New York, Portland And Seattle Sue Trump For Branding Them 'Anarchist' Cities
President Donald Trump was sued Thursday by New York, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle for designating them “anarchist” cities that shouldn’t get a penny of federal funding.
“This is a figment of Donald Trump’s troubled imagination,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters before the lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle. “The only anarchy in this country is coming from the White House.”
.@realDonaldTrump recently threatened our COVID-19 funding, our health care funding and our public safety. It’s a political ploy, and we’re not here to play games with people’s lives.
We’re joining Portland and Seattle to take him to court. We will fight. https://t.co/4Ggjqr2DAr— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) October 22, 2020
Trump instructed Attorney General William Barr last month to designate the cities “anarchist jurisdictions” following racial justice protests ignited by the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Federal funds to the cities should be cut to the maximum extent possible, he said in a presidential memorandum, which is referred to in the lawsuit as the “Anarchist Memo.”
The suit called Trump’s action “offensive to both the Constitution and common sense” — and “an oxymoronic designation without precedent in American jurisprudence.” Yet the consequences of cutting off funding for cities, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, are “deadly serious,” the suit declares.
The designation could cost the cities — all run by Democratic mayors — $12 billion in federal funds, even though the cities pump a significant amount of taxes into federal coffers.
“It is the Defendants, not the Cities, who are engaging in lawless behavior and threatening the democratic order established by the Framers,” the lawsuit says. “The Defendants’ actions violate bedrock principles of American democracy: separation of powers, federalism, and due process.”
The suit calls the...
