Cities Labeled “Anarchist” Sue Trump Administration

By CARMEN SAFFIOTI

Three major cities, including New York, have filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration for designating the
cities as “anarchist jurisdictions” and threatening to withhold federal grants, Mayor de Blasio announced on Thursday  a press briefing.

“It’s morally wrong, it’s legally unacceptable, it’s unconstitutional and we’re going to fight it.” said de Blasio.

The lawsuit was filed in the federal courts of Washington State and Oregon — as well as the Southern District of New York.

In addition, New York State Attorney General Leitita James announced in late September that she was preparing a similar lawsuit
against the  designation made in a presidential memorandum but she is not a party to the current lawsuit.

Cash-strapped New York City initially brushed off the threat of the federal government withholding funding. But in early October, the Federal
Transit Authority denied the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which controls the city’s subways and buses, from applying for COVID-19 related federal funding in relation to the “anarchist jurisdiction” designation.

The designation of “anarchist jurisdiction” could potentially allow the federal government to withhold up to $12 billion in federal grants that are desperately needed to keep a straggling transit system and social services running, city officials said.

“Second, they’re moving in a way that is arbitrary and capricious,” said Corporation Counsel James Johnson. “There is no basis in law, there is no basis in fact, for this anarchist determination, and yet they are going to use it to determine who does and who does not get federal funding.”

U.S. Attorney General William Barr who first defined “anarchist jurisdiction” has said the cities allowed “violence and destruction of property to persist.”

The Department of Justice cited the city’s spike in gun violence over the past months and the decision of the City Council to funnel $1 billion from the New York Police Department’s budget to youth and social services as justification for the designation.