Texas’ Harris and El Paso counties have joined Metro Nashville and Davidson County in Tennessee and the city of Columbus in Ohio in a suit against the Trump administration over new Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rules they say improperly tie homeland‑security grants to election changes.
The lawsuit, filed in Washington, DC on Aug. 17, challenges the administration’s attempt to link counterterrorism and emergency‑response dollars to election mandates that local officials say are burdensome, costly, and outside federal authority. The conditions include revising voter rolls using a federal database critics describe as unreliable and conducting post‑election audits based on guidelines that have not yet been issued. They would also require hand‑marked paper ballots, poll‑worker citizenship checks and other shifts.
The Houston area receives over $23 million through Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) funding, a $584 million national program supporting law‑enforcement equipment, terrorism‑prevention training and detection of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive threats.
