On October 1, D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd E. Edelman permanently barred federal prosecutors from reviving a felony property-destruction charge against David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist accused of damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

The government itself had asked to dismiss the case after concluding that Hearn’s conduct had not caused the damage required for the offense. Ordinarily, such a dismissal would leave prosecutors free to bring the charge again if new evidence emerged. Edelman instead dismissed the case with prejudice, preventing the government from prosecuting Hearn again on the same charge.

The reason was not simply that the original case had fallen apart. President Donald Trump repeatedly and publicly pressed the U.S. Attorney’s Office to reverse its decision, while the government found no evidence likely to make the prosecution viable in the future.

Hearn was arrested June 19 after a National Park Service employee said he had pulled at the blue coating inside the Reflecting Pool. Hearn maintained from the beginning that he had touched material that was already peeling and had not torn or removed the liner. A grand jury indicted him July 2 on one felony count of malicious destruction of property causing at least $1,000 in damage.

Then prosecutors received additional records from the Department of the Interior and National Park Service.

A National Park Service engineer had written on June 11, more than a week before Hearn’s arrest, that overspray around the pool was vulnerable to peeling. An engineering analysis conducted after the pool was drained attributed damage to overspraying and a failure of the coating to bond. After reviewing those records and hundreds of megabytes of material, the U.S. Attorney’s Office concluded that flawed installation and the rush to finish the project before America 250 events had caused the damage.

The government’s July 31 motion acknowledged that the new information made it difficult to attribute the widespread damage to vandalism, much less prove that proposition beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors said they would not have sought Hearn’s indictment had they received the information earlier.

They moved to dismiss.

President Trump objected almost immediately.

On August 1, Trump posted that he disagreed “100%” with U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision. Two days later, speaking at the White House, he said, “Jeanine Pirro made a mistake. It was vandalism.” He later said he was disappointed with Pirro and that she had “folded like an umbrella.”

On August 4, Trump publicly left open whether he might remove Pirro because of the decision. On August 7, he urged her to revisit the case and specifically referred to Hearn’s political activity through ActBlue and his representation by lawyer Norm Eisen as reasons for reconsideration.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not reverse itself. It maintained that the case should be dismissed. But it asked Edelman to dismiss the charge without prejudice, which would preserve its ability to prosecute Hearn again during the applicable limitations period.

That is where this case becomes an example of the Pattern of Power “Turn public office into personal power”.

The criminal justice system necessarily gives prosecutors considerable discretion. They decide which cases to pursue, which charges the evidence supports, and when circumstances require dismissal. Presidents also supervise the executive branch, appoint U.S. attorneys, establish enforcement priorities and publicly disagree with prosecutorial decisions.

None of those powers, standing alone, demonstrates this Pattern.

What changed in Hearn’s case was the relationship between the evidence, the prosecutorial decision and presidential power. The office responsible for the prosecution had concluded from government records and engineering evidence that Hearn’s conduct had not caused the economic damage necessary for the charged offense. Trump nevertheless repeatedly demanded that his subordinate prosecutors revisit that conclusion. He did not point to newly discovered evidence establishing Hearn’s guilt. His public argument included Hearn’s political activity and his choice of attorney.

That difference mattered because Trump was not commenting from outside the government. The prosecutors worked within the executive branch he headed. At the September hearing, the government acknowledged that the president could replace the U.S. attorney and her assistants. Edelman found that Trump’s statements therefore created a risk that the existing prosecutors might eventually yield to the pressure or be replaced by prosecutors more willing to revive the case.

A dismissal without prejudice would have left Hearn open to renewed felony prosecution, even though the prosecuting office said the evidence showed he had committed no crime.

The government told Edelman it had no current plans to prosecute Hearn again. But when the judge asked what evidence might make a future case possible, prosecutors could not identify any. The court described the prospect as “theoretical at best” and noted that the government had stopped investigating Hearn’s conduct.

That left two different forms of discretion operating at the same time.

One was ordinary prosecutorial discretion: the government’s authority to reassess evidence, abandon a case that could not be proved, and preserve the possibility of acting if meaningful new evidence eventually appeared.

The other was political power reaching into an individual prosecution: a president repeatedly demanding a different outcome from subordinate prosecutors and identifying the defendant’s political activity and lawyer in the process.

Edelman did not find that Pirro or the prosecutors handling the case had acted in bad faith. His order expressly declined to decide that question and said the government’s quick decision to abandon the prosecution strongly supported its contention that it acted in good faith when it dismissed the case.

In this case, they did the opposite: once additional evidence arrived, they told the court the prosecution lacked merit and asked to end it.

The judge’s problem was what would happen if the door remained open afterward.

Courts normally dismiss charges without prejudice for practical reasons. A missing witness may appear. New evidence may emerge. An investigative problem may be solved. Edelman’s order emphasized that such dismissals are routine and that courts generally defer to prosecutors about which cases should proceed.

Hearn’s case was different because the government could identify no unresolved evidentiary problem that might realistically be cured. At the same time, the official with ultimate authority over the executive branch was publicly insisting that the case should be revived.

That combination gives readers a useful way to distinguish ordinary oversight from personal power.

When government officials revisit an investigation or prosecution, three questions can help identify what is happening:

• What new evidence or legal basis justifies changing the earlier decision?

• Is a political leader setting a general enforcement policy, or demanding a particular outcome against a named person from officials responsible for applying the law?

• Are the person’s political activity, criticism, associations or choice of lawyer being cited as reasons to investigate, prosecute or keep the possibility of prosecution alive?

Those questions apply well beyond the Department of Justice. Regulatory agencies, inspectors general, licensing bodies and other government offices also possess powers that can impose costs on particular people. A president, governor, mayor or other executive official may legitimately supervise those institutions. The Pattern begins to appear when the government’s coercive authority is redirected toward a particular person because the officeholder wants action that the institution’s own evidentiary or professional judgment does not support.

In Hearn’s case, the safeguard that mattered was a judge’s authority to decide whether dismissal left the door open. Edelman closed it.

Once a leader’s personal demand can preserve the threat of prosecution after prosecutors themselves say the case cannot be sustained, public office is no longer being used only to enforce the law. It is being used to keep a particular person within reach of government punishment.

Sources

1. D.C. Superior Court, Judge Todd E. Edelman, October 1, 2026 order dismissing United States v. David C. Hearn with prejudice. This is the principal source for the chronology, the government’s evidentiary conclusions, Trump’s statements, the Rule 48 analysis and the court’s reason for permanently barring reprosecution. Democracy Defenders Fund
Read the complete October 1 court order

2. U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Government’s Motion to Dismiss the Indictment, July 31, 2026. The government’s own filing explains why it concluded that flawed contractor installation rather than Hearn’s conduct caused the relevant damage. NACDL
Read the government’s July 31 motion to dismiss

3. National Archives / GovInfo, presidential remarks, August 3, 2026. Official transcript of Trump’s public statements that Pirro had made a mistake, his claim that the pool damage was vandalism, and his criticism of her handling of the case. GovInfo
Read the official August 3 presidential transcript

4. National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers case file. Provides the case docket and links to the indictment, government’s dismissal motion and subsequent filings. NACDL
United States v. Hearn case file

5. Bloomberg Law, October 1, 2026. Independent reporting confirming the permanent dismissal, the government’s position and the practical effect of the ruling. Bloomberg Law
Ex-Olympian Protected from Future Reflecting Pool Charges

In an opinion signed March 11, Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg quashed two federal grand-jury subpoenas served on the Federal Reserve. He concluded that prosecutors had issued them for an improper purpose: to pressure then-Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates or resign.

The ruling did not merely question whether prosecutors had enough evidence. Boasberg found that the government had produced “essentially zero evidence” that Powell had committed a crime and that its stated reasons for the subpoenas were pretextual. The court found abundant evidence that their dominant purpose was to pressure Powell to yield to President Donald Trump’s demands or leave office. Justia Law

That finding turns what might otherwise look like another dispute between a president and the Federal Reserve into a clear example of a Pattern of Power: Attack independent institutions.

From political pressure to criminal process

Trump publicly criticized Powell about interest rates for years and by 2025, his criticism was more obvious and direct.

Boasberg’s article said there were at least 100 public statements from Trump or his administration officials criticizing Powell or demanding lower rates. Trump said in June 2025, that if the Fed did not cut rates, he might have to “force something.” In November, he said he wanted Powell out.

Independent of this, the controversy with the renovation of the Federal Reserve building in Washington D.C. was also gaining attention.

The renovation was also faced with many issues. It cost twice as much as what was originally budgeted, from $921 million in the Board’s February 2020 renovation budget to $2.018 billion in its 2024 budget. In July 2025, William Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Director said Powell should be investigated for the renovation and his testimony regarding it and said it could serve as grounds for his removal. Trump said Powell should also be immediately removed. The White House also it would look into the renovations.

In November, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia opened a criminal investigation into possible fraud regarding the renovation and possible false statements by Powell to Congress. In January, the Federal Reserve received grand-jury subpoenas seeking records of the renovation and information related to Powell’s congressional testimony.

Powell responded publicly on January 11, saying the investigation posed the threat of criminal charges and defended the renovations as part of the administrative function of the Federal Reserve.

“This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions,” Powell said, “or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”

At that point, Powell’s description was an allegation. Two months later, a federal judge reviewed the documents the government submitted to the court to support the subpoenas and came to the same conclusion.

What the government said

The Justice Department did have an argument for investigating.

The renovation was far over budget. Prosecutors said that raised the possibility of fraud. They also pointed to what they described as possible discrepancies in Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee.

The government also said prosecutors had tried to obtain information without subpoenas. According to a Justice Department court filing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office contacted the Federal Reserve twice in December 2025 seeking a meeting and received no response. Prosecutors argued that the grand jury therefore had legitimate reasons to investigate whether crimes had occurred.

Boasberg did not find those explanations persuasive.

A large construction overrun did not by itself establish evidence of fraud, he wrote. The government also failed to identify what was supposedly false in Powell’s congressional testimony. The judge gave prosecutors an opportunity to provide additional evidence privately to the court without revealing it to Powell or the Federal Reserve.

The court still found no substantial evidence supporting a criminal investigation. Instead, Boasberg found a sequence in which political pressure for lower interest rates was followed by demands for Powell’s removal, calls for investigation and then grand-jury subpoenas.

The Justice Department closed the investigation on April 24 rather than continue litigating the subpoenas. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro referred the renovation issues to the Federal Reserve inspector general and said a criminal investigation could resume if the watchdog uncovered evidence warranting one.

That evidence never emerged.

What the Inspector General found

The inspector general’s September report matters because it did not clear the Fed of wrongdoing.

It outlined several failures. The Board did not utilize the available tools to reduce costs. It did not successfully implement a contracting method to control financial risk. Its oversight and governance processes were inadequate. The inspector general made seven recommendations, all of which the Board accepted.

The watchdog, however, distinguished between mismanagement and criminal conduct.

The inspector general found no basis to make a criminal referral and no evidence of administrative misconduct. It also stated that the design features, such as marble, water, and garden features, did not account for the cost overruns.

On October 2, the Justice Department said it will not reopen the Powell criminal investigation based on the Inspector General’s report. Attorney General Todd Blanche left the possibility of taking other actions if additional evidence of wrongdoing became available.

The Pattern: Attack independent institutions

The Fed isn’t independent because its personnel have no real accountability.

The arrangement Congress created is different. Congress sets the monetary policy goals and oversees the Federal Reserve, while the Fed decides the means to achieve those goals, without presidential control over interest-rate decisions. This removes short-term political considerations from monetary policy.

Distinguishing the above is the Pattern operating here.

Investigating fraud by no means is an attack on an institution’s independence. The same is true with Congressional hearings and the case with the Inspector General reviewing a billion-dollar increase in costs.

A criminal investigation is a cost. An official doesn’t need an indictment to hire lawyers, produce records, and defend their actions. The risk of indictment always remains. Boasberg has specifically said that a subpoena has the effect of creating expense, anxiety, and fear even if an indictment is never obtained.

That changes the cost of saying no.

Presidents cannot order the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. However, the independence established by law means the Fed can refuse the President’s demands and still risk investigations, subpoenas, or possible criminal charges; then the law will begin to function under a different set of incentives.

The legal authority to say no remains, but the cost of saying no has changed.

The difference between accountability and pressure

The analysis of the renovation illustrates why this is important.

The IG found considerable mismanagement. That is an example of institutional accountability.

The criminal investigation was different, because the court found that its dominant purpose was not to investigate evidence of a crime. It was to pressure Powell to change his position on a policy matter.

It is not whether an independent agency has made poor decisions that warrant an investigation.

It is whether documented wrongdoing is being used to justify changing the limits of an independent agency’s autonomy.

What to watch for next

The same process does not require another Federal Reserve dispute. It can happen when an official or institution retains the legal power to act on its own but faces political pressure not to. Courts, Inspectors General, prosecutors, election officials, regulators, universities, school boards, counties, and many others can face one-way or multiple-way pressure to use their power independently (investigations, subpoenas, loss of funding, etc.) without an explicit loss of independence.

Which happened first? Was documented wrongdoing the impetus for oversight to act? Or did coercive action follow the executive order not to act? Do the means of the investigation fit the ends of the alleged misconduct?

In Powell’s case, a federal court found that the subpoenas were issued for an improper purpose. However, the Inspector General of the Federal Reserve found serious management failures but no grounds for a criminal referral. The Federal Reserve never lost its independence to set interest rates.

That is the Pattern of undermining an independent institution without formally abolishing it. The authority remains the same, on paper, and the government uses its own coercive power to make acting on the independence costly.

Sources

Federal court opinion, In re Grand Jury Subpoenas, March 2026

Federal Reserve Inspector General, Evaluation of the Eccles-1951 Renovation Project Management and Construction Costs

Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell statement on the DOJ subpoenas, January 11, 2026

Reuters, How the DOJ went from investigating Powell to dropping the case

Reuters, Justice Department closes investigation into Powell

Reuters, Fed watchdog finds deficiencies but no misconduct

Reuters, DOJ will not reopen criminal probe into Powell, October 2, 2026

Federal Reserve, why monetary-policy independence matters

The Kentucky House voted 73-14 on March 20 to adopt articles of impeachment for Fayette Circuit Judge Julie Muth Goodman. The articles were based on six cases. Five of the actions Goodman took had already been reversed on appeal; the Kentucky Supreme Court was handling the sixth case to disqualify Goodman.

The House sent the articles to the Senate for an impeachment trial.

On April 6, Supreme Court granted Goodman a supervisory writ, vacated House Resolution 124 and the impeachment proceedings, and barred the General Assembly from taking any further action against Goodman. House Impeachment Committee chair Jason Nemes and House Speaker David Osborne asked the court to reconsider. On September 24, the six justices who participated in the ruling split 3-3, allowing the April ruling to stand.

The House Impeachment Committee said the six cases, taken together, showed something more serious than ordinary legal error. It described a pattern of conduct it believed amounted to abuse of judicial authority and “misdemeanors in office.”

The Supreme Court majority reached a different conclusion. It said the allegations arose from Goodman’s judicial rulings and belonged primarily within appellate review and judicial discipline. The court also found a separate due-process problem: because five of the six cases were still pending, Goodman could not fully defend her decisions at a public impeachment hearing without risking violation of the judicial rules governing comments on pending cases.

That difference shows how the Pattern of Power called “Attack independent institutions” can operate.

Six cases became articles of impeachment

On January 28th former state representative Killian Timoney filed a petition with the Kentucky House of Representatives alleging that Judge Goodman had abused her judicial discretion and authority in six cases. Goodman had overseen all six cases, but Timoney had no connection to any of them.

The cases, now decided, involved significant matters. Judge Goodman dismissed a defendant in a case involving a fatal collision, set aside a jury verdict, ordered the release of a detained prisoner, refused to disqualify herself from representing the University of Kentucky in a case involving her personal interests, and denied the University of Kentucky’s claim of immunity in another case.

In five cases, appellate courts, or the courts that heard the appeals, reversed Goodman’s decisions. The Kentucky Supreme Court ordered Goodman disqualified in the other case.

The House committee that considers articles of impeachment noted that the reversal alone did not justify recommending impeachment of Judge Goodman. In its March 19 report to the House, the Committee said reversals are usually the result of judges disagreeing on a case, and impeachment should not become a means to influence a judge’s decision.

House Representative and Committee chair Jason Nemes, who also sponsored the articles of impeachment, said Goodman repeatedly abused her authority. Goodman was “intentionally wrong,” he said. “This is not a judge who made a mistake; this is something else entirely.” The committee described what it considered repeated abuses of authority and concluded that her conduct constituted “misdemeanors in office.”

The House impeached Judge Goodman on March 20, 2016.

The Kentucky Supreme Court came to a different conclusion.

The court drew a boundary around judicial decisions

The court first identified a procedural error. The Kentucky statute states that a citizen’s impeachment petition must be verified by affidavit. In this case, the petition for impeachment of Goodman lacked verification. The majority of the Court held that the omission was fatal.

However, the Court did a more comprehensive review of each of the six allegations.

It held that each of the allegations arose from Goodman’s exercise of her judicial authority in the cases before her. The Court noted that appellate review corrected five of the challenged actions, and the Supreme Court settled the recusal dispute in the remaining one.

The Court did not hold judges immune from impeachment. The Kentucky Constitution grants the House the impeachment power, and the Senate the power to hold impeachment trials. Judges remain subject to discipline through the Judicial Conduct Commission.

The processes serve distinct functions. Appeals correct judicial decisions. The conduct commission addresses misconduct. Impeachment can remove an official from office.

The majority of the justices held that the Goodman proceedings crossed those institutional lines by using impeachment to address a judge for conduct connected with making judicial rulings.

Justice Shea Nickell dissented. While he also believed that judicial independence is vital, he said that, in doing so, the Supreme Court also crossed a constitutional line by illegitimately encroaching on the authority of the legislature. In that regard, he said, the Supreme Court also lacked the authority to intervene and stop the impeachment process.

The main point of disagreement is the extent of the Court’s power to act in cases where a power capable of removing a judge is used, and whether that power applies to decisions judges make in the course of exercising their adjudicative functions. There is no disagreement as to the power to hold judges to account.

When accountability changes the conditions of independence

An independent court is not a court that is free from correction.

Sometimes, trial court judges are reversed. Sometimes judges. Like all other government employees, they can be disciplined for misconduct. Sometimes legislators can and do criticize court rulings. Normally, those forms of accountability do not result in another branch controlling the judge’s employment or tenure.

The impeachment process can result in a judge losing their job. Judges do not have to wait to be removed from office to feel the consequences of a judicial decision.

Sometimes an adverse judicial decision is taken as evidence to impeach a judge. Then, the consequence of a judicial decision is that the judge becomes subject to the legislative branch’s disciplinary process.

