Governor Josh Shapiro sued the Trump Administration last week over its “illegal effort” to place conditions on federal grant money owed to the commonwealth, according to a statement.
Shapiro joined more than two dozen other state leaders in the filing.
The lawsuit argues that President Donald Trump is attempting to withhold around 20% of state funding from states unless they adopt his administration’s election policy preferences. According to the statement, Pennsylvania would lose nearly $6 million in funding to support state, county, and local governments unless it adopts those preferences.
The lawsuit seeks to stop the “unlawful imposition of conditions” that require states to change the way they administer elections in order to receive funds awarded through the 2026 Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP).
Shapiro won a previous lawsuit after the Trump Administration withheld millions from Pennsylvania’s 2025 HSGP grant.
“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.”
The statement continues:
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registration list and the name of all poll workers to a faulty federal system that has been shown to be unreliable and outdated, transition their voting systems from reliable and proven voting systems to unproven technology shown to result in errors, and to change the Commonwealth’s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.
In addition to these unlawful conditions, the lawsuit challenges the 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.
The lawsuit also 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.
The lawsuit is below:
For all the latest news, follow us on Facebook or sign up for Glenside Local’s “Daily Buzz” newsletter here.