states to prepare for and respond to emergencies and that including acts of terrorism.”
Illinois receives more than $40 million in Homeland Security grant funding each year for the state and municipal governments to prevent and prepare for the response to acts of terrorism and other disasters.
Raoul said the lawsuit isn’t the first time his office has sued to prevent a withholding of the DHS funding. He said the state filed and won two other federal lawsuits against the government in the last year.
“Despite our coalition already winning two lawsuits in this past year that protected the same funding, the Trump administration still thinks it’s above the law and can hold funds hostage to push its policy priorities,” Raoul said. “Despite several federal courts, including seven judges appointed by President Trump himself, telling the administration they cannot demand a state’s voter rolls, the president continues to try to force states to provide them.”
In May, the federal government withdrew its challenge to the coalition’s second lawsuit.
Bonta said the funding being restricted would make communities in California and across the nation more vulnerable and susceptible to emergency situations, which will be more costly to address after the fact.
“This means our community would have fewer resources to prepare for wildfires, earthquakes, floods, terrorist threats, and other emergencies. Public safety should never become a bargaining chip,” Bonta said.
The federal government has yet to respond to the filing.