The Kentucky Supreme Court analyzed that effect. The majority said judges needed to be able to decide cases without fear of impeachment because a ruling was legally wrong or an abuse of discretion. Justice Kelly Thompson, writing separately in concurrence, viewed impeachment based on disagreement with judicial decisions as intimidation of judicial independence.

Goodman need not prove that, or any other Kentucky judge, actually changed a ruling due to the proceedings. This is the new kind of risk the judge is facing when exercising judicial discretion.

A judge knows that a higher court can review his or her decision. This is judicial review. If the same decision judges make can also put the judge’s office at risk, then a third branch can exercise its removal power.

An institution’s independence can be compromised without any order being issued concerning it.

The safeguards were already working

The order is significant.

Critics of Goodman’s rulings had many opportunities to review them. Five were overturned. The Supreme Court stepped in to review the recusal dispute. Kentucky has an independent constitutional agency with the authority to investigate and remove judges for good cause.

The House committee argued that the pattern in these cases showed willful misuse of judicial power and authority. Goodman’s case shows that attempts to remove judges can occur independently of attacks on the judiciary.

Impeachment is considered a last resort to remove judicial officers. The Goodman case shows that when impeachment is politically triggered, and other avenues for redressing judicial errors have not been exhausted, judicial independence may be at risk.

Where ordinary conflict ends

Conflict among the branches should not automatically suggest an independent institution is under attack.

Members of different branches of government may criticize each other. Legislators may reject, limit, or criticize courts. Courts may invalidate legislation. Appellate courts may reverse trial courts. Disciplinary bodies may sanction the misconduct of judges. There are normal dividing lines in government.

The main difference is the power being used and the conduct that triggers it.

When judicial misconduct results in bribery, corruption, and other malfeasance that disrupts the proper functioning of government, the institution of the office is attacked. Not all acts by judges are properly subject to impeachment. If that is allowed, every time a judge makes a decision in a challenged case, impeachment can be used to remove the judge from office.

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that the Goodman proceedings crossed that line. Justice Nickell dissented, concluding that the court, not the legislature, had crossed it.

What to look for next time

When officials aim accountability against an independent institution, look first at the conduct being punished.

Are they accused of corruption, criminality, or other misconduct unrelated to the institution’s normal activities? Or is the threat driven by the institution’s exercise of lawful authority?

Next, look at what safeguards exist. Has there been an appeals process? Was there a disciplinary body? Was there a review process? Was there a process to check on the personnel or institution? Did it work?

Ultimately, look at what additional exercise of power changes. Is it intended to correct the misconduct? Or does it risk losing the institution’s independence?

The questions are the same for courts and other personnel who have a normal role to function independently, e.g., Inspectors General, prosecutors, election officials, oversight bodies, and civil servants. The Pattern becomes evident when misconduct in an institution is used to try to gain control over an independent function.

From correcting decisions to changing the next one

The six cases did not escape accountability. Five of Goodman’s decisions were reversed on appeal. The Kentucky Supreme Court also stepped in on the sixth. Kentucky also had a separate constitutional process to investigate allegations of judicial misconduct.

The House, however, went one step further. It took the conduct derived from those cases and used it as the basis for impeachment.

That introduced a different kind of power.

The Kentucky Supreme Court held that, in this case, the legislature had exceeded the constitutional boundaries in the separation of powers and functions and thereby abused its power. The dissent, however, took the opposite view and held that the court was intervening in the legislature’s own impeachment power.

That division helped clarify the Pattern of Power at work here: Attack independent institutions.

It can work by changing the consequences attached to exercising independent authority. When decisions that can already be reviewed, reversed, and disciplined also become grounds for removal by another branch, the institution operates under a new source of power.

Five of Goodman’s rulings had already been reversed. The Supreme Court had already intervened in the sixth. Impeachment was not needed to correct those decisions. It placed the office of the person who made them at risk.

That is how an attack on an independent institution can reach beyond one judge and one set of rulings.

Sources

Supreme Court of Kentucky. Julie Muth Goodman v. Jason Nemes, et al., Nos. 2026-SC-0122-I and 2026-SC-0124-OA. Opinion and Order originally rendered April 6, 2026; modified and petition for rehearing denied September 24, 2026.
https://law.justia.com/cases/kentucky/supreme-court/2026/2026-sc-0122-i-0.html

Kentucky House of Representatives, House Impeachment Committee. Report and Recommendation for the Impeachment of Circuit Court Judge Julie M. Goodman, 22nd Judicial Circuit, in Fayette County. March 19, 2026.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/CommitteeDocuments/397/44109/REPORT%20OF%20IMPEACHMENT%20COMMITTEE%20-%20JUDGE%20JULIE%20GOODMAN-MARCH%2019,%202026.pdf

Kentucky General Assembly. House Resolution 124, 2026 Regular Session. Adopted March 20, 2026, 73-14; received in the Senate March 24, 2026.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/26rs/hr124.html

Kentucky Court of Justice. Judicial Conduct Commission. Description of the commission’s constitutional disciplinary authority, complaint process and available sanctions.
https://www.kycourts.gov/Courts/Pages/Judicial-Conduct-Commission.aspx

Kentucky General Assembly. Constitution of Kentucky, Section 68: Civil officers liable to impeachment.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/Law/Constitution/Constitution/ViewConstitution?rsn=74

Kentucky Lantern. KY Supreme Court declines to reconsider case of Fayette County judge. September 24, 2026.
https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/09/24/ky-supreme-court-declines-to-reconsider-case-of-fayette-county-judge/

In June 2025, federal investigators examined a voting machine in Puerto Rico for evidence that foreign actors had manipulated elections. The search eventually reached the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI. It found vulnerabilities in voting equipment, but no evidence that foreign actors had hacked the machines, altered votes, or changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

The investigation did not begin with an unanswered question.

Five years earlier, federal agencies had already examined public claims that foreign governments controlled election infrastructure or manipulated vote counts in 2020. In March 2021, the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security reported that those claims were “not credible” and that they had found no evidence that a foreign government manipulated election results.

The intelligence community reached the same basic conclusion. Its 2021 assessment said it had no indication that any foreign actor attempted to alter voter registration, ballots, vote tabulation, or reported results. The assessment did document foreign efforts to influence American opinion, including efforts by Russia and Iran, but distinguished those activities from altering votes or election machinery.

Yet by 2025, the theory that foreign actors had used voting machines to manipulate the 2020 election was again drawing federal attention.

Reuters reported on October 2 that attorney Kurt Olsen, who had spent years promoting claims that the 2020 election was stolen, became a central figure in the new effort. The investigation began with voting equipment in Puerto Rico and expanded into Georgia and Arizona, involving federal intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. Reuters reported that Olsen’s investigation ultimately found no evidence that foreign actors had infiltrated U.S. voting systems, manipulated machines, or changed the 2020 result.

The White House told Reuters that the Puerto Rico investigation began after election officials raised concerns about voting machines used there in 2024 and that it aimed to examine vulnerabilities, not revisit the 2020 election. Reuters found, however, that Olsen pushed the effort toward finding evidence of foreign manipulation of the 2020 vote.

That sequence provides a particularly clear example of one of the Patterns of Power: Flood the public with information and falsehoods.

How an old claim becomes a new question

Flooding the public with falsehoods does not depend on telling one lie and persuading everyone to believe it.

The mechanism works through repetition.

The voting-machine allegation did not disappear after federal agencies rejected it in 2021. It circulated through political speeches, lawsuits, activists, media coverage, and claims about Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. Courts repeatedly rejected allegations connecting the companies to schemes to alter the 2020 result, according to Reuters.

Then the claim gained something it hadn’t before: new federal action.

Government specialists examined voting equipment. Intelligence officials became involved. Federal agents seized ballots and election records in Fulton County, Georgia. Federal officials obtained Arizona voter rolls, ballot images and signature-verification data that had previously been provided for a 2021 audit.

Those actions did not prove the underlying allegation.

But they created new facts.

Now there was another investigation to discuss, another federal agency involved, another set of records being examined, and another government action capable of generating headlines.

That changes the information environment, even when the evidence does not.

Government action can give a claim authority

There is nothing improper about government examining credible evidence of election vulnerabilities. Voting equipment is critical infrastructure, and security weaknesses should be identified and corrected.

The distinction in this case lies in what happened after investigators found weaknesses but no evidence that the machines had been used to change votes.

Reuters reported that the Puerto Rico examination identified vulnerabilities, including outdated software, that could be repaired. The investigators found no evidence of hacking or altered votes. An ODNI report likewise identified vulnerabilities but found no evidence that votes had been manipulated.

The absence of that evidence did not end the broader effort.

The investigation expanded.

In January 2026, FBI agents seized roughly 650 boxes containing 2020 ballots and election records from Fulton County, Georgia, after an investigation that Reuters reports began with an Olsen referral. In March, Olsen oversaw the Justice Department’s acquisition of records from Maricopa County, Arizona, including voter rolls, ballot images and signature-verification data. A Republican-backed Arizona audit in 2021 had already found no evidence that Donald Trump had been deprived of victory there.

The federal activity itself then becomes part of what the public sees.

A person encountering the claim for the first time may know little about the 2021 intelligence assessment, earlier government findings, or previous audits. In 2026, that person sees the FBI collecting ballots, intelligence agencies examining voting equipment, and federal officials seeking election records.

Official activity can make an unsupported claim appear newly unresolved.

The search can become evidence for the allegation

That creates a feedback loop.

A claim generates enough attention to produce an investigation. The investigation generates government action. The government action gives the subject greater visibility and apparent seriousness. That visibility can then be used to justify continuing attention to the original claim.

The search for evidence begins doing some of that work.

Reuters reported a version of that dynamic in the Puerto Rico investigation. When the contractors examining the machines found no evidence of hacking, the effort did not conclude that the original allegation had been established. Instead, the investigation expanded to other jurisdictions.

Olsen later told colleagues that intelligence agencies and White House officials had hindered the investigation by withholding information, according to Reuters. That creates another way for a claim to survive an unsuccessful test: failure to find confirming evidence can itself become evidence that the inquiry was obstructed or incomplete.

The result is a claim that becomes increasingly difficult to resolve because each unsuccessful attempt to prove it can produce a reason to search again.

This is different from an election-security debate

Americans can legitimately disagree about voting machines, paper ballots, election audits, mail voting and the appropriate federal role in election security.

Those are policy disputes.

The Pattern appears elsewhere: when a factual claim that has repeatedly failed evidentiary tests continues to generate government action without new evidence supporting it.

The issue is not whether voting machines can have vulnerabilities. They can. Reuters notes that a 2022 review by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency identified vulnerabilities in some Dominion systems while finding no evidence those vulnerabilities had been exploited.

That distinction matters because flooding collapses those two questions. Evidence that a system has a weakness can be presented alongside allegations that the weakness was exploited, until the first begins lending credibility to the second.

The factual record requires keeping them separate.

What to watch for

This Pattern will not always involve elections.

A useful place to start is with three questions.

What has already been established? Before treating an official investigation as evidence that a claim remains unsettled, look at what previous courts, audits, inspectors, investigators or other authoritative sources actually found.

What new evidence triggered the new government action? Reopening a question because new evidence has emerged is different from repeatedly searching for evidence to support a conclusion already being asserted.

How is the government action itself being described? An investigation proves that the government is investigating. A subpoena proves that records were sought. A search proves that officials searched. None of those actions, by themselves, proves the allegation that prompted them.

Those distinctions become harder to maintain as the amount of information surrounding a claim grows.

The 2020 voting-machine allegation began as a factual proposition that could be tested: Were foreign actors able to manipulate voting machines and change the result?

Federal agencies tested versions of that claim and reported finding no evidence that it happened. Years later, the federal government again committed intelligence, law-enforcement personnel, and investigative authority to searching for that evidence. Department of Justice

That is what Flood the public with information and falsehoods can look like when the Pattern reaches government.

The claim survived not because new evidence proved it, but because repetition kept reopening a question the evidence had already answered. By 2026, that repetition had acquired something more powerful than another audience: the machinery of the federal government.

Sources

Reuters, October 2, 2026, “How Trump’s obsession with ‘rigged’ voting machines spread across US government.” Detailed reconstruction of the Puerto Rico investigation, its expansion into federal agencies and other states, the findings of investigators, and the White House response. Read the Reuters investigation

Reuters, April 23, 2026, “Trump, aides chase vote-rigging claims even after latest probe finds nothing.” Reporting on the Puerto Rico examination and the subsequent expansion of the investigation. Read the Reuters report

U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, March 16, 2021, “Joint Statement … Assessing the Impact of Foreign Interference During the 2020 U.S. Elections.” Federal finding that claims of foreign governments manipulating election infrastructure or vote counts were not credible and that no evidence was found of a foreign government manipulating election results. Read the DOJ-DHS statement

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, March 10, 2021, “Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections.” Intelligence Community assessment finding no indication that a foreign actor attempted to alter voter registration, ballots, tabulation or reported election results. Read the intelligence assessment

Congress had already approved the money.

On September 25, President Trump asked Congress to repudiate the $810 million appropriation Congress had made for the departments of Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, and international assistance programs. The White House simultaneously withheld the money from being obligated.

Money appropriated by Congress can be rescinded by the President; however, Trump made the request five days before the end of the federal fiscal year.

The type of action is called a pocket rescission. The executive branch assumes that if Congress does not take action to deny the president’s request, the money will automatically no longer be appropriated.

Congress never has to vote yes.

The money can disappear anyway.

How rescission is supposed to work

Under the Constitution, Congress decides how federal funds are allocated. Congress decides if and how the public’s money is spent.

The president also has a role. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 states that a president has the right to send a special message to Congress if they believe Congress allocated public funds for unwarranted expenditures.

Once the President sends that special message, the funds can be withheld, but only temporarily.

If, after a period of time, Congress does not approve canceling the funds, it must spend them.

That structure is important, the President proposes.

Congress decides.

Then there is the calendar

The September 25 request involved 11 appropriation accounts that were scheduled to expire at the end of the fiscal year on September 30.

Under the normal rescission process, Congress would have had 45 days of continuous session to consider the president’s proposal.

But according to the Government Accountability Office, that consideration period would not have ended before November 9.

The money was scheduled to expire weeks earlier.

By withholding the funds until September 30, the administration did not need Congress to approve the proposed cancellation before the money reached its expiration date.

That is the pocket in “pocket rescission.”

The power comes from the timing.

GAO says the law does not allow it

Two days before the fiscal year ended, the Government Accountability Office issued its legal conclusion.

GAO is an independent legislative-branch agency responsible under the Impoundment Control Act for reviewing presidential rescission requests and monitoring executive compliance with the law.

Its conclusion was direct.

The law does not allow the president to withhold money through its expiration date simply because a rescission request is pending.

GAO wrote:

“The President may not force the expiration of budget authority Congress has already enacted and did not rescind.”

GAO said withholding appropriated funds until they expire would undermine both Congress’s constitutional power over spending and the process Congress created for presidential rescission requests.

This is not a new interpretation.

GAO reached the same conclusion in a 2018 decision, finding that money proposed for rescission must be made available for what it called “prudent obligation” before it expires if Congress has not approved the cancellation.

The White House sees the authority differently

The Trump administration disagrees with that analysis.

In its release about the September rescission package, the White House said the President was using Impoundment Control Act authority for the pocket rescission.

The administration has said the programs are inconsistent with its policies, or are wasteful. The largest proposed rescission is $567 million of Health and Human Services funding for services to refugees, asylees and other noncitizens. Other proposals affect educational, housing, law enforcement, and international programs.

People can disagree on the merits of those programs.

Congress can eliminate or change programs. Congress can also decide the funding level of programs. The president can ask for rescission of funds, but Congress always has the final say.

The dispute here is about who gets to make the final decision.

Congress created this safeguard for a reason

This conflict has deep roots, dating back more than 50 years.

During his presidency, Richard Nixon asserted broad powers to refuse to spend money Congress had appropriated for programs he opposed.

In 1974, Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act to address this.

The Act established a basic rule that if a president wants to permanently cancel (or ‘impound’) appropriated money, Congress has to agree to it. If Congress doesn’t agree to the cancellation, the executive branch can’t keep the money impounded.

That wasn’t just a budgeting procedure.

That was a guardrail between those two branches of the government.

Congress has the power to spend, and the President can propose changes, but cannot make them on his own.

A pocket rescission tests that guardrail to see whether it can be accomplished by using the procedure to cancel appropriations, along with provisions of the act that state an order rescinding an appropriation of funds would expire automatically on a specific date.

The fight has now moved to court

California and six other states filed suit on September 30 challenging the administration’s withholding of the $810 million.

Their lawsuit argues that allowing the executive branch to cancel appropriated money this way violates Congress’s constitutional authority over federal spending and the separation of powers.

The administration has defended the rescissions as an appropriate use of presidential authority. The legal dispute is now unresolved in federal court.

That distinction is important.

GAO has concluded that the Impoundment Control Act does not authorize pocket rescissions. The administration disagrees. A federal court will now be asked to address the dispute.

What to watch

$810 million is a lot of money.

But the precedent it sets matters more.

What happens if this becomes the standard way of controlling spending? The administration wouldn’t need Congress to repeal a program or eliminate its funding. The administration could simply decide not to spend the money and submit a rescission proposal to “recover” it.

Congress can refuse to approve the cancellation.

But that refusal might not matter in the long term.

What we should watch is not whether the president and Congress agree about spending. This happens all the time.

Watch what happens to the decision-making power.

Congress appropriates the money. This time, Congress didn’t appropriate this $810,000,000. But the executive branch used rescission to prevent the money from being spent before the process expired.

How can checks and balances weaken and lose their value without being formally changed?

The law still exists. Congress can still appropriate money. The rescission process still exists.

But if the executive branch can obtain the same result without Congress’s consent, the guardrail matters less each time it works.

Sources

U.S. Government Accountability Office, Sept. 29, 2026
Impoundment Control Act of 1974: Review of the President’s Special Message of September 25, 2026
GAO decision B-338788

The White House, Sept. 25, 2026
September Rescission Package
Presidential special message proposing $810 million in rescissions

The White House, Sept. 25, 2026
President Trump Takes Historic Action to Eliminate Wasteful and Harmful Spending
White House explanation of the pocket rescission

U.S. Government Accountability Office
Impoundment Control Act
GAO overview of rescissions and impoundment law

U.S. Government Accountability Office, Dec. 10, 2018
Impoundment Control Act: Withholding of Funds through Their Date of Expiration
GAO’s earlier pocket-rescission decision

Congressional Research Service, Feb. 25, 2025
The Impoundment Control Act of 1974: Background and Congressional Consideration of Rescissions
CRS report on the history and operation of the law

Reuters, Oct. 1, 2026
California, six other states sue Trump administration over federal funds
Reuters report on the pending lawsuit

In Louisville, organizations that help people move off the streets are preparing to change what kind of housing they provide.

St. John Center, St. Vincent de Paul Louisville and Family Health Centers-Phoenix Health Care for the Homeless are considering converting some permanent supportive housing into temporary, transitional housing. At St. John Center, the change could affect 120 apartments.

In Corbin, another change has already happened.

Volunteers of America Mid-States spent 18 months developing a permanent supportive housing project with Eastern Kentucky University and other partners. The project would have included childcare and access to college classes.

It is no longer moving forward.

“That project is now dead,” CEO Jennifer Hancock told the Associated Press.

These decisions are not being driven simply by a sudden change in what Kentucky homelessness providers believe works.

Federal funding rules have changed.

And that makes what is happening in Kentucky useful for understanding a larger Pattern of Power: what to look for when government makes hardship part of the way a policy works.

What changed

For more than a decade, federal homelessness policy has emphasized an approach commonly called Housing First.

The basic premise is straightforward: give someone a stable place to live without first requiring sobriety, employment, or treatment completion. Services remain available, but permanent housing is not conditioned on successfully completing them.

Permanent supportive housing generally combines long-term rental assistance with access to services for people who often have serious disabilities, mental illness, substance-use disorders, or chronic health problems.

Research has consistently found that Housing First programs keep people housed, although findings on health and other outcomes are more mixed.

The Trump administration has rejected that approach.

In June, the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued new rules for the more than $4 billion Continuum of Care funding competition, one of the federal government's principal sources of homelessness funding. After litigation temporarily disrupted the competition, a federal appeals court allowed HUD to proceed. HUD reopened applications September 18 under essentially the same funding rules, with a September 30 deadline for most communities.

HUD said Housing First had created dependency and failed to address addiction and mental illness. The department said federal money should instead promote treatment, recovery and self-sufficiency.

The new funding competition gives substantially greater emphasis to transitional housing and supportive services. HUD’s application criteria also reward communities for making substance-use treatment available within housing programs.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner has described the change as an effort to address what the administration considers the underlying causes of homelessness rather than merely providing housing.

That is the administration’s policy argument.

But another question remains.

What happens when federal funding makes permanent housing harder to provide unless local organizations change the conditions attached to it?

The pressure is already impacting Kentucky

The federal government does not have to order a Louisville nonprofit to eliminate permanent supportive housing.

It controls something powerful enough to change the organization’s choices anyway: money.

Homelessness organizations depend heavily on federal grants. The pressure is built into the competition. HUD says 40 percent of the funding will now be awarded competitively based on merit scores, while $1.3 billion is reserved for new projects that prioritize transitional housing and supportive services. Providers therefore have to decide whether to maintain permanent supportive housing programs or redesign them to compete more successfully under the new federal priorities.

That choice is already changing Kentucky’s homelessness system.

AP reported that St. John Center would be left with its 80-unit Sheehan Landing complex as permanent supportive housing if it converts its 120 community apartments to transitional housing. St. Vincent de Paul Louisville and Family Health Centers-Phoenix Health Care for the Homeless are also examining conversions.

St. John Center Executive Director Ra’Shann Martin described the uncertainty this way:

“It’s like psychological warfare the last two years, trying to figure out how to navigate these changes that are looming right over us.”

That statement describes the pressure on providers.

The consequences ultimately fall on people who need housing.

Permanent and temporary are not interchangeable

Transitional housing can be effective in the short-term for some, like individuals experiencing homelessness as a result of an unexpected loss of housing and who also have the potential for income and employment. These individuals, in theory, could temporarily resolve their homelessness through transitional housing.

Transitional housing is generally not effective for chronic, long-term homelessness, particularly for those suffering from debilitating conditions and disabilities.

The Associated Press (AP) reports on individuals in Louisville, Kentucky who have long-term, extreme cases of homelessness.

John Franklin, age 58, has long-term and extreme cases of homelessness and alcoholism. He is a cancer survivor, has heart failure, and lives on disability income.

He now lives in a different type of permanent housing called ‘supportive housing.’

“I could not make it,” Franklin said when asked about the prospect of transitional housing. “This is my safe haven.”

Phillip Sieveking lives at St. John Center’s Sheehan Landing. Like Franklin, Sieveking also suffered from debilitating conditions and disabilities. While homeless, he had diabetes and struggled to manage his medical care. Part of one leg eventually had to be amputated.

Permanent housing allowed both men to fully address and engage in recovery and wellness, as well as other social and medical services.

Policymakers should always assess and consider the impact that their policy changes will have. They should also consider whether an extreme change, like removing certain housing resources, would help an individual become self-reliant.

The question is not whether treatment for addiction or mental illness is valuable, nor is it whether transitional housing should exist.

The question is whether losing access to permanent housing should become part of the government’s strategy for encouraging treatment, recovery, or self-sufficiency.

When hardship becomes part of the policy

A Pattern emerges when a government deliberately creates conditions for hardship and uses that hardship to accomplish its end.

Government policies and agents make trade-offs with constrained resources. Programs have eligibility requirements. Public benefits are often tied to conditions.

That is the focus here: the Pattern when the hardship itself becomes the condition.

The government can use a broad range of conditions, including the granting of a benefit or contract, employment, or a license. The government does not always need to issue a direct command.

The condition can be embedded in the structure of available options.

Do what the government prefers and retain access to something important.

Refuse, fail, or become unable to meet the condition, and risk losing it.

That is why the details of homelessness policies matter.

If transitional housing simply gives people another useful option, that tells us one thing.

If people who need permanent housing increasingly cannot obtain it because federal policy intentionally favors time-limited housing tied to behavioral requirements, that tells us something else.

What HUD says it is trying to accomplish

HUD believes its prior approach to ending homelessness was not successful, and increasing Federal spending on homelessness-related programs did not decrease homelessness. HUD argues its program became overly focused on increasing housing opportunities, and not enough on addressing the reasons people became homeless, e.g., not focusing on treatment and recovery and/or increasing a person’s level of self-sufficiency.

The department’s 2026 proposal states, “ending chronic homelessness will ultimately require undoing the cycles of dependence.”

Supporters of Treatment First also argue that requiring participation in addiction or mental-health services can help people address conditions that contributed to their homelessness.

Those arguments deserve evaluation of their evidence.

So do the consequences of the pattern chosen to carry them out.

If the federal government wants more treatment, it could fund more treatment.

If it wants better access to mental-health care, it could expand mental-health services.

If it wants employment programs, it can fund them.

Programs that offer these services give a person the opportunity to address the reasons behind their homelessness.

However, if a person does not participate in these programs, the Federal Government can, and sometimes does, deny a person access to housing.

For someone with money, family support, or other alternatives, that might mean moving to a different location.

For someone who has already been homeless, it can mean losing support and returning to homelessness.

What to watch in Kentucky

The best evidence will come from the future.

Watch whether permanent supportive housing units are eliminated.

Look to see whether rules and requirements for residents have changed.

See what happens if a resident can’t comply with new rules and requirements.

Look to see whether changes are being made to various behavioral health and substance abuse programs in Kentucky because of changes in federal policy.

Also look at who is most negatively impacted by policy changes.

Federal policy can sound abstract when it is described through grant formulas, scoring criteria, and funding notices.

It becomes easier to understand when 120 apartments in Louisville may no longer mean what they meant before.

The Pattern to recognize is not simply government doing something harsh.

It is government arranging hardship so it produces compliance.

When access to housing becomes part of that pressure, the policy does more than decide how public money is spent.

Sources

Associated Press, reporting on the Trump administration’s homelessness-policy shift and its effects on providers in Louisville and elsewhere, September 30, 2026.
https://apnews.com/article/0e286f5084fc29468a0219901959b4ab

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “HUD Overhauls Federal Homelessness Assistance,” June 1, 2026.
https://www.hud.gov/news/hud-no-26-038

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, FY 2026 Continuum of Care Program Competition page, including the current NOFO and competition materials.
https://www.hud.gov/hud-partners/coc-program-competition

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “2026 Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Opportunity Fact Sheet.”
https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/CPD/documents/CoC/2026-CoC-NOFO-Factsheet.pdf

Two months ago, I reported that the federal government planned to withhold about $872,550 of Kentucky’s homeland-security funding unless the state changed how it conducts elections.

That funding was part of a federal program meant to help states and local governments prevent terrorism and other serious threats. But the Departments of Homeland Security and of Federal Emergency Management attached another condition: states could lose access to 20 percent of the funding unless they changed parts of their election administration. Kentucky challenged the requirement, as did several others.

Then, on September 28, a federal judge ruled in a separate lawsuit that FEMA did not have the legal authority to impose the election-process changes as a condition for the counterterrorism grants.

The ruling gives us a clear example of something worth recognizing when we read the news.

Government does not always have to say, Do this because we ordered you to.

Sometimes the message is:

That is the Pattern of Power I call The Use of Fear to Create Compliance.

What FEMA tried to do

The Homeland Security Grant Program provides more than $1 billion to states, cities, and other local governments to fund activities related to preventing terrorism and other crimes.

For 2026, FEMA grants included conditions requiring grantees to take a series of actions to shift from electronic voting systems to hand-marked paper ballots. A grant recipient would also be required to conduct manual audits of at least 5 percent of ballots and reconcile voter names with ballots. The grant recipients would also be required to use a federal database to verify the citizenship of registered voters and election workers.

Various municipalities in Ohio, Tennessee and Texas filed a lawsuit to enjoin FEMA from implementing the conditions. Other similar conditions contained in different grants issued by FEMA are the subject of a separate lawsuit filed by various other states, including Kentucky.

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali agreed.

“Congress did not authorize the grant program to be used for the sort of election administration reforms FEMA demands here,” he wrote. He said the required changes, whether good or bad as policy, were not being imposed to prepare for or respond to terrorism.

So the September ruling does not by itself resolve Kentucky’s lawsuit.

But it helps expose the structure of the dispute.

The important part is the leverage

Federal money always comes with conditions.

For example, if the feds give cybersecurity money to the states, then the feds can and probably will require that those funds be used for that purpose. The conditions may ensure that funds are accounted for, set performance standards, and/or create barriers to restrict the funds to the designated use.

The Pattern is most obvious when the feds use a single source of funds to implement one of their own policies.

In this case, the effect was clear.

Other entities, states and local governments, for example, could choose not to comply with the feds' conditions.

In this case, the feds said, "You want to play politics? Then, you lose 20% of your money."

Fear, in this Pattern, does not have to mean that people are frightened in the ordinary sense of the word. Entities subject to the conditions must evaluate the cost of defiance. It is a calculus of consequences. Consequences may include loss of funds, contracts, or access. It may also mean an investigation or other unfavorable actions by the condition’s authority. "Fear" in the Pattern means the states calculated how much money they would lose if they defied conditions.

Kentucky gives us a concrete example

The State Homeland Security Program gives Kentucky $4,362,750 for FY 2026.

20% of the state’s funds equals $872,550.

In my last update, I described how funds can be utilized for emergency communications, cybersecurity, law enforcement, schools, equipment, training, and protection against terrorist attacks and catastrophic events.

The Office of Homeland Security permits the use of program funds and accepts applications from cities, counties, school districts, and other public entities. As the state reports, the program helps protect schools, first responders, law enforcement, and the community.

Now consider who ultimately bears the consequences of the federal government’s actions. Local governments, school districts, and other first responders do.

A fire or rescue department that needs special communications equipment to respond to an emergency does not control Kentucky’s voter rolls.

A school district applying for security improvements does not decide how Kentucky conducts post-election audits.

A county emergency-management office cannot decide which federal database the State Board of Elections uses to check citizenship.

Often these local projects compete for the same limited funding.

That is what makes funding leverage powerful. The people who feel its effects do not necessarily control the policy decision being demanded.

The administration says this is about election security

That argument should be evaluated separately.

The administration contends the conditions help defend election processes from foreign electoral interference and cyber risks. Some of the policies it favors, including paper records and post-election audits, also enjoy bipartisan and expert endorsement.

Thus, the essential dispute is not whether paper ballots or audits are meritorious in election processes.

The dispute is who makes that assessment.

Judge Ali’s opinion focused on that assessment.

Congress decides how it appropriates federal money. The Constitution and related laws authorize Congress to regulate the election processes. Each state is also authorized to delineate the election frameworks within the limits established by the Constitution and related laws. The court stated that FEMA could not take money Congress authorized for counterterrorism preparedness and use it to require election-administration changes Congress had not attached to that program.

That is a structural question about power, not a referendum on every election policy contained in the grant requirements.

Why this matters beyond this grant

This is where the example proves useful.

When looking at the situation, the story is about Trump, FEMA, election security, and a federal judge.

But when assessing the use of power and politics, this example takes on a larger meaning.

One institution controls what another institution needs.

The first institution sets conditions.

The conditions relate to something else the controlling institution wants to achieve.

Failing to meet the condition carries an enormous cost.

In such a situation, the receiving institution must decide whether it is in its interest to lose the resource to avoid complying with the condition.

This happens at all levels of society.

It happens at the federal and state levels.

It happens between government and private companies.

It happens between government and universities.

It happens between the government and the media.

The question that needs to be asked in each of these situations is:

Is the government using its power to achieve one goal and requiring compliance for something entirely different?

This is not the same as every funding condition

This pattern is common in the U.S. and, while it can erode the public’s confidence in government, it does not, on its own, pose a systemic threat.

The government's grant-making process necessarily includes conditions that, in a coercive context, require further review.

It would be prudent to assess the relationship between the condition and the granted funding.

Does the condition help further the purpose outlined by Congress?

Or is the condition being used to compel support for a different policy?

Is the condition merited?

Would losing funding be the only consequence?

Is the condition within the government's legal authority?

Is the condition so onerous that the recipient, in good faith, could forgo the funding?

This Pattern reflects those considerations.

What to look for next time

When you see an announcement about a government agency’s threat to impose consequences of cutting funding, removing access, or revoking approval, don't limit your concern to the policy issue.

Analyze the legal and policy structure at play.

What can the government control?

What is the government seeking to compel others to do?

Are the two things directly related?

What happens if the person or institution refuses to do what the government is seeking?

Who is ultimately bearing the cost of that refusal?

Could the same end be achieved through normal, public legislative or legal process?

And perhaps most importantly:

Is it the case that, while the government is permitting a person to say no, it is increasing the cost of saying no?

FEMA has now been found by a federal judge to have crossed a legal boundary to impose an impermissible cost on a grantee of a counterterrorism grant by conditioning such grant on the grantee having something to do with elections.

The legal analysis of this case is not important to this discourse.

The important point is that government power and authority do not always take the form of a command.

Often, it takes the form of a decree about the cost of resisting the government.

That is why we need to learn to recognize the difference.

Sources

Associated Press, “Trump can’t force election changes by blocking counterterrorism funds to states, judge says,” Sept. 28, 2026. Read the AP report

Reuters, “Judge blocks Trump from tying anti-terrorism grants to election changes,” Sept. 28, 2026. Read the Reuters report

Brennan Center for Justice, Nashville v. DHS, including the Sept. 28 memorandum opinion. View the case documents

Rhode Island Attorney General, Emergency Services Conditional Funding, documenting the separate multistate challenge joined by Kentucky. View the case page

Kentucky Office of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Grants. View Kentucky grant information

Dispatches from Kentucky, “Why Federal Election Rules Could Hold Back $872,550 in Kentucky Homeland-Security Funding,” July 24, 2026. Read the earlier Dispatch

Start with the ad itself

One of the ads now being purchased with federal money is known as the “Final Battle” ad.

You can watch it here:

The 30-second spot presents Trump describing a struggle against “globalists,” the political establishment, and other opponents. The government-funded version ends by disclosing that the U.S. Government paid for it.

What makes the ad particularly notable is that it was not originally created as neutral government information.

The Associated Press reported that the Trump administration began using taxpayer money to air a television advertisement from Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Reuters similarly reported that the government-funded version is nearly identical to campaign material used during the 2024 election.

It is one of three government-funded Trump ads now airing nationally. Advertising-tracking firm AdImpact estimates that spending on the three is approaching $1.5 million.

The White House says the ads are public-service announcements intended to encourage patriotism. It notes that Trump is not on the ballot in this year’s midterm elections and that the advertisements do not tell viewers how to vote.

That defense deserves consideration because presidents have appeared in government communications before.

But appearance alone is not the issue.

What ordinary presidential public service looks like

Barack Obama personally appeared in multiple PSAs to talk about the Census and explain why the public should participate. He said participation would help fund programs in local communities. He told people to look for the census forms, fill them out, and return them. To boost the response rate, the Census Bureau published a PSA with Obama’s message for public broadcast. The Bureau also initiated a $133 million campaign to increase census response rates. Obama’s appearance in a PSA allowed the Bureau to have the President make a public appeal for participation at no cost. The Bureau’s advertising campaign also had a clear purpose: complying with the Constitution by requiring the Bureau to count U.S. citizens. The census also helped the Bureau determine response rates and adjust its workforce to locate unresponsive households. For the advertisements, Obama was the messenger, and the public was the primary audience.

That is the line worth watching

We can better analyze Trump ads with these questions. Is the line being crossed when the president is part of an official government communication? Presidents clearly appear in official communications. The real questions are: What communication resources are being used? What is the government purpose in the communication? Is the president, in fact, the communications official, or is the purpose of the communication to deliver the president’s message? Could the president’s re-election campaign have produced this communication? In the example, “Final Battle,” we don’t have to wonder. The answer is clearly yes. This example is uniquely different, as in other cases, we don’t know the answer to this last question.

Public office belongs to the public

Another way democratic norms can slowly erode is when the separation between the individual and the office they hold becomes blurred. While government employees are expected to work for and implement an administration’s policies, and the president is expected to promote and defend those policies, the concern arises when the government, through its employees, aids and abets a campaign effort. It’s clearly unlawful for a president to use government funds to make campaign advertisements and to buy advertising time for those ads. The law provides for a separation of functions. Although agencies of the government are authorized to make policy announcements, they may not make, issue, or disseminate advertisements for strictly partisan and political purposes. The Trump advertisements may cross the line, but whether the laws apply and whether the ads are indeed partisan and political is a matter of disagreement among legal scholars. Some also argue that the Trump ads are official, not partisan. While the public may eventually have to weigh in on the legality of the Trump ads in court, the evidence shows he has crossed the partisan and political line.

Look at what the public money is doing

The clearest signs are repetitive and cumulative.

One of the ads nearly entirely duplicates an ad from the president’s campaign. Other ads, such as those for vaccination and census campaigns, or campaigns to enroll in government programs, have been run by the government. The government hasn’t reportedly run similar campaigns that required directly informing the public about a service. The White House says these ads promote patriotism. They cite other ad campaigns run by previous presidents and their administrations. However, even in those examples, the government could make a case for the service independently of the president. In these ads, Trump is the focal point. The ads essentially are Trump’s political attacks against his opponents. Without Trump and his politics, there is very little, if any, public service announcement (PSA) material.

What to look for next time

Truth be told, turning a public office into a personal power fiefdom will rarely resemble a bad tabloid Headline. More often it will show up as government contracts, employees, property, and funds. It will show up in government websites, events, and communications. It will appear as rules and procedures. All of these will raise the same concern. Are government resources and services organized to promote the public good and interest, or have they been diverted to serve the officeholder’s interests? When a government employee is also a political partisan and office holder, we must ask: is the employee doing this to promote the interest of the Government, or to advance his/her own interest? Would a staff member of this government office be engaged in this activity if the office holder was not also the leader of the political party? Would this Government Office be closed to the public if another officeholder were in charge?

Those questions aren’t really about Barack Obama or Donald Trump. They’re about how we can separate a public office from the person currently holding it. All offices get combined with their occupants to some extent. However, the presidency gets combined with its occupant the most. This is because the presidency has an enormous amount of power, influence, money, and other resources.

Public offices aren’t personally owned by the president. They are owned by the public. When we allow the president to use the office’s resources to combine his or her personality with the presidency’s resources, we allow the president to claim the presidency’s power as his or her own. The public owns the power of the presidency.

When the president uses the resources of the office to personally promote himself or herself instead of promoting the institutions that he or she is a part of, that personally owned power begins to steal the functions of a political campaign and political party, and the public begins to lose the power that should belong to them.

We must differentiate the resources of the office of the presidency from the personal resources of the president. They are not the same. No president personally owns the presidency.

On Sept. 15, a group of people in federal immigration custody became harder to find.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stopped displaying the detention locations of most people who have final removal orders in its Online Detainee Locator System, according to reporting by The Associated Press. The people themselves remained in government custody. The location information lawyers and families had routinely used to find them disappeared.

It was not publicly announced. So far, ICE has not released the memorandum, identified who authorized the change, or offered any justification.

But lawyers began seeing the result.

According to the AP, the 17 clients of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights with final removal orders all disappeared from the EOIR’s Locator once the change was made. A U.S. ACLU attorney said they had eight Somali clients disappear once removal proceedings were terminated. The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) notified its members that the Locator no longer provided any information for clients in a particular immigration proceeding.

This narrows down a small portion of the broad implications this policy might have.

No documented case through Sept. 28 shows that the locator change itself caused someone to miss a court deadline, lose a case, or be removed before a lawyer could act. There is also no evidence that ICE adopted the policy to block lawyers or courts.

Similarly, in Kentucky, 1,200 people were being held for ICE in county jails as of July. Kentucky’s IA system was already opaque.

A person can still be in custody while disappearing from the search

ICE’s detainee locator was built in part to allow family members and legal representatives to determine where a person in immigration custody was being held.

Before Sept. 15, having a final removal order did not by itself make a detainee unsearchable.

The new policy changed that.

According to the AP, three current or former ICE officials described a policy that suppresses the locations of most detainees with administratively final removal orders, with exceptions at facilities where courts have ordered ICE to disclose location information.

That pattern suggests it is not a site that is down or a simple case of outdated information. The agency is withholding the information under a legal status.

According to the Washington Post, DHS issued further instructions to ICE. Citing former DHS officials, the Washington Post says ICE instructed its officers to not give the location of detained persons to their lawyers or relatives over the phone.

ICE has not publicly confirmed that instruction.

This brings us to the options the government currently describes for attorneys to help locate or connect with clients.

ICE directs legal representatives to Enforcement and Removal Operations field offices, detention facilities, agency contact channels, and the Detention Reporting and Information Line. Lawyers generally must have a Form G-28 on file before ICE can release protected information.

This means there are other ways to obtain information about detainees aside from the public locator system.

Changes to the public-facing ICE protocols happened on September 15. However, we don't have information showing that the former processes ICE relied on to share this information are sufficient to ensure a location for a final orders detainee is provided when the locator card is not.

If reported telephone restrictions are happening on a wide scale, then it will be hard for agencies to locate represented clients through normal channels.

A final removal order does not end every legal proceeding

The significance of where a detainee is being held depends on the legal remedies still available.

Issuance of a final removal order does not mean there are available appeals for all persons. This will depend upon the facts of the case and the stage of the proceeding.

But finality also does not mean the legal system is finished with every case.

People with final orders can, in qualifying circumstances, seek motions to reopen or reconsider, ask DHS for a stay of removal, or seek a stay from an immigration court or the Board of Immigration Appeals when an appropriate motion is pending. Some proceedings, including certain motions involving removal orders entered when a person was absent, carry automatic stays.

Many others do not.

For discretionary stays, simply filing a request generally does not stop the government from carrying out the removal order. The stay must be granted.

The Justice Department’s immigration court guidance says removal from physical custody constitutes an emergency for the purpose of considering a request for an emergency stay.

That is where location can become more than an administrative detail.

A lawyer trying to act quickly may need to know where a client is being held, how to communicate with the client and, in some federal court cases, who the proper custodian is.

The locator change has already removed the easiest public route for answering the first of those questions for the covered group.

What has not yet been documented is the next step in the causal chain: a case in which that information gap itself prevented a lawyer from obtaining relief.

Courts can sometimes work around an unknown location

The legal consequences are not absolute either.

Five days before ICE’s new locator policy took effect, a federal court in Tennessee confronted a habeas case involving an immigration detainee whose lawyer could not locate him through the locator.

Ordinarily, a “core” habeas case challenging physical custody is filed where the detainee is confined and names the immediate custodian.

Courts have recognized an exception to this rule when the government fails to disclose the location of a detainee or the name of the government employee in charge of the detainee.

In Patel v. Bullock, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee applied that exception.

The decision does not make location irrelevant. It does show that an unknown detention site does not automatically make habeas relief impossible.

Courts can also impose more direct safeguards.

On Sept. 24, a federal judge in New York issued a permanent injunction governing detention practices at 26 Federal Plaza that requires covered transfer locations to be entered into the detainee locator within three hours and includes protections for confidential attorney calls.

According to the AP, facilities operating under court orders requiring disclosure are exceptions to the new ICE policy.

Those protections matter. They also remain geographically limited. Nothing identified in the reporting establishes a nationwide replacement that gives lawyers the same current location information ICE has withdrawn from the public system.

Kentucky is exposed to the national policy, but a Kentucky case has not been documented

Kentucky’s connection to the change is real but limited by what is known.

Kentucky Lantern reported Sept. 10 that roughly 1,200 people were being held for ICE in Kentucky jails as of July. About a dozen county jails were receiving payment to house federal immigration detainees.

Those detainees are part of the national ICE custody system.

But the reporting so far has not identified a particular person held in Kentucky who had a final removal order and then lost a visible location in the locator because of the Sept. 15 policy.

Kentucky should not be described as a place where a detainee has already been shown to have had a location withheld under the new policy.

There is, however, evidence that the locator has practical legal value here. A federal immigration habeas petition filed in the Eastern District of Kentucky on Sept. 1 included an ICE Detainee Locator System result as an exhibit identifying detention.

County jail rosters cannot be substituted for the missing data.

According to Kentucky Lantern, jails’ responses showed inconsistent identification of immigrants in ICE custody. Some jails didn’t disclose the presence of ICE detainees. Others, Kentucky Lantern wrote, “made it hard to distinguish” immigrants in ICE’s custody.

Whether a particular Kentucky detainee has already been affected remains unverified.

The missing document could answer the biggest questions

The biggest unanswered questions are inside ICE.

The order authorizing the change on Sept. 15 is still not publicly available. So it is still unknown which official issued the order, why the agency took this action, the justification, the scope of the restriction, whether there are any exceptions to the order, and whether there is a process to obtain the location orders through attorney vetting only.

Those are questions that records could answer.

A targeted Freedom of Information Act request to ICE could seek directives, memoranda, implementation guidance, system-change instructions, approval records, and legal or privacy reviews created during September. It could also seek instructions given to field offices, detention facilities, and the agency’s information line about disclosing the locations of final-order detainees.

That would not restore someone to the locator. It could establish who ordered the change and how ICE intended it to operate.

Other accountability mechanisms work at different levels.

An individual facing imminent removal may have access to emergency stays, habeas proceedings, or other case-specific relief depending on the circumstances. Federal courts have demonstrated that they can impose location and attorney-access requirements when the legal standards for relief are met.

The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also accepts complaints. However, a complaint does not initiate an OIG investigation.

Congress can seek documents and testimony from DHS. A bill introduced in June, H.R. 9374, the Find Our Families Act of 2026, would require DHS to develop and maintain an online detainee locator system. It has been introduced and referred to House committees; it is not current law.

Kentucky’s open-records law provides a different kind of leverage over local jails.

A Kentucky attorney general decision this year concluded that federal regulations can restrict disclosure of records about individual federal detainees, but do not automatically shield records dealing only with jail administration. That leaves room for narrowly written requests to counties for contracts, payments, inspections and facility-wide policies connected to ICE detention without seeking protected information about individual detainees.

None of those mechanisms answers the question ICE has so far left unresolved.

Beginning Sept. 15, the agency deliberately stopped showing the locations of most detainees with final removal orders. Lawyers have already reported losing the locator’s visibility into existing clients.

Sources

• Associated Press, Sept. 21, 2026 — Reporting on ICE’s Sept. 15 locator change, attorney examples, and court-order exceptions:
  https://apnews.com/article/c3329a70bce424879bc5880b286c019c

• The Washington Post, Sept. 21, 2026 — Reporting on the alleged restriction against disclosing detainee locations by telephone:
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/09/21/immigrants-with-final-deportation-orders-disappear-ice-detainee-locator/

• American Immigration Lawyers Association — Practitioner reporting on final-order detainees disappearing from the Online Detainee Locator System:
  https://www.aila.org/library/featured-issue-u-s-immigration-courts-under-trump-2-0?limit=200

• Department of Homeland Security — Online Detainee Locator System privacy and purpose documentation:
  https://www.dhs.gov/publication/dhsicepia-019-online-detainee-locator-system

• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — Public guidance for attorneys and others seeking information through ERO and related contact channels:
  https://www.ice.gov/contact/ope

• U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review — Guidance on motions, stays and emergency requests involving imminent removal:
  https://www.justice.gov/eoir/policy-manual-eoir/part-II/icpm/chapter-4-7
  https://www.justice.gov/eoir/policy-manual-eoir/part-III/bia/chapter-5-3

• Patel v. Bullock, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Sept. 10, 2026 — Habeas ruling addressing an undisclosed detention location and immediate custodian:
  https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/tennessee/tnmdce/3%3A2026cv01226/111480/13/

• Barco Mercado v. Mullin, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Sept. 24, 2026 — Permanent injunction addressing locator updates and attorney access at 26 Federal Plaza:
  https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1%3A2025cv06568/647291/187/

• Kentucky Lantern, Sept. 10, 2026 — Reporting on ICE detention in Kentucky and the limits of county jail rosters:
  https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/09/10/reports-say-ice-detention-is-growing-in-ky-but-records-details-remain-unclear-advocates-say/

• Lexington Records / The Lexington Times — Eastern District of Kentucky immigration habeas case that included an ICE Detainee Locator System result:
  https://records.lexingtonky.news/federal-court/case/2-26-cv-00364/

• Kentucky Attorney General, 26-ORD-150 — Open-records decision addressing records concerning federal detainees and jail administration:
  https://www.ag.ky.gov/Resources/orom/2026/26-ORD-150.pdf

• GovInfo, H.R. 9374 — Find Our Families Act of 2026 — Introduced federal legislation concerning an online detainee locator system:
  https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119hr9374ih

A day after I wrote about Barack Obama’s warning that Americans need a stronger understanding of what democracy requires, Senator Tammy Duckworth raised a harder question.

Duckworth was considerably less restrained in making her point.

“I am tired of fixing shit Republicans break,” she said.

Her broader complaint was how Democrats have responded to Republican power. She argued that during the Biden administration, Democrats spent too much time repairing damage, responding to crises, and observing traditions of institutional restraint while Republicans were willing to exercise power more aggressively.

She specifically mentioned the Senate filibuster.

“We spent time on the Democratic Party with our leadership being polite, not wanting to break the filibuster because, oh God forbid, if we blow up the filibuster, then they might do it to us, so we’re not gonna do it.”

Her conclusion was considerably more colorful.

“So fuck that shit.”

Duckworth’s argument collides directly with something I wrote only yesterday.

I proposed a simple test for political power:

Would I give this power to the other side?

If the answer is no, I argued, then we should be extremely reluctant to claim that power for ourselves.

But Duckworth’s argument raises an obvious response.

That is a much harder question.

Democracy depends on restraint

Political scientists use the term institutional forbearance to describe situations in which government officials exercise restraint and do not use all the powers at their disposal. Constitutions and statutes define and limit the powers of government officials; however, they cannot restrict the possible ways of abusing power.

In Writing about Forbearance in the American Political Science Review, Sean Ingham describes situations in which government officials do not act in ways that undermine democracy, even though they are free to act within democratic rules. Democratic stability depends on government officials’ commitment to respect the rules of democracy.

The same logic applies to other government officials. It is understandable for a government official to exercise restraint even if he or she has wide powers.

Political stability also requires that government officials with discretion do not use criminal laws to target their political opponents. Political systems depend on how the government exercises its powers, which defines and restricts those powers. Maintaining democratic stability also depends on political actors’ leadership and commitment to democracy’s rules and principles.

What if only one side practices restraint?

The crux of Duckworth’s argument is about expected behavior. In her view, what gives? She thinks the Dems show restraint to no avail.

Of course, democracy hinges on adherence to the rules. The difficulty, however, is distinguishing the rules from the clarifying examples of the rules.

When we refer to rules, we tend to be somewhat imprecise. Some rules governing our society are clearly delineated (e.g., the Constitution, laws, judicial decisions, etc.). Other rules governing Congress are less precisely defined (e.g., the rules of Congress, the Senate, or committee procedures, traditions, and practices).

The filibuster is a good example. The 60-vote threshold is a Congressional rule, not a constitutional mandate (Article I, Section 5 grants each house of Congress the authority to make its own rules). The Senate didn’t adopt a rule requiring a supermajority to end a filibuster until 1917. Several years later, it lowered the threshold to 51. In 2013, the Democrats again changed the rule to allow a simple majority to end a filibuster for Presidential appointments (excluding the Supreme Court). One year later, Republicans changed the rule again to lower the threshold for Supreme Court nominations. These examples show that a procedural rule can change, and in this case did change frequently, and does not necessarily violate the rules that govern the conduct of the Senate.

Some rules restrain power. Others organize it.

The Constitution limits the federal government in many ways. For example, it guarantees certain rights, such as the right to remain silent and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Constitution also protects the right to vote and limits how long government officials may serve. The Constitution gives state and federal residents the right to a trial by a jury of their peers.

The Constitution does not, however, require a legislature to follow a particular procedure. For instance, a legislature need not permit unlimited debate. A legislature may make rules allowing a majority of its members to determine the legislature’s business. A procedure that allows unlimited debate could be adopted or maintained for a variety of reasons, and the constituencies affected by those reasons may care about the consequences of eliminating it.

Even though a legislature may amend its rules at any time, there are instances when a rule should not be changed. Ultimately, each member of a legislative body must weigh the consequences of amending rules.

Then my original test needs another question

I’m not giving up on the question, “Would I give this power to the other side?” but Duckworth has shown this can’t be considered in a vacuum. The next question should be, “Would the use of this power by the other side break the democracy?” The answer to this changes the analysis.

Let’s say the Senate majority changes the rules to restrict debate. Critics say this is unconstitutional. Let’s say, a few years later, the Senate rules change hands, and the new majority also operates under the restrictive rules. The first Senate majority to implement the rules change regrets this. However, the critics of the rules change can and do vote. They can and do campaign. They can and do win a Senate majority. Once they win, they can and do change the rules.

Again, let’s say a government passes laws that restrict and obstruct its political opponents from participating in elections. Finally, let’s say a Government opts not to abide by court decisions.

In all these cases, something has changed that affects the ability of the Government’s political opponents to participate in the democratic process. If a democratic government takes these actions, it undermines political opponents’ ability to participate in the democratic process and weakens independent institutions’ ability to check and balance the government.

This raises the stakes. This democratic test asks: would using this power prevent the government from participating in the democratic process in the future?

Democracy does not require political passivity

One danger in discussing democratic restraint is that it may appear as if you are endorsing weakness. That is not the case.

If Congress, the courts, political parties, the media, or the public challenges or questions the others’ actions, that is a hallmark of democracy. Restraint and challenges to the others’ actions are what the democratic system requires.

What matters is whether the political system recognizes and preserves the rules and processes of the democratic system, for example, by allowing the opponents of a governing party to keep their resources to organize and challenge the actions of the government, or by allowing government officials to lose an election and leave office. It matters whether election losers can challenge and investigate the actions of government officials.

What matters is not only whether the losing party accepts the election outcome, but whether the system lets that party keep challenging and contesting the government’s actions.

But escalation creates its own danger

Duckworth’s reasoning can be turned around. In politics, there is always a chance of justifying an action by invoking a precedent set by a rival. Democratic polities can devolve into a zero-sum game where restraint is gradually discarded. People justify their actions by what they perceive to be an equivalent transgression by their opponent.

Democracy relies on the belief that other citizens and government personnel will restrain themselves to democratic procedures. Threatening or acting outside the limits of democracy may gradually erode citizens’ will to defend democratic procedures. In a democracy, people often have to judge for themselves if there are justifiable limits to what they can do to protect democratic procedures.

Democracy presents a dilemma. Too much restraint gives unscrupulous people the opportunity to act without regard for the same constraints. Too little restraint results in a situation where people stop observing constraints and democratic procedures become a sham. If people believe their adversary acted first, they are less likely to cooperate in defending democracy.

So where is the line?

“Follow every tradition” is not a strong enough answer. Nor is “They did it first.” Even if that were an adequate answer, we would still have to consider the effect of our political opponents’ actions.

Are the actions being taken lawful? Will actions taken against our political opponents be allowed when our opponents gain power? Do the actions allow our opponents to organize? Can the actions be undone? Do the actions enhance the rule of law and make those in power more accountable? Are the actions in the interest of the public?

Our political opponents’ actions provide an opportunity to be principled and to strengthen and build the necessary institutions of democracy. Restraint alone will not allow democracy to flourish.

Democracy requires the people and institutions to exercise power and to be held accountable. Elections alone will not bring about self-governance. Restraint and the people’s power to do what is necessary to hold people accountable must occur simultaneously.

The harder question

I previously asked whether the public would defend the limits of democracy, even when those same limits restrain friendly actions. I think this is an important question, but it is not the only one.

Duckworth identifies another. What happens when political leaders abandon the belief that adversaries will also practice restraint? Democracy can endure only so much. The essence of democracy, however, is that people control their own destiny, and that can never mean a collective decision to accept political impotence.

Democracy also has limits on the kind of defense it can provide itself. We can never allow ourselves to fulfill an adversary’s wishes through actions that would normally be antidemocratic and transgressive, because we risk subverting democracy. Every such act erodes citizens’ confidence in political leaders’ willingness to abide by rules and norms.

We have to be mindful of these distinctions. The aim should not just be to instill a greater sense of democratic self-restraint in citizens. Instead, we need a stronger commitment to educating citizens to distinguish the use of democratic power from the abusive use of power that weakens democracy.

The answer is not endless restraint. Nor is it retaliation without limits.

Democracy requires the willingness to use power, sometimes aggressively, to defend the public’s ability to participate, organize, challenge government, and remove leaders from office. The line is crossed when that power is used to make those things harder or impossible.

That is the distinction we have to learn to make. Restraint is a democratic virtue only when it protects democracy. When restraint merely leaves democratic institutions defenseless against people willing to exploit them, it stops being a virtue and becomes surrender.

So the question cannot simply be, Would I give this power to the other side?

It must also be: Does using this power preserve the other side’s ability to fight me tomorrow?

If the answer is yes, democracy can survive the conflict.

If the answer is no, we are no longer arguing about how forcefully to practice democracy. We are arguing about whether democracy will remain possible at all.

Last week, at Colgate University, former President Barack Obama shared his thoughts on President Trump’s decision to ban several news outlets from White House press briefings.

Obama posed an intriguing question. He asked what he would have done if he barred Fox News from the White House.

“It’s unimaginable,” he said.

He then spoke generally about Trump’s comments and how they impact the country as a whole. “If you have a certain cohort…30 to 35 percent of the country that is OK with that, then we haven’t built the knowledge of what democracy is all about and what it takes to sustain it,” said Obama.

“And we’ve gotta shore that back up.”

On September 18th, Colgate University invited Obama to speak on a variety of subjects, including his thoughts on citizenship, leadership and public service.

I keep coming back to one question.

Who are the 30 to 35 percent?

However, I am not interested in creating a negative peer group identity.

If Obama is correct about Americans being willfully ignorant of the tenets and institutions of American democracy and the rule of law, then we must investigate the beliefs of this demographic.

I don’t believe Trump voters are this 30 to 35 percent, but I may be wrong.

The problem is bigger than one political faction

Obama doesn't explicitly mention the segment of the population that accepts the behavior described above. However, in the context of his remarks, this group certainly exists.

Additionally, recent surveys show that the vast majority of people (77%) believe the First Amendment prevents government censorship. Other surveys also show that about 90% of the population does not believe the media should be censored by the government, and about 60% believe the government can censor the press if a story puts the country’s security at risk.

Republicans and Democrats differ on those questions, sometimes substantially, but members of both parties become more willing to give government power over the press when they believe there is a sufficiently compelling reason.

That is the crux of the issue. Most Americans would probably say they favor democracy and believe in the importance of free and fair elections. I imagine most Americans also believe in an independent judiciary and, in general, the rule of law. The issues arise when we let our allegiance to a particular candidate or specific policy override our support for these values. Our allegiance to our side of the political aisle allows us to rationalize rules and standards that would otherwise constrain us.

Democracy is easiest when the rule helps us

A simple test that's not used often enough is this: would I give this power to the other side? If the answer is no, then that power should not be used. Using this test, should a Democratic president be able to exclude Fox News from the White House like a Republican president can exclude other news outlets? Should a Democratic Attorney General be able to open an investigation on a Republican candidate for president like a Republican Attorney General can investigate a Democratic candidate? If a ruling party can change election laws to its advantage, should the other party accept the same when it takes control?

The names should not determine the outcome of an election. Rules should.

Rules are meant to curb government power. Rules should also restrain the powerful when they lose control. We should use the strongest protection of individual freedoms when unpopular views become the most vocal. Protect individual freedoms when a president of the other party becomes unpopular. The same should apply to democratic checks and balances. The judiciary should be used when a president of the other party becomes unpopular and stops vote counts. A democracy should be practiced when the public becomes unpopular and gives checks and balances to the government.

There is evidence that partisanship changes what we see

This is not purely a theoretical issue. The team at Bright Line Watch has surveyed thousands of Americans to test their understanding and confidence in democratic principles. Their 2026 survey reported significant partisan differences on these issues. Americans’ confidence in the final vote count also diverged by party. Republican confidence dropped 12 percentage points, while Democratic confidence rose 11 points. The organization notes it is more important to study why this occurred. More relevant is the example this provides. Of course, we can and do teach the three branches of the federal government. However, it is also possible to deeply understand the three branches and conclude, for example, that the president and members of his party should not obstruct congressional oversight of the executive branch. Deep understanding is not the same as lack of knowledge. Deep understanding is also not the same as adherence to democracy’s principles and procedures. Many appear to support the rule of law until it negatively impacts them. I would like to think this is not true.

So how do we shore up democracy?

Another lecture on the Constitution won’t cut it. Students need to learn how the various checks and balances embedded within our political system work in practice.

One way to do this is to identify a real-world situation and analyze the power being exercised. Next, determine what restrains that power. Who or what are the institutions? Now consider the situation with different people in those roles. Is it something that we would accept? This type of exercise helps us to think about institutions differently.

When dealing with Congress, for example, rather than thinking of Congress as “gridlock,” think about what could restrain a member of Congress from acting to impose a particular policy on the country.

One way to think about the judiciary is to consider what gives a court the authority to review a law and determine whether it is constitutional.

A free press means the government cannot control what reporters write or decide who can question it. Rather, the government must allow reporters to question it.

Due process means the government must slow down and consider the potential effects of its policies. The same is true for an opposition political party. Rather than seeing an opposition party as a failure of the current political system, see it as a positive contribution to the political process.

Civic education may actually help

This work may not be futile. Results of a study published in 2025 in the British Journal of Political Science suggested that civic education can be effective. Researchers reported findings from an experiment that included 41,000 participants across 33 countries. The researchers’ general question was: to what extent would citizens, when faced with a choice between endorsing or voting for a candidate who opposes democratic principles and a party that supports them, choose democracy? The researchers used brief messages to explain some advantages of democracy compared with autocracy. The messages also included some disadvantages of autocracy. For the purposes of the study, participants’ political polarization influenced how likely they were to support an anti-democratic candidate from a political party of which the participant was a member. Based on the results, civic education messages reduced participants’ support for an anti-democratic candidate from a participant’s preferred party by 22 percent compared to the control group. The researchers said the civic education messages did not change polarization. Given the current political situation, the study’s key significance is to determine the extent to which politically polarized citizens are willing to put democratic principles over party politics. The worst-case scenario, based on Obama’s results, is to conclude that a significant number of citizens are politically lost.

If persuasion and education fail to engage the public, ultimately we will have to win the contest against anti-democratic movements through elections. This is the nature of our system.

But Obama came to a different conclusion before reaching that point: “We’ve gotta shore that back up.”

He is right to raise the question. But what, exactly, needs shoring up?

Understanding the Constitution will not help. Knowing the limits of government and the reasoning and justifications for those limits is essential.

That means learning to distinguish between what we want government to do and what government should have the power to do.

Some rights should not depend on whether a majority approves of the people asserting them. And limits matter most when they protect people who are unpopular, powerless, or standing in the way of what the majority wants.

That is not a weakness of democracy.

It is one of democracy’s essential safeguards.

Majority rule matters. But democracy is not simply majority rule. It is majority rule constrained by rights, law, independent institutions, and the recognition that every political majority is temporary.

The test, then, is not whether we defend democracy when it gives us the result we want.

The test is whether we defend it when it doesn’t.

Teaching citizens to do that may be one of the greatest challenges of self-government.

It may also be the work democracy requires of us now.

In February, ICE said it would not be in Kentucky polling places. Other states got the same answer.

Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams was among the election officials to confirm this on Twitter. Based on information the Department of Homeland Security gave to state election officials, suggestions to the contrary were “disinformation.”

Seven months later, the answer was different.

On September 1, however, Attorney General Markwayne Mullin said ICE would not conduct “polling place” evacuations and patrols, but ICE could respond to incidents or distress signals from polling places, or serve process in an absconder case.

“If we’re serving a warrant,” Mullin said, ICE “will be where we need to be.”

DHS said it had no plans to implement operations to investigate or assess polling place activities. It said it could conduct enforcement and/or response activities based on the threat or risk posed to personnel or the polling place.

So far, the U.S. Government has not undertaken a plan to carry out nationwide polling place enforcement activities or to send ICE personnel to polling places to conduct citizenship voter inspections. No ICE operations are known to target polling places in Kentucky.

The U.S. Government has changed its position regarding ICE’s presence at polling places.

A federal law restricts the presence of armed federal personnel at elections.

A law designed to keep armed federal officers away from elections

This controversy is principally tied to 18 U.S.C. § 592.

This statute prohibits any federal employee, whether civilian or military, from ordering, disposing of, or having custody of any ‘troops’ or ‘armed men’ in the place of any election. The exceptions to this rule are if the troops are needed to subdue armed enemies of the United States.

This statute applies only to ordinary process.

Other challenges to this administration’s interpretation of the statute exist. The Justice Department’s regulations, policies, and practices have often strictly construed this statute.

One regulation states that, in general, no federal law enforcement personnel, including members of the FBI and U.S. Marshals may carry weapons and/or conduct law enforcement activities within a polling place. This regulation has been revised and is currently contained in the Justice Department’s internal regulations (the Justice Manual). The Manual directs that a representative of the Public Integrity Section be consulted if the issue involves permitting armed federal law enforcement personnel.

The law was once broader in what it permitted. It previously contained an exception allowing federal forces to “keep the peace at the polls.” Congress removed that exception in 1909.

That history creates a sharp legal question around DHS’s new position. Mullin acknowledges that immigration officers can serve warrants and effect arrests at polling places for reasons other than those enumerated in the exception in section 592 and what has traditionally been the Justice Department’s position.

Courts have not determined that DHS’s position is unlawful.

A complaint, filed on September 10, by LULAC and other organizations, requests that a federal district court in Washington, D.C., prohibit what the organizations consider to be DHS’s policy concerning activities of armed DHS personnel at polling places, and enjoin DHS from taking certain law enforcement actions within a specified distance of a polling place. The complaint does not state that DHS has adopted a specific position concerning polling places. DHS’s statements are firmly grounded in the law. In interpreting Section 592, the plaintiffs’ views have not been judicially considered and therefore carry no legal weight.

Important boundaries are also unsettled. The available record does not answer precisely what it means under § 592 for armed officers to be “at” a place where an election is being held, or how the law applies when an enforcement action unexpectedly moves into a polling-place parking lot.

Events during the 2026 election cycle illustrate how different interactions between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel and polling locations can be.

Three polling sites, three different circumstances

On three separate occasions during the same election, ICE and the Texas Department of Public Safety responded to situations in polling-location parking lots.

A person drove to a Bexar County library polling location, parked, and left their vehicle. There is no evidence the person attempted to enter the polling place or otherwise interfered with election activities. Neither Bexar County officials nor Sheriff Salazar said this person was being investigated for any voter- or election-related offenses. According to Salazar, federal authorities were not directed to Bexar County libraries. The presence of an ICE officer near a polling location does not, by itself, indicate that ICE is conducting election-related activities.

ICE’s activities in Simi Valley, California, are unexplained. On June 2, 2022, media reports confirmed ICE activity at a vote center. ICE activities at the vote center, and the reason for ICE’s presence, remain unexplained. Other states have also documented ICE at polling locations.

One of the more egregious examples was documented in New York during that state’s primary election, when two ICE officers entered a polling location to question a poll worker about a social media post. No disruption was ongoing at the polling location when the two ICE officers entered. DHS has provided no evidence of a nationwide initiative to deploy ICE to polling locations during the primary elections.

Those incidents do not demonstrate a coordinated national program to deploy ICE at polling places. DHS denies planning operations targeting polling sites, and a senior department official said ICE officers had received no special Election Day instructions beyond their ordinary duties.

The missing rules

What remains unknown is how that authority would work in practice.

Again, policy documents describing these “other duties” and how ICE/DHS personnel would be instructed to act if they find themselves at a polling location are lacking.

The available record does not establish how DHS defines a polling place for enforcement purposes, what type of warrant could justify entry, what supervisory approval would be required, whether election officials would receive advance notice, how close armed agents could operate to voters, or whether legal review under § 592 must occur before an operation proceeds.

Those missing details matter because DHS’s public description is broader than the exception written into § 592, while the Justice Department’s own guidance has historically treated armed federal presence at open polls as restricted.

An unanswered Freedom of Information Act lawsuit could provide additional information on DHS’s plans to expand its law enforcement authority. Democracy Forward Foundation sued DHS to obtain records describing any plans or directives by DHS/ICE to deploy officers to polling locations, to determine whether DHS/ICE produced the records as required.

The lawsuit does not describe an existing directive. Records responsive to the request could describe the DHS/ICE’s interpretation of the law and the extent of the direction it has provided its personnel.

The Sept. 10 federal lawsuit provides another route to an answer. The plaintiffs are seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under the Administrative Procedure Act and § 592. A court could eventually determine whether the authority DHS has claimed is compatible with the federal restriction on armed officials at elections.

For now, that legal question remains open.

Kentucky was part of the first assurance—not the later implementation

Kentucky played a role in the earliest stages of the described events, but the record has a gap as to whether Kentucky election officials received any directions about ICE’s activities.

Adams, Kentucky’s Secretary of State, participated in the federal election-official briefing and publicly confirmed the February assurance that ICE would not be present at voting locations.

Kentucky election officials do not have documented procedures addressing the presence of, or cooperation with, federal law enforcement officers in enforcing civil immigration warrants. Therefore, it is unclear what, if anything, Kentucky election officials would do in response to the service of a civil immigration warrant on a person located in a voting room.

Kentucky law does, however, give election officials responsibility for controlling voting rooms and maintaining order.

KRS 117.235 generally restricts who may enter a voting room while voting is underway. It also gives election officials authority over access for purposes including maintaining order and enforcing the law, while precinct officers, county clerks and law-enforcement officials have responsibilities for election law and order around polling places.

That leaves Kentucky with a practical question that neither the state materials nor the federal government’s public statements answer: What happens if armed federal immigration agents seek to enter an active Kentucky voting room to execute a civil immigration warrant?

The reporting does not answer it.

Nor does it establish that Kentucky officials have received instructions for such an encounter since DHS changed its public position.

Preparation is already happening. Suppression has not been established.

The possibility of encounters with federal agents has already changed election preparation in some places.

The Denver election administration has revised its training and created a response plan to potentially encounter federal law enforcement officers. Change in Election Protection resources and training, as well as changes in election observer behavior have all been alluded to in the lawsuit filed by Common Cause, LULAC, and UnidosUS.

Those organizational claims remain allegations in the litigation where they have not been independently corroborated.

The potential effect on voters requires another distinction.

An armed immigration-enforcement action at an active polling site could cause confusion, interrupt normal election administration, and frighten some eligible voters, particularly people with personal or family exposure to immigration enforcement. The actual encounters and contingency planning make that a foreseeable concern rather than a purely abstract one.

But the available evidence does not establish how many eligible voters, if any, have stayed home because of ICE. It does not establish measurable turnout suppression in the 2026 election. And it does not establish that DHS adopted its policy to intimidate voters.

In February, state election officials were told there would be no ICE presence at polling locations. In September, the DHS secretary said they could be targeted in deportation efforts.

Now, courts will decide how broad that power can be. Public records requests may help determine whether DHS has established regulations for that power. Public-records litigation may reveal whether DHS has written rules governing how it is supposed to be used.

Election officials in Kentucky have different questions. They want to know whether any federal officials have told them what happens if that power is exercised in a Kentucky voting location.

So far, no records or other communications from the feds have been located.

Sources

League of United Latin American Citizens v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, No. 1:26-cv-03157 (D.D.C.)
Public Rights Project case page and complaint materials:
https://www.publicrightsproject.org/what-we-do/legal-advocacy/lulac-v-dhs-2/

Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions
Just Security. Includes the Sept. 10, 2026 filing in League of United Latin American Citizens v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the plaintiffs’ claims under 18 U.S.C. § 592 and the Administrative Procedure Act, and the relief requested.
https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal-challenges-trump-administration/

18 U.S.C. § 592 — Troops at Polls
U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. Code:
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title18-section592

Democracy Forward Foundation v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security et al., No. 1:26-cv-02624 (D.D.C.)
Federal docket listing for the FOIA litigation seeking records concerning potential ICE presence at polling places:
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/district-of-columbia/dcdce/1%3A2026cv02624/294872

ICE’s Presence at Polls Records Challenge
Democracy Docket case page summarizing the Democracy Forward FOIA litigation and providing the complaint:
https://www.democracydocket.com/cases/ices-presence-at-polls-records-challenge/

Justice Department to Conduct Election Monitoring for Massachusetts Primary Election
U.S. Department of Justice, Sept. 1, 2026. Describes the Civil Rights Division’s election-monitoring program and its deployment of DOJ personnel to polling locations:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-conduct-election-monitoring-massachusetts-primary-election

Justice Department to Conduct Election Monitoring in New Hampshire Primary Election
U.S. Department of Justice, Sept. 8, 2026. Describes DOJ monitoring and preparations for monitoring during the 2026 midterm general election:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-conduct-election-monitoring-new-hampshire-primary-election

Justice Department to Conduct Election Monitoring in Rhode Island Primary Election
U.S. Department of Justice, Sept. 9, 2026. Describes the department’s primary-election monitoring and its intention to continue monitoring through the midterm general election:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-conduct-election-monitoring-rhode-island-primary-election

Voting Section
U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. Describes the Voting Section’s authority and federal voting-rights statutes it enforces:
https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-section

Trump administration sued over threat to deploy federal law enforcement at voting sites
The Guardian, Sept. 18, 2026. Reports DHS’s post-Sept. 10 statement that ICE was not planning operations targeting polling locations, the circumstances DHS said could lead to enforcement at a polling location, and DOJ’s statement concerning federal law enforcement at polling locations:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/18/trump-administration-sued-federal-law-enforcement-voting

Election officials prepare for chaos as Trump seeks to tilt the midterms to Republicans
Reuters, Sept. 15, 2026. Reporting on election officials’ preparations for possible federal activity and other disruptions surrounding the 2026 midterm elections:
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/election-officials-prepare-chaos-trump-seeks-tilt-midterms-republicans-2026-09-15/

Upon arrival at the White House on Sept. 19, MS NOW correspondent Akayla Gardner successfully passed the initial security clearance. However, after Gardner presented her credentials to a member of the Secret Service, she was told that her credentials had been revoked and the member of the Secret Service retained them.

Gardner and several other media members have experienced the same situation. CNN senior White House reporter Betsy Klein’s credential was deactivated and confiscated. Politico White House reporter Cheyenne Haslett was denied entry, and her credential was taken. According to CBS News, members of CNN and MS NOW had been turned away.

Trump initiated the situation on September 18, when he announced the inclusion of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico in a permanent news ban that would take effect immediately.

He said why: their journalism.

According to Trump, the excluded news outlets published false and rude stories about him and his administration. He did not identify a security incident or credential violation as the reason for the exclusion. He also warned that other news organizations could face the same consequence.

On September 19, Trump’s announced revocation took effect. Shortly after Trump’s announcement, the White House credentials of the journalists of the named organizations became worthless.

Most concerning is the lack of internal communication explaining how the Trump Administration directed the White House to carry out the revocation of news agency credentials.

The restrictions were not as clear as they appeared to be to Trump.

Not all employees of the affected departments were prohibited from entering the White House. Gardner said an MS NOW producer accompanying her was allowed inside even as she and a photographer were turned away.

There was also no evidence that the Secret Service determined which departments lost access. Trump publicly made that decision. Gardner said that an SS officer stated the decision came from above him.

The legal rules can depend on what kind of White House access was taken away.

The courts have interpreted this to mean that while a President can prohibit access to himself, he cannot do the same to the White House Press Corps.

In Sherrill v. Knight, the D.C. Circuit held in 1977 that once the White House opened press facilities to journalists, First Amendment protections applied to access. The court required notice of the reasons for denying a credential, an opportunity to respond, and a final written explanation.

That does not give every journalist a right to follow the president everywhere.

This happened again in 2025, after the White House limited access for the Associated Press (AP) for refusing to change AP’s style from “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America.”

A judge ruled in favor of the AP, and a temporary order lifted the restriction. The Court of Appeals (D.C. Circuit) sided with the White House and said restrictions the president imposed on very limited press access should remain in place while the case was further analyzed.

Trump said he was banning the AP from the “White House.” There have been many varying ways that this restriction has been implemented.

During part of this time, the AP was not permitted to work on the White House grounds. CNN and MS NOW also lost access to workspaces, television equipment and camera positions on the grounds, according to reporting cited in the organizations’ challenge. And CNN was removed from its scheduled Sept. 21 television and travel-pool assignment for Trump’s trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

On September 21, AP, MSNBC and Politico filed a complaint, asking a judge to declare the restriction on their First Amendment rights unconstitutional. Additionally, they asked the court to order the White House to reinstate their press privileges.

The lawsuit claims the administration stripped the media organizations of their White House credentials for exercising their First Amendment right to practice journalism. The organizations have asked the court to grant them a temporary restraining order to reinstate their hard passes and access while the case is heard.

As of the time this article was published, the organizations have not confirmed Dispatches’ independent research on the case caption and docket number.

The filing does not resolve the constitutional questions. It puts those questions before a federal court.

Whatever the eventual legal answer, the immediate consequences are already concrete.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico can still report on the administration, interview sources and publish their journalism. The White House has not prohibited the organizations from covering the federal government.

The White House gives credentialed journalists the ability to work from its grounds, observe events firsthand and operate near administration officials. For CNN and MS NOW, the restriction has also meant losing access to workspaces and equipment there. CNN has also been restricted from using a White House press facility and equipment. As a result, CNN could not cover the President on his September 21, 2018, foreign trip.

AP has shown that it lost the ability to send news and photos during the litigation and lost an advertising contract as a result. Similar cases have not been documented for MSNBC, CNN, Politico, etc.

Altering news coverage has not been documented.

So, the question is, will other news organizations modify their behavior and self-censor to keep their White House access?

Another question, no longer hypothetical, is: what effect would such an announcement have on the current occupant of the White House’s behavior and attitude toward the news media? The case, of course, is also about the processes through which the news media, and the public, hold the executive branch of the federal government accountable. It appears the news outlets have decided to pursue legal remedies first. They may also consider other options to address this unprecedented situation.

The White House Office and advisers are not required to comply with the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and neither is the Office of the President.

A FOIA request to the Secret Service could potentially provide information about instructions, notifications, and/or modifications to the agency’s security-related databases concerning White House credentials issued to the journalists named in the request, on or about September 18-20, 2021.

The Secret Service could withhold records pertaining to protected Secret Service security and/or protective interests. However, records that do not pertain to protected interests are required to be disclosed. Records responsive to the request could help provide the answers to the many questions raised by the Secret Service’s gate activities.

And what, exactly, were they told to do?

Sources

• Reuters, Sept. 18, 2026: “Trump says he is banning media outlets CNN, MS NOW, Politico from White House.” Trump’s announcement, his stated reason for the ban and his warning that other outlets could follow. Reuters article

• Reuters, Sept. 19, 2026: “White House turns away CNN, MS NOW, Politico reporters after Trump’s ban.” Documents implementation of the ban and denial of White House access. Reuters article

• CBS News, Sept. 19, 2026: “CNN, MS NOW and Politico staffers turned away from White House after Trump ban.” CBS reporters witnessed journalists being denied entry and documented the revocation or confiscation of press credentials. CBS News article

• Associated Press, Sept. 21, 2026: “CNN, MS NOW, Politico sue over denied White House access, citing First Amendment.” Covers the joint federal lawsuit, the First and Fifth Amendment claims and the organizations’ contention that their credentials were revoked because of their reporting. Associated Press article

• Reuters, Sept. 21, 2026: “CNN, MS NOW and Politico sue Trump over White House ban.” Covers the filing of the lawsuit, the request for emergency relief and the effect of the ban on White House television-pool coverage. Reuters article

• Los Angeles Times, Sept. 21, 2026: “CNN, MS NOW and Politico file court challenge to Trump’s press ban.” Documents that CNN had been scheduled to provide pooled television coverage for Trump’s Sept. 21 trip to New York for the U.N. General Assembly and was removed from the White House press schedule. Los Angeles Times article

• U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Sherrill v. Knight, 569 F.2d 124 (1977): Found that a bona fide journalist’s interest in obtaining a White House press pass is protected by the First Amendment and that denial requires procedural protections, including notice and an opportunity to respond. Sherrill v. Knight opinion

• U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Associated Press v. Budowich, No. 25-5109: Docket for the continuing litigation over the Trump White House’s restrictions on Associated Press access, including the appeals court’s June 6, 2025 order partially staying the district court’s preliminary injunction. D.C. Circuit docket and orders

At the beginning of 2025, no law-enforcement agencies in Kentucky had a partnership with the federal government through the 287(g) program.

According to an ICE report from September 15, 2026, 58 of the agency’s 287(g) agreements were with 56 different law-enforcement agencies in Kentucky.

Those 58 agreements put specific aspects of immigration enforcement in law-enforcement and detention facilities across the state. Through those agreements, Kentucky has also helped create and strengthen the federal government’s immigration-detention network.

The result is an immigration-enforcement network that is increasingly local in its operation but divided in its accountability.

Dispatches assessed whether swift changes to immigration enforcement gave state and local government units more power to impact and control immigration, and whether safeguards were in place to limit that power.

The changes increased immigration enforcement power, while responsibility and oversight of that power decreased and became fragmented. Local agencies failed to provide the oversight needed for the expanded enforcement.

While responsibility and oversight of immigration enforcement are fragmented at the local level, the federal government places numerous limitations on that power. Canceling or altering a contract is one way to limit immigration enforcement. Local detention facilities must also comply with certain standards and are subject to inspections and reviews by the courts and other federal agencies. Kentucky's Freedom of Information Act allows review of records in the facilities.

This doesn't name specific persons or organizations to hold accountable.

Depending on what happens to a person, authority may be divided among ICE, a sheriff or police department, a county jail, a fiscal court, federal detention officials and the courts. The agreement that gives an officer immigration authority may be different from the agreement that allows ICE to use a jail bed. The government that operates a jail may not be the government that decides whether someone remains in immigration custody.

As the state of Kentucky has incorporated more aspects of federal immigration enforcement, so has fragmentation in the state’s immigration enforcement systems.

From zero agreements to dozens

Section 287(g) of the federal immigration law permits ICE to grant state and local police the power to enforce some immigration laws. This is done through written agreements.

ICE uses three models.

The Jail Enforcement Model gives trained local personnel the authority to process persons in local custody for immigration purposes. The Warrant Service Officer Model trains local personnel to serve administrative immigration warrants on persons in detention. These personnel serve the warrants at detention facilities under contract with the agency to provide immigration services.

The Task Force Model shifts immigration enforcement out of the jail. It allows selected local police officers to engage in limited immigration-related activities during their general law enforcement and/or task-force activities at ICE’s request.

That is the dominant model in Kentucky.

Of the 58 Kentucky agreements identified on ICE’s Sept. 15 roster, 53 were Task Force Model agreements. Three were Jail Enforcement Model agreements, and two were Warrant Service Officer agreements.

Kentucky decided not to require this expansion statewide. Lawmakers considered legislation that would have required 287(g) participation, but Senate Bill 86 did not advance beyond committee referral.

Local governments spearheaded most of the development and the powers are not merely nominal.

Available data attribute at least 257 ICE arrests in Kentucky to 287(g) between November 2025 and Aug. 5, 2026. The monthly number rose from one in November to 70 in July. Kentucky recorded 443 total ICE arrests in July, meaning about 15.8% were attributed to 287(g).

Those numbers establish that delegated local authority is being used somewhere in Kentucky. They do not establish that every agency with an agreement has trained and authorized officers exercising that authority.

Oldham County is an early example.

The Oldham County sheriff signed a Task Force Model agreement effective in May 2026, and 11 deputies have since received the required training. But Dispatches has not yet established whether those deputies have received the individual authorization required to exercise delegated immigration powers or whether any have actually used them.

Bracken County was another example. In November 2025, the County’s officials reported that the County hadn’t utilized the 287(g) program at all.

A signed agreement shows that the necessary legal processes have been put in place. It does not mean that an officer has used that process.

Immigration detention runs through a different system

Kentucky's expanding role in federal immigration enforcement is evident in several other arenas, besides 287(g).

Counties can participate in both 287(g) agreements and ICE detainer programs, which legally differ from 287(g) agreements, even if they are implemented in the same counties.

Reporting by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting found that a dozen Kentucky jails had housed ICE detainees since January 2025. Kentucky’s ICE detention population grew from roughly 120 people in January 2025 to more than 1,000 by February 2026. Reporting placed the population at about 1,200 in July.

Many of those people did not enter federal custody in Kentucky.

ICE data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and analyzed by KyCIR showed that ICE held 9,335 people in Kentucky between October 2022 and early March 2026. More than 60% were held after January 2025.

Over 37 states sent almost half of the total population here.

As a result, Kentucky county jails have become part of a multistate federal detention system and are not simply facilities for detaining people arrested by Kentucky peace officers.

It is understandably complicated to someone who isn’t directly involved to know where the many layers of involved government entities are throughout the process.

Previous Dispatches research in Oldham County found delegated 287(g) authority alongside a separate arrangement allowing federal use of jail beds. The U.S. Marshals Service contracting structure permitted ICE to use those beds, ICE exercised detention oversight, and Oldham County operated the jail.

This division of labor makes accountability even more convoluted. Determining whether a county “works with ICE” doesn’t exactly show how power is justified and/or how it should be altered.

Safeguards exist — and some have worked

Rapid growth does not mean Kentucky’s locally imposed immigration system is rule-free and unperformed. There are regulations.

Congress authorized 287(g) delegation by statute. State and local personnel may exercise delegated immigration-enforcement authority only after receiving the required training and authorization. When performing functions delegated under a 287(g) agreement, participating personnel operate under ICE's direction and supervision; their state or local agency retains supervision over their other duties and employment.

Current agreements contain additional safeguards.

For example, the Task Force Model agreement for Heritage Creek provides that participating CIS employees are subject to Federal civil rights requirements, includes complaint procedures and language access, and permits ICE to suspend the agreement for employee misconduct. Either party may terminate the agreement.

ICE’s current Task Force Model training includes immigration law, civil-rights law, cross-cultural issues, liability, and complaint procedures.

Detention oversight also exists.

An ICE inspection of the Oldham County Detention Center documented weekly visits by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations personnel. A previous inspection had identified a medical deficiency; a 2025 assisted self-inspection reported no new deficiency.

It doesn’t show that every safeguard always works. It does show that inspection and oversight occur, so it is incorrect to say the system is generally unsupervised.

In Kentucky, the courts serve as a check and definitely make a difference.

In May 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected the federal government’s interpretation requiring mandatory detention for a class of noncitizens arrested in the interior of the country. Kentucky federal courts subsequently ordered release or constitutionally adequate bond hearings in multiple cases.

Local institutions in Kentucky have increased the scope of federal immigration power. However, the available data does not show that legal constraints on that power were eliminated.

One clear weakness is deciding which safeguard or decision-maker is at issue.

Following the chain of responsibility

Consider the information someone would look for after discovering a local law enforcement agency partners with immigration enforcement agencies.

Who approved the agreement? Which officers have actually been trained and authorized? Has the authority been used? Who can terminate the agreement?

Additional questions arise if someone is detained.

Who authorizes ICE to use the jail? Who runs the facility? Who sets its budget and policies? Who sets immigration detention policies? What records are available to the public? What opportunities do detainees have to challenge their detention and/or report being abused?

No single Kentucky institution answers all of them. Available evidence shows that the public visibility of those answers varies from county to county.

In Oldham County, for example, previous Dispatches research found little public record of the sheriff’s 287(g) agreement before it was signed. No relevant item was identified on Fiscal Court agendas for April 21 or May 5, and a May 5 Public Safety & Jail Committee meeting was canceled. At least one magistrate said in August that he had not seen the agreement before.

That doesn't mean the sheriff broke Kentucky law or skipped over a legally mandated vote. Dispatches could not find any evidence that Fiscal Court approval was legally mandated.

This has been handled more publicly in other jurisdictions. In Bracken County, the Sheriff reported this to the Fiscal Court and later answered questions about the potential funding at that same Court.

The data across the state shows that some local officials are politically scrutinized, not that no local officials are authorized.

Public records reveal another gap

Transparency also varies once immigration detention occurs within county jails.

Recent Kentucky reporting found that some jail rosters clearly identify people in ICE custody while others do not or use practices that make their custody status difficult to determine.

Oldham County produced a more concrete test of what local officials must disclose.

In Kentucky Attorney General decision 26-ORD-150, the attorney general found that the Oldham County Detention Center had inadequately justified withholding several categories of records simply by invoking ICE counsel. Those included contracts, financial records, inspection materials, incident-summary information, and a general legal-mail policy.

Detainee-specific population and grievance records raised different legal issues and were treated differently.

Certain information related to federal immigration detention can be withheld from the public. However, just because the federal government is involved, doesn’t mean information related to contracts, finances, or local policies is exempt from Kentucky’s public records laws.

Previous Oldham research indicated that jail records failed to document the U.S. Marshals Service agreement referred to in the ICE inspection reports.

That leaves a system in which a resident may have to reconstruct the governing structure one record, agency, and legal process at a time.

The expansion carries money as well as authority

Counties housing detainees for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) receive financial benefits.

According to KyCIR, Kentucky jails have received payments of up to $100 per detainee per day for housing people held by ICE. Jails can also bill ICE for staff time and mileage when transporting detainees. Money was reportedly given to offset the cost of jail operations.

While participating Kentucky counties generate a portion of their revenue from immigration detention, available evidence does not support the claim that they profit from immigration detention.

Federal policy also provides financial incentives for participation in the 287(g) program. ICE may reimburse participating agencies for the salary and benefits of eligible trained officers, including overtime costs of up to 25 percent of an officer’s annual salary. Under the Task Force Model, participating law-enforcement agencies may also qualify for quarterly monetary performance awards based on the successful location of people identified by ICE and the agency’s overall assistance to ICE’s mission.

Those payments add another layer of local accountability because immigration enforcement can intersect with county staffing, spending, and jail budgets even when the underlying immigration authority comes from Washington.

Where accountability still exists

The system’s division also divides the public. The first step is to identify which part of the division is affected and who has power over it.

For a 287(g) agreement, ICE and the participating law-enforcement agency matter most. Residents can determine whether their sheriff’s office or police department has an agreement, which of the three 287(g) models it uses, whether participating personnel have been trained and authorized, and what the agreement says about suspension or termination. Current agreements allow the participating agency to terminate its agreement and ICE to suspend participation for serious violations.

Other local officials may still have oversight roles involving staffing, spending, or policy, but their legal authority varies. A fiscal court or city council should not automatically be assumed to have the power to cancel an agreement signed by an independently elected sheriff.

County jails create different points of accountability. Kentucky law gives county governing bodies responsibilities involving jail rules for security, safety and prisoner treatment, while fiscal courts also exercise important authority over jail budgets. Residents can examine meeting agendas, jail budgets, detention revenue, expenditures, contracts and jail policies to determine how federal detention affects county operations and spending. Public meetings and budget proceedings can provide additional information even when county officials do not control the federal government’s decision to detain or release a particular person.

Under Kentucky’s open-records law, the public can request records maintained by local administrations, including contracts and financial documents and policies. Certain records may be exempt from disclosure. The records that are available may include contracts, invoices, records of inspections, policies and other records showing how the local administration implements federal immigration enforcement and detainers.

A denial does not necessarily end the process. A resident can appeal to the Kentucky Attorney General or challenge directly in circuit court. The Oldham decision demonstrates that this process can result in a formal finding that a local jail failed to adequately justify withholding records. It also shows that different categories of records can raise different legal issues; federal involvement does not automatically make every local record public or confidential.

For people in federal immigration detention, different mechanisms apply. ICE operates the Detention Reporting and Information Line for concerns involving detention conditions, abuse, legal access, and disabilities. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General accepts misconduct complaints, while its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties accepts civil-rights complaints.

Courts remain another avenue of review. Kentucky cases in 2026 show that judicial review can result in release or new bond proceedings when detention exceeds statutory or constitutional limits.

No single part of the system is completely controlled by any one request. A records request will not touch a federal detainer. A fiscal court has no jurisdiction over a sheriff’s 287(g) agreement. Making a complaint will not result in a court order.

The evidence shows a rapidly expanded system in which coercive authority, oversight, and accountability have been distributed across institutions, making responsibility difficult to see and navigate.

Knowing which institution holds a particular piece of authority is therefore essential to knowing where to seek accountability.

Sources

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 287(g) Program
Federal description of the 287(g) program, its three operating models, training, supervision and delegated authority.
ICE 287(g) Program

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Oldham County Sheriff’s Office Task Force Model Memorandum of Agreement
The May 2026 agreement establishing the Oldham County Sheriff’s Office 287(g) Task Force Model partnership.
Oldham County Sheriff’s Office 287(g) agreement

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Heritage Creek Police Department Task Force Model Memorandum of Agreement
A Kentucky Task Force Model agreement showing the delegated authorities, training requirements, certification and ICE supervision provisions.
Heritage Creek Police Department 287(g) agreement

Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, “Kentucky ICE Arrests Approach 5,000 Amid Spike From Local Law Enforcement,” September 3, 2026
Analysis of Deportation Data Project records, including Kentucky ICE arrests attributed to 287(g), the July 2026 arrest total and the growth in Kentucky agreements.
Kentucky ICE Arrests Approach 5,000

Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting / Louisville Public Media, “Trump’s deportation machine sends thousands of immigrants to Kentucky jails,” May 26, 2026
FOIA-based reporting showing 9,335 people held by ICE in Kentucky between October 2022 and early March 2026, including detainees transferred to Kentucky from 37 states.
Trump’s deportation machine sends thousands of immigrants to Kentucky jails

Kentucky Lantern, “Reports say ICE detention is growing in KY but records, details remain unclear, advocates say,” September 10, 2026
Reporting on Kentucky’s roughly 1,200 ICE detainees as of July, the expansion of participating jails and law-enforcement agencies, and continuing transparency concerns.
Reports say ICE detention is growing in Kentucky

Kentucky Attorney General, 26-ORD-150, Bethany Baxter / Oldham County Detention Center, April 3, 2026
Open-records decision addressing access to agreements, payments, inspection records, grievances, and other records associated with ICE detention at the Oldham County Detention Center.
Kentucky Attorney General 26-ORD-150

Bracken County Fiscal Court, February 25, 2026 meeting minutes
Local government record documenting public questioning about the sheriff’s 287(g) agreement and possible federal funding.
Bracken County Fiscal Court minutes, February 25, 2026

Spectrum News 1, “Across Kentucky, police agencies agree to assist ICE enforcement efforts,” November 17, 2025
Reporting on Kentucky’s early 287(g) expansion, including Bracken County Sheriff Robert Boody’s statement that the county had not yet used its delegated enforcement authority.
Across Kentucky, police agencies agree to assist ICE enforcement efforts

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, National Detention Standards, Revised 2025
Federal standards governing detention operations, including medical care, grievances, legal access, visitation, detainee communication and other safeguards.
ICE National Detention Standards, 2025

U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Immigration Enforcement: ICE Can Further Enhance Its Planning and Oversight of State and Local Agreements,” GAO-21-186
Federal review of ICE’s management and oversight of 287(g) agreements, including inspections, complaints and compliance monitoring.
GAO-21-186

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft, May 11, 2026
Appellate decision addressing detention and access to individualized bond hearings for certain noncitizens detained under federal immigration authority.
Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft

Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting / Louisville Public Media, “Kentucky immigration attorneys hopeful in wake of federal court ruling,” May 18, 2026
Kentucky-specific reporting on the Sixth Circuit ruling and its application to people detained in Kentucky.
Kentucky immigration attorneys hopeful in wake of federal court ruling

Dispatches from Kentucky, “Oldham County sheriff joined ICE’s 287(g) program after twice saying it wasn’t participating,” August 14, 2026
Previous Dispatches reporting establishing the timeline of the Oldham County Sheriff’s Office agreement and the distinction between an agency-level agreement and evidence that individual deputies have actually received or exercised delegated authority.
Oldham County sheriff joined ICE’s 287(g) program

Dispatches from Kentucky, “Kentucky Open Records Law and ICE Detainee Records: What 26-ORD-138 and 26-ORD-150 Mean,” April 7, 2026
Previous Dispatches reporting explaining the Kentucky Attorney General’s rulings on which ICE-related jail records remain subject to Kentucky’s Open Records Act and which detainee-specific records may be withheld.
Kentucky Open Records Law and ICE Detainee Records

Two years ago, Kentucky voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have given the General Assembly broader authority to provide financial support for the education of students outside the state’s common-school system. Now Kentucky is preparing to participate in a new federal scholarship tax-credit program that can help pay eligible K-12 educational expenses for students in public and nonpublic settings, including private, parochial, church and home-based schools.

The two mechanisms are not legally the same. But the sequence matters. After voters rejected one route for expanding state authority, Kentucky lawmakers affirmatively chose a different federal pathway.

Amendment 2 would have changed Kentucky’s Constitution to explicitly allow the General Assembly to provide financial support for students outside the common-school system. Voters rejected it decisively on Nov. 5, 2024, with 1,302,466 voting no and 707,819 voting yes.

That result did not prohibit every possible future form of support for nonpublic education. What voters refused was the proposed expansion of the legislature’s constitutional authority.

Then Congress changed the policy landscape.

In July 2025, Public Law 119-21 created Section 25F of the federal tax code. Beginning in 2027, eligible taxpayers may claim a nonrefundable federal income-tax credit of up to $1,700 a year for cash contributions to qualifying scholarship-granting organizations, commonly called SGOs. Those organizations distribute scholarship funds for eligible K-12 educational expenses under the federal program.

But Congress did not automatically enroll Kentucky. State participation is voluntary.

Kentucky’s General Assembly chose to participate through House Bill 1 during the 2026 legislative session, over Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto. Lawmakers did not recreate the same state tax-credit mechanism previously struck down by the courts. Nor did they obtain the constitutional authority proposed in Amendment 2.

They opted Kentucky into a new federal mechanism.

That distinction helps explain how Kentucky could act. It also shifts the public-interest question. If Kentucky chose to join the program, what rules did the state put around it? Who will control the scholarship money? What will the public be able to see?

The timing creates the political tension. Less than two years after Kentucky voters refused to expand the legislature’s constitutional authority to support education outside the common-school system, lawmakers approved participation in a program capable of supporting many of those same educational choices.

Beshear criticized HB 1 as contrary to the political message voters had sent through Amendment 2. That is a political and democratic-accountability argument, not an established legal conclusion.

Supporters of HB 1 have a substantive answer to that comparison: this is not Kentucky spending state tax dollars on private schools.

The transaction begins with a taxpayer who makes a cash contribution to an eligible scholarship organization. If the contribution and organization satisfy federal requirements, the taxpayer may claim a nonrefundable federal income-tax credit of up to $1,700. The scholarship organization then distributes qualifying funds to eligible students for approved educational expenses.

The distinction is real.

Section 25F reduces federal income-tax liability, not Kentucky income-tax liability. Kentucky is not appropriating General Fund money to pay the credit, and legislative fiscal staff concluded that HB 1 is not expected to reduce Kentucky General Fund revenue.

Kentucky’s earlier constitutional decisions do not, by themselves, resolve the legality of this federal-credit structure.

In 2022, the Kentucky Supreme Court invalidated the state’s Education Opportunity Account program, which used a Kentucky income-tax credit, under Section 184 of the state Constitution. The court again enforced constitutional restrictions involving the common-school system in a February 2026 charter-school funding case.

Those decisions show the limits Kentucky courts have placed on state financing outside the common-school system. They do not establish that HB 1 is unconstitutional. Section 25F works differently because the tax credit is federal.

That legal difference does not make the 2024 vote politically irrelevant.

Scholarships under the federal program can support qualifying educational expenses in settings outside Kentucky’s traditional public-school system. Kentucky’s proposed implementation rule recognizes educational settings that include private, parochial, church and home-based schools, along with public common schools and other qualifying settings, subject to federal requirements.

That is the democratic-accountability question at the center of Kentucky’s decision. Lawmakers may have the authority to opt into a federal program that did not exist when voters considered Amendment 2. But when government adopts a new mechanism that advances a related policy objective after voters rejected a broader grant of authority, the public has reason to ask how that power is being used and what protections come with it.

There is no ambiguity about Kentucky’s role.

The General Assembly enacted HB 1 and elected the Commonwealth into the federal program. The law designates the Kentucky Secretary of State as the sole state official responsible for reporting that election and submitting Kentucky’s list of scholarship-granting organizations to the federal government.

Secretary of State Michael Adams executed Kentucky’s advance election for 2027 on July 22, and the IRS now identifies Kentucky as a participating state.

Kentucky also runs the process for deciding which organizations make it onto the state’s list.

Proposed regulation 30 KAR 1:060 would require an organization seeking inclusion to provide an IRS determination letter, a sworn declaration, and a $15 filing fee. But making the state list would not, by itself, establish that the organization satisfies every federal Section 25F requirement.

And the rule is still proposed. Its requirements could change before becoming final.

The organizations ultimately included on Kentucky’s submitted list will play a significant role in the program.

Federal law sets rules for how SGOs must operate, how they distribute scholarships and which students may receive them. They are private organizations, not state agencies. But they will serve as intermediaries between contributors and scholarship recipients.

That makes oversight more than a paperwork issue.

Congress created the tax benefit. Kentucky opted in. Private organizations will handle the scholarship stage.

The question is no longer simply whether Kentucky could participate. It is what Kentucky requires of the organizations through which the program will operate.

Some safeguards are already part of Kentucky’s proposed approach.

Organizations seeking participation would make sworn eligibility declarations. Participating organizations would later be required to obtain annual compliance audits from certified public accountants addressing core federal requirements.

The proposed rule also makes those compliance audits subject to the Kentucky Open Records Act, while protecting personally identifiable student information.

Those provisions create identifiable ways for the public to examine the program. But the Kentucky rule is not final, and federal regulations remain pending.

Lawmakers also considered safeguards that did not become part of enacted HB 1.

Legislative proposals included requirements concerning an in-state office for scholarship organizations, nondiscrimination protections for participating schools, and annual demographic and financial reporting to the Legislative Research Commission.

Their absence does not prove the program will discriminate, hide information or operate improperly. It does show that Kentucky had choices about what accountability to require, and not every proposed safeguard became law.

That makes implementation the next test.

How much will Kentuckians be able to learn about the organizations on the state’s list? How much scholarship money will they distribute? Which schools and services will benefit? What will the audits show? Will the public have enough information to judge whether the safeguards are working?

The answers will depend on final federal rules, Kentucky’s final regulation, public records, future audits and any additional reporting requirements lawmakers or regulators put in place.

There are also consequences that cannot yet responsibly be claimed.

Kentucky’s SEEK funding formula is sensitive to student attendance, so future enrollment changes could eventually affect school-district funding. But Section 25F scholarships have not begun.

There is no evidence yet that the program has caused Kentucky public schools to lose students, reduced SEEK funding, increased private-school enrollment or produced any particular geographic or demographic pattern.

Those are questions to investigate once evidence exists, not conclusions to write in advance.

Kentuckians do not have to wait until 2027 to pay attention.

The proposed 30 KAR 1:060 rule is scheduled for a public hearing on Oct. 27, with written comments accepted through Oct. 31. Readers can follow the final regulation, watch the Secretary of State’s list of scholarship organizations, seek public records and, when available, compliance audits created through the process.

They can also compare what eventually happens with the safeguards lawmakers chose to require and the ones they left out.

Amendment 2 did not legally settle every future question about education funding. Section 25F did not erase the political significance of what Kentucky voters decided.

The more immediate question now is what Kentucky does with the authority it chose to exercise.

Kentucky chose this program. Kentuckians should be able to see who benefits, how the money moves, and whether the safeguards work.

Sources

Kentucky General Assembly — House Bill 1, 2026 Regular Session
Legislative history, enacted legislation, veto and veto override, fiscal materials, and proposed amendments.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/26rs/hb1.html

Kentucky Legislative Research Commission — Proposed 30 KAR 1:060
Kentucky’s proposed rules for Scholarship Granting Organization filings, annual listings, compliance audits, public-record requirements, and the public-comment process.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/kar/titles/030/001/060/

Internal Revenue Service — Federal Scholarship Tax Credit
Federal information on Section 25F, participating states, taxpayer eligibility, Scholarship Granting Organizations, and Kentucky’s participation.
https://www.irs.gov/government-entities/federal-state-local-governments/federal-scholarship-tax-credit-fstc

U.S. Congress — Public Law 119-21
Federal law establishing Section 25F and the federal scholarship tax credit.
https://www.congress.gov/119/plaws/publ21/PLAW-119publ21.pdf

U.S. Department of the Treasury — Federal Scholarship Tax Credit implementation
Treasury information concerning implementation of Section 25F and forthcoming federal regulations.
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0527

Kentucky State Board of Elections — 2024 General Election Results
Official Kentucky election results for Constitutional Amendment 2.
https://elect.ky.gov/results/2020-2029/Pages/2024.aspx

Kentucky Supreme Court — Commonwealth ex rel. Cameron v. Johnson, Education Opportunity Account litigation
Kentucky Supreme Court decision concerning the Education Opportunity Account tax-credit program and Section 184 of the Kentucky Constitution.
https://apps.courts.ky.gov/Supreme/SC_Opinions.shtm

Kentucky Court of Justice — Kentucky Supreme Court opinions
Official source for Kentucky Supreme Court decisions, including the February 2026 charter-school funding decision discussed in this article.
https://apps.courts.ky.gov/Supreme/SC_Opinions.shtm

Kentucky has been awarded $212.9 million for the first year of a new federal program meant to transform rural health care. The money comes from the Rural Health Transformation Program, a five-year, $50 billion national initiative Congress created in 2025. For a state where more than four in ten residents live in rural areas, $212.9 million is real money, and Kentucky has real health problems it hopes to address. But the size of the announcement does not tell us whether rural health care is becoming more secure.

The new investment is arriving alongside major changes to Medicaid financing. The same 2025 federal law that created the Rural Health Transformation Program also changed Medicaid eligibility and payment rules in ways that federal budget estimates project will reduce federal Medicaid spending. Kentucky is receiving substantial new money for rural health care, but it works differently from the recurring Medicaid financing now under pressure. The question is whether, taken together, those changes leave rural Kentuckians with more secure access to care.

For rural Kentuckians, this is about whether care is available when people need it. Kentucky’s own Rural Health Transformation plan identifies serious challenges involving chronic disease, maternity care, behavioral health, dental care, emergency medical services, and the health-care workforce. Some communities already face provider shortages and long travel distances for care. After the grants are announced and the policy changes take effect, will people in rural Kentucky have better, more reliable access to health care?

Medicaid is central to that question because it helps pay providers for treating patients. It covers a significant share of rural residents, and many rural hospitals are financially vulnerable. Hospitals are only part of the system. Clinics, physicians, behavioral health providers, maternity services, and other organizations also rely on Medicaid payments, though dependence varies by provider.

The projected Medicaid change in rural Kentucky is substantial. KFF estimates that federal Medicaid spending associated with rural Kentucky could decline by nearly $11 billion over ten years under the 2025 reconciliation law, the largest estimated rural reduction among the states in its analysis. That is not $11 billion being removed from Kentucky’s budget tomorrow, and it is not a prediction that rural hospitals will lose $11 billion. It is a modeled reduction in federal Medicaid spending over a decade. It shows the scale of the financial pressure surrounding Kentucky’s rural-health experiment.

Hospitals face another Medicaid financing issue. States can use Medicaid state-directed payments to require managed-care plans to make certain payments to hospitals and other providers. The 2025 law placed new limits on some of those arrangements. KFF estimates that, once those limits are fully implemented, about $3.9 billion in federal spending for Kentucky hospital state-directed payments could be above the new limits. That is not an annual $3.9 billion hospital cut, and it should not be added to the nearly $11 billion rural estimate. The figures measure different things. Together, they show that Medicaid pressure can reach Kentucky providers through more than one route.

The Rural Health Transformation Program has a different job. Congress authorized $50 billion nationally over five fiscal years beginning in 2026. The money can support certain health-care services and interventions, workforce development, expanded access, technology, new care models, and rural health infrastructure. Unlike ordinary Medicaid reimbursement, it provides time-limited funding for approved rural-health activities and system changes. Its value should be judged by what those investments accomplish.

Kentucky has ambitious plans for its share. The state has organized its strategy around five areas: chronic disease, maternal and infant health, behavioral health, rural dental care, and emergency medical services and trauma response. Funding opportunities have included community paramedicine, mobile dental care, dental-hygiene training, behavioral-health support, telebehavioral health, and community-health-worker training. Those projects could expand services and build capacity in rural communities.

But funding a project is not the same as creating lasting access.

Medicaid reimbursement pays providers for care delivered to eligible patients on an ongoing basis. Rural Health Transformation money supports approved services, projects, and system changes during a limited federal program. Those investments may reduce costs, expand capacity, or make care easier to reach. But temporary project funding does not automatically replace recurring revenue that helps keep care available.

Building new capacity and sustaining existing care are related goals, but they are not the same financial task.

The $212.9 million headline also requires precision. CMS lists $212,905,591 as Kentucky’s fiscal year 2026 award. Kentucky grant documents describe the same amount as budget-period-one funding and say the program runs through fiscal year 2030, with funding disbursed annually based on performance. Kentucky’s Medicaid website, however, has described the $212.9 million award as money the state will use “over five years.” Those descriptions are not identical. CMS has awarded Kentucky $212.9 million for fiscal year 2026. Future awards should not be assumed to equal that amount.

The numbers cannot be turned into a simple balance sheet. Subtracting $212.9 million from the nearly $11 billion rural Medicaid estimate, then adding the $3.9 billion state-directed-payment figure, would mix different time periods and categories of spending. KFF warns that state-by-state comparisons between Rural Health Transformation funding and Medicaid reductions can be misleading. The evidence supports a narrower conclusion: Kentucky is receiving significant new rural-health resources, but those resources have not been shown to fully offset the broader Medicaid financing changes that could affect providers and patients. Kentucky should be judged by what the choices it controls actually produce.

Federal law sets the financial landscape, but it does not make every decision. Kentucky cannot rewrite the federal Medicaid law, but state officials have meaningful authority over how Rural Health Transformation money is used. Kentucky set the priorities in its approved plan, issues funding opportunities, chooses among eligible applicants, and sets implementation and reporting requirements within federal rules. Those choices shape which problems receive attention, which organizations receive resources, and which communities may see new services.

The state does not control every pressure on Medicaid. It does control what it does with this money.

Those choices are becoming visible. Kentucky has sought organizations to expand community paramedicine, strengthen EMS training, provide mobile dental care, build the dental-hygiene workforce, improve behavioral-health crisis follow-up, and expand telebehavioral services. The strategy aims to expand community-based access and rural service capacity. It also gives Kentuckians something concrete to follow. As awards are made and programs begin operating, the public should be able to see who receives money, how much they receive, where they are expected to serve, and what they promise to accomplish.

That test should go beyond whether every region receives an equal slice. Rural Kentucky is not uniform, and equal funding is not necessarily equitable funding. Some communities face deeper provider shortages, poorer health outcomes, greater transportation barriers, or fewer alternatives when a service disappears. Kentucky should be able to explain how need shaped its choices. Unequal distribution is not automatically unfair, because programs have different purposes and eligibility rules. But statewide spending totals do not prove that communities with the greatest barriers benefited.

The same standard applies when officials describe the program as a success.

Neither proves that rural health improved. The harder questions come later. Did more pregnant women receive timely care? Did people in behavioral-health crises get treatment closer to home? Did rural residents gain dental care they could not previously obtain? Did EMS systems become more capable? Did communities gain providers and keep them? Those measures tell us whether transformation actually occurred.

Financial pressure may affect rural providers differently. A provider facing tighter revenue may change staffing, delay investments, reconsider services, seek other revenue, or find efficiencies. More uninsured patients can also increase uncompensated care. None of that means a particular Kentucky hospital is destined to close or a specific service will disappear. But persistent financial pressure can narrow providers’ options. Over time, those financial decisions can affect which services remain available and how far patients must travel to reach them.

That uncertainty is one reason Kentucky should make transparency central to the program. Federal grant requirements and Kentucky’s own funding documents already require reporting on performance and funding. The state should make that information easy for the public to find and understand. In one accessible place, Kentuckians should be able to see who received the money, how much they received, which counties or populations each project is meant to serve, how awards were chosen, and what each recipient is expected to accomplish.

Spending records are only half of accountability. Kentucky also needs to show what happened. If a project promises better access, measure access. If it promises a stronger workforce, show whether workers were recruited, where they practice, and whether they stay. If it promises better maternal, behavioral, dental, or emergency care, track changes that matter to patients. Contracts and expenditures can show where money went. They cannot show whether the system improved. Those results should be published as they become available.

Kentucky’s $212.9 million first-year award gives the state a real opportunity to invest in communities with persistent gaps in care. So do the broader Medicaid financing changes deserve serious scrutiny. The answer is not that new rural-health money solves the problem, or that it is worthless because larger pressures remain.

Kentucky should show who received it, where it went, what recipients promised, and what happened next. Then Kentuckians can judge what matters most: whether people in rural communities gained better, durable access to the care they need.

Sources

U.S. Government Publishing Office. Public Law 119-21, July 4, 2025.
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PLAW-119publ21

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. CMS Announces $50 Billion in Awards to Strengthen Rural Health in All 50 States. December 29, 2025.
https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-announces-50-billion-awards-strengthen-rural-health-all-50-states

Commonwealth of Kentucky. Team Kentucky Rural Health Transformation.
https://ruralhealthplan.ky.gov/Pages/index.aspx

Commonwealth of Kentucky. Rural Health Transformation Funding Opportunities.
https://ruralhealthplan.ky.gov/Pages/Request_For_Applications.aspx

Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Department for Medicaid Services. Rural Health Transformation.
https://www.chfs.ky.gov/agencies/dms/pages/default.aspx

KFF. How Might Federal Medicaid Cuts in the Enacted Reconciliation Package Affect Rural Areas? July 24, 2025.
https://www.kff.org/medicaid/how-might-federal-medicaid-cuts-in-the-enacted-reconciliation-package-affect-rural-areas/

KFF. A Closer Look at the $50 Billion Rural Health Fund in the New Reconciliation Law. August 4, 2025.
https://www.kff.org/medicaid/a-closer-look-at-the-50-billion-rural-health-fund-in-the-new-reconciliation-law/

KFF. Comparing States’ Rural Health Fund Allotments to Medicaid Spending Cuts Can Be Misleading. February 6, 2026.
https://www.kff.org/medicaid/comparing-states-rural-health-fund-allotments-to-medicaid-spending-cuts-can-be-misleading/

KFF. At Least 37 States Have Medicaid State Directed Payments for Hospital Services That Could Be Reduced by the 2025 Reconciliation Law Limits. August 14, 2026.
https://www.kff.org/medicaid/at-least-37-states-have-medicaid-state-directed-payments-for-hospital-services-that-could-be-reduced-by-the-2025-reconciliation-law-limits/

Beginning October 1, 2026, some lawfully present immigrants in Kentucky will face new federal restrictions on Medicaid eligibility. The change does not apply to all immigrants, and it will not necessarily mean an immediate loss of coverage for every person affected. But for Kentuckians whose immigration status falls into the newly restricted categories, Medicaid eligibility will change as Kentucky begins applying the federal rules.

The people affected are not one undifferentiated group. Kentucky says lawful permanent residents who have satisfied the federal five-year waiting period, Cuban-Haitian entrants, and migrants covered by the Compacts of Free Association can continue to qualify, as can lawfully present children. Pregnant women may qualify regardless of immigration status. But refugees, asylees, people paroled into the United States for at least a year, certain conditional entrants, people granted withholding of deportation, Amerasians, and some survivors of domestic violence or human trafficking will no longer qualify on the basis of those statuses beginning October 1. Those distinctions are not semantic. Under Medicaid law, a person’s immigration status can determine whether federal coverage remains available.

The restriction comes from federal law. Section 71109 of Public Law 119-21 narrows the categories of noncitizens eligible for federal Medicaid matching funds beginning October 1, 2026. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has instructed states to update their eligibility systems, verification processes, and claims procedures to comply. Kentucky is therefore implementing a federal eligibility restriction, not creating one of its own. But the distinction does not make the consequence abstract: once the federal rule takes effect, immigration status will determine whether some Kentucky residents can continue to receive full Medicaid coverage.

For Kentuckians who qualify, Medicaid is comprehensive health insurance, not a single benefit. Kentucky’s program covers medically necessary care, including physician and hospital services, preventive care, laboratory and X-ray services, prescription treatment, behavioral health care, dental and vision services, and other benefits depending on a member’s eligibility and medical needs. The affected immigrants will not all use the same services, but Medicaid eligibility gives them access to the same health-care system available to other eligible Kentuckians. Losing that eligibility can therefore mean losing far more than a line on a benefits form.

Losing Medicaid can make routine care harder to afford and easier to postpone. Research consistently finds that people without health insurance are more likely to delay medical care, skip prescriptions, or go without preventive services because of cost. For affected Kentuckians, that does not mean every person will lose a doctor or go untreated, but it does mean the financial barrier to care may rise once Medicaid coverage ends. The next question is whether another form of coverage will realistically be available.

Another source of coverage will not necessarily be available. Under the 2025 reconciliation law, lawfully present immigrants with incomes below 100 percent of the federal poverty level who are ineligible for Medicaid because of their immigration status are no longer eligible for subsidized Marketplace coverage. That means some very low-income Kentuckians affected by the October Medicaid restriction could fall between the programs: too restricted by immigration status for Medicaid, but too poor to qualify for federal help buying a Marketplace plan. Others may qualify for Marketplace subsidies, employer coverage, another Medicaid category, or another source of insurance, so coverage loss is not inevitable for everyone. But beginning January 1, 2027, Marketplace help will narrow further. Many of the same immigration categories that lose Medicaid eligibility will also lose eligibility for Advance Premium Tax Credits, although full-price Marketplace plans may remain available.

In Kentucky, the state will carry out that federal rule through its Medicaid eligibility system. The federal government determines which immigration statuses remain eligible for federally funded Medicaid. Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) must apply those criteria to individual cases, verify eligibility, and provide required notice when coverage changes. For current beneficiaries, federal guidance requires the state to first attempt to verify immigration status electronically before asking the person for additional documentation. If electronic verification does not resolve the question, the state must follow the applicable process for requesting more information. Before taking adverse action, Kentucky must also determine whether the person qualifies for full Medicaid or CHIP on another basis. These administrative steps turn national policy into a decision about one person’s health insurance.

Kentucky cannot keep using federal Medicaid dollars for people the new federal law makes ineligible because of immigration status, and the state cannot override the new federal eligibility limits. Federal rules also establish important parts of the verification and eligibility-review process. But they do not dictate every detail of how Kentucky carries out the change. State officials still shape how clearly notices explain a proposed loss of coverage, how easy it is for people to reach help, how workable the appeals process is in practice, and how effectively people are directed to kynect or other coverage options. Those choices can make an already difficult transition harder because of confusion, poor communication, or administrative barriers.

The fair test for Kentucky is therefore not whether the state can undo a federal restriction it did not create. It is whether state officials carry out both the federal requirements and the choices left to them in a way that prevents avoidable harm. That means completing required verification and alternative-eligibility checks accurately, giving clear notice, making help and appeals workable, and connecting people to other coverage when another option is available.

One of the clearest measures will be whether Kentucky keeps people who remain eligible from losing coverage by mistake.

A person can lose Medicaid for two very different reasons: because the law no longer makes that person eligible, or because the eligibility process breaks down. The national Medicaid unwinding showed how easily coverage can end for procedural reasons when people miss notices, fail to return paperwork, or encounter verification problems, even when some remain eligible. That history does not prove Kentucky has mishandled these new immigration-related cases. It does show why the state’s safeguards matter. Here, eligibility can turn on precise immigration classifications that must be verified correctly, making accurate verification especially important.

That verification is unusually complicated because immigration law divides people into categories that can sound similar but carry different Medicaid consequences. A lawful permanent resident, a refugee, an asylee, a person granted humanitarian parole, and someone granted withholding of deportation may all be lawfully present, but federal Medicaid rules do not treat those statuses the same. Some categories remain eligible under the new federal rules, while others lose eligibility because of that status. The distinction can turn on the exact classification recorded in federal immigration systems, not simply on whether someone is “legal.” When a coverage decision depends on such technical distinctions, the notice explaining that decision becomes especially important.

If Kentucky decides that a person is no longer eligible for Medicaid, federal rules require written notice explaining the action, the reason for it, and the person’s right to challenge the decision. Kentucky also provides an administrative hearing process for members who dispute an eligibility determination. An appeal does not guarantee that coverage will be restored, and whether benefits continue during a challenge depends on the applicable rules and timing. The formal right to challenge a decision is important, but people first need enough information to understand what Kentucky decided and why.

Those rights matter only if people can use them. Federal Medicaid rules require accessible notices and language assistance for people with limited English proficiency. Beyond those safeguards, Kentucky can still make practical choices about how clearly notices explain immigration-status decisions, how easy it is to reach help, and how effectively people are directed to the next step. We have not reviewed Kentucky’s actual notices for this transition, so there is no basis yet to say they are inadequate. The next accountability question is what happens when the state determines that someone truly is no longer eligible.

For people who become ineligible for Medicaid, the next question is whether Kentucky helps them move to another source of coverage. Depending on a person’s income, immigration status, employment, and household circumstances, that could mean a plan through kynect, employer-sponsored insurance, another Medicaid eligibility category, or no affordable option at all. Losing Medicaid can trigger a special enrollment opportunity in the Marketplace, but eligibility for financial assistance still depends on federal rules, and not everyone has employer coverage. The state cannot guarantee a replacement for Medicaid, but it can determine how effectively people are referred and supported through the transition rather than simply dropped from one program and left to find the next on their own.

When people lose insurance, the cost of their care does not simply disappear. Hospitals, clinics, and other providers may still treat patients who cannot pay, and research on coverage loss shows that uncompensated care tends to rise when more people become uninsured. Medicaid is an important source of health-care financing in Kentucky. That makes this more than an eligibility question for the people directly affected. How the change is carried out can also matter to the Kentucky institutions that provide care. No defensible estimate in the material reviewed for this article shows how much this particular change will cost Kentucky’s health system, so that number should not be invented. Understanding the possible consequences starts with a more basic question: how many Kentuckians does the state expect this policy to affect?

Kentucky officials should be able to say how many current Medicaid enrollees fall into the affected immigration-status categories, how many are expected to remain eligible another way, and how many may lose full Medicaid coverage after October 1. If CHFS has produced those estimates, they should be public. From the information reviewed for this article, the size of the affected Kentucky population remains unknown. We also do not have publicly established projections for the workload facing state staff, the number of appeals, or how many people may move to other coverage. Those numbers would help Kentuckians measure both the scale of the change and the demands it will place on the state’s eligibility system.

What remains unclear is not the source of the federal restriction or the broad immigration categories affected. It is Kentucky’s full plan for carrying out the change. We do not yet know the size of the affected enrollee population, what additional safeguards Kentucky will use beyond the required federal procedures, or how people will be connected to other insurance when another option exists. Those are unanswered questions, not evidence that Kentucky has failed to plan. Until the state provides those details, Kentuckians cannot fully judge how carefully the change will be carried out. That gap between a federal policy decision and the state machinery that gives it effect is the larger pattern this story exposes.

Kentuckians should ask the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services for concrete answers: How many people are expected to lose Medicaid? How many may remain eligible another way? How will Kentucky ensure required verification and eligibility checks prevent people from being dropped by mistake? What will notices and appeals look like in practice? What help will people get moving to other coverage? Kentucky says it will contact affected Medicaid members. People who may be affected should make sure Kentucky Medicaid has their current address, phone number, and email, and they should watch their mail, email, and texts for instructions. If they believe Kentucky has made an incorrect eligibility decision, they should use the available appeal process. These are practical ways to test whether the state is carefully carrying out both its federal obligations and its remaining responsibilities.

Congress changes an eligibility rule, federal guidance defines the boundaries, and Kentucky’s systems translate those decisions into verification checks, notices, appeals, referrals, and, for some people, termination of coverage. None of those steps is dramatic on its own. Together, they determine who keeps access to a public benefit and who does not. The policy may begin in Washington, but accountability for how it is carried out belongs here too.

Sources

Public Law 119-21, Section 71109, Alien Medicaid Eligibility. Federal law establishing the October 1, 2026 limits on federal Medicaid funding for specified noncitizen eligibility categories.
URL: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ21/pdf/PLAW-119publ21.pdf

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, State Health Official Letter SHO #26-001, “Implementation of Section 71109 ‘Alien Medicaid Eligibility’ of the Working Families Tax Cut Legislation,” April 8, 2026. Federal guidance on affected eligibility categories, verification, redeterminations, notices, appeals, and implementation requirements.
URL: https://www.medicaid.gov/federal-policy-guidance/downloads/sho26001.pdf

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “State Implementation Tool: Section 71109 of the Working Families Tax Cut Legislation,” July 31, 2026. Detailed implementation requirements, including electronic immigration-status reverification, additional-information procedures, review for other Medicaid or CHIP eligibility, notices, and fair-hearing protections.
URL: https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/downloads/State-Implementation-Tool-Sect-71109.pdf

Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange, “Changes Coming to Medicaid and Marketplace Coverage.” Kentucky’s current guidance on the October 1, 2026 Medicaid immigration-status changes, protected and affected categories, member notification, Emergency Medicaid, and January 1, 2027 Marketplace subsidy changes.
URL: https://khbe.ky.gov/Enrollment/Pages/MedicaidChanges.aspx

Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Department for Medicaid Services, “Member Information.” Kentucky Medicaid member information, contact-update instructions, coverage resources, appeals-related resources, and program information.
URL: https://www.chfs.ky.gov/agencies/dms/member/pages/default.aspx

Kentucky Department for Medicaid Services, Kentucky Medicaid Member Toolkit. Kentucky Medicaid information on covered medical, dental, vision, behavioral-health, and other services available through Medicaid managed-care organizations.
URL: https://www.chfs.ky.gov/agencies/dms/member/Documents/KY-Medicaid-Member-Toolkit-2025.pdf

HealthCare.gov, “Getting health coverage outside Open Enrollment.” Federal Marketplace guidance on Special Enrollment Periods following loss of Medicaid or CHIP coverage.
URL: https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage-outside-open-enrollment/special-enrollment-period/index.html

KFF, “Key Facts about the Uninsured Population.” National data showing that uninsured adults are substantially more likely than insured adults to delay, skip, or go without needed care or medication because of cost.
URL: https://www.kff.org/uninsured/key-facts-about-the-uninsured-population/

Susan Camilleri, “The ACA Medicaid Expansion, Disproportionate Share Hospitals, and Uncompensated Care,” Health Services Research, 2018. Peer-reviewed research examining the relationship between Medicaid coverage expansion and hospital uncompensated care.
URL: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28480593/

Sayeh Nikpay, Thomas Buchmueller, and Helen Levy, “Affordable Care Act Medicaid Expansion Reduced Uncompensated Care Costs at Hospitals in 2014,” Health Affairs, 2016. Research documenting lower hospital uncompensated-care costs in Medicaid expansion states.
URL: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27503973/

On Saturday, April 18, 2026, someone at the Lexington Police Department recorded the reason for two searches of the city’s Flock license plate reader system: “Other – agency assist (ICE).” Each search covered a seven-day period and reached 2,081 camera networks across the country. The officer’s name and case number were withheld. The entries did not appear in Lexington’s published quarterly audits. They surfaced in network logs released by agencies in Ohio, Georgia, Missouri, New York and Alabama. What looked like two routine database entries revealed something Lexington’s own audits had not shown residents: local police had used a locally controlled surveillance system to assist a federal agency.

Those two searches were not Lexington’s only documented connection to federal investigations. In written answers released August 28, the department identified approximately 84 other searches associated with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the investigative arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Lexington said it has no HSI task force arrangement and that ICE agents do not have access to its current license plate reader system.

For residents, the question is not simply whether federal agents had their own access. It is whether Lexington police can use a locally approved surveillance system on a federal agency’s behalf without clear approval rules or public reporting.

Lexington says the April searches were conducted to assist a federal agency with what the department described as a criminal pickup order. According to the department, the searches concerned people wanted in connection with continuing gang and drug trafficking activity. The department said that activity came to authorities’ attention after a relative was arrested for a local murder. A Lexington police commander said one person connected to the matter is now imprisoned for murder and credited technology with helping locate that person. That is the strongest public safety case for this kind of interagency assistance. But even a justified search in a serious criminal case would not resolve who may request such searches, who approves them, what limits apply, or what the public is entitled to know. The released records do not disclose what the searches returned, what information Lexington transmitted, or what role the searches played in any arrest.

HSI is part of ICE, but it investigates human trafficking, child exploitation, narcotics, financial crimes, and other criminal matters that may have no connection to civil immigration enforcement. Lexington’s approximately 84 searches associated with HSI therefore cannot all be labeled immigration searches without information about their individual purposes. But the connection still deserves scrutiny because the records do not disclose those purposes and the two April entries expressly used the term “ICE.” The records support a narrower conclusion: Lexington documented federal investigative assistance without giving the public enough information to determine its full scope.

Lexington says it operates 125 Flock readers throughout Fayette County. Department employees conducted 14,014 searches in April, 14,970 in May, and 10,135 in June, for a three-month total of 39,119 searches. The second-quarter audit reports that every search listed a reason. Hundreds of employees used the system each month.

What those cameras collect is more revealing than a plate number alone. Kentucky law defines captured data to include photographs of the plate and vehicle; the plate number and the vehicle’s make, model, and color; and GPS coordinates, date, and time. Lexington’s policy describes the same basic record: an image of a vehicle visible from a public place, its plate, GPS coordinates, and the date and time of the read. The system does not, by itself, establish who was driving, but it can record that a vehicle bearing a particular plate was observed at a particular location and time.

The system becomes more powerful when those individual records are combined into searchable networks. Flock says a police department participating in National Lookup can enter a complete plate number and search cameras that other agencies have chosen to make available through the network. Lexington requires users to give a reason for each search, and the searches become part of an audit trail. But Lexington’s April searches still extended across thousands of participating networks. By August 28, Lexington said it had turned off what it called its “Nationwide search feature” in response to community concerns, although the department did not say exactly when it changed the setting.

That gap illustrates why the meaning of “access” matters. Flock says federal agencies are excluded from statewide and nationwide lookup networks, that federal sharing is turned off by default, and that federal organizations are limited to one-to-one sharing arrangements explicitly approved by a local customer. Those restrictions do not address a different route: a Lexington officer with local credentials can conduct a search in response to a federal request. The records do not establish whether ICE had a Lexington