Shapiro sues Trump admin over Pa. election funding control

Governor Josh Shapiro is suing the Trump administration over withholding nearly $6 million in Pennsylvania homeland security funds tied to election policies. 

The governor’s office stated that Shapiro is challenging Trump’s “illegal effort” to hold millions of crucial homeland security dollars hostage in another attempt to control Pennsylvania’s elections. 

“The Trump administration is holding critical funding for homeland security and disaster response hostage in their latest attempt to take over our elections and perpetuate baseless conspiracy theories,” Shapiro said in a statement. “Withholding this funding will make our communities less safe and would be dangerous under any circumstance, but doing this in an attempt to undermine states’ authority over elections is reckless and unconstitutional. 

“I’m going to court to protect the people of Pennsylvania from this brazen attempt to withhold vital resources from our law enforcement officers and first responders.” 

Shapiro’s lawsuit seeks to stop the unlawful imposition of conditions that require states to change the way they administer elections to receive funds awarded through the 2026 Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP). 

The Trump administration is attempting to restrict 20% of states’ total funding to prepare for, protect against, respond to, and recover from catastrophic disasters. Pennsylvania would lose nearly $6 million in funding to support state, county, and local governments unless it adopted the Trump Administration’s election policy preferences. 

The governor’s office said that this is not the first time that the Trump administration has tried to withhold homeland security funding from Pennsylvania. Shapiro prevailed in lawsuit after the Trump Administration withheld millions from Pennsylvania’s 2025 HSGP grant. 

According to a release, among the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s new conditions to receive this critical funding are requirements to submit Pennsylvania’s voter registration list and the name of all poll workers to a faulty federal system that has been shown to be unreliable and outdated, transition their voting systems from reliable and proven voting systems to unproven technology shown to result in errors, and to change the commonwealth’s existing post-election audits to a process that follows nonexistent guidelines set by the Secretary of Homeland Security. 

The governor’s office stated that in addition to these “unlawful” conditions, the lawsuit challenges the Trump administration’s attempt to reinstate immigration-based conditions for DHS and FEMA funding — nearly identical to those previously struck down. If allowed to continue, states would be forced to devote scarce resources to do the work of the federal government on civil immigration enforcement, beyond what state laws allow or require, in order to receive funding through HSGP and other vital grant emergency management programs. 

In addition, Shapiro’s lawsuit challenges the Trump administration’s decision to condition all 2026 FEMA funding based on the agency’s own assessment of a state’s ability to align with the Administration’s priorities, potentially politicizing emergency responses. 

HSGP provides resources for state and local agencies to train public safety personnel in incident management, threat detection, and emergency response procedures; purchase equipment such as chemical and biological detection devices, robotics, drones, and protective gear; and maintain communication systems and public messaging infrastructure for coordinated disaster response. 

Minus this funding, counties and municipalities face significant gaps in their ability to prepare for and respond to emergencies. The governor’s office said the loss would limit training and continuing education for emergency managers; reduce the number of qualified personnel at state and county levels; and undermine communications networks and mutual aid agreements essential to disaster response and recovery. 

Each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties rely on federal HSGP funding to support local emergency management.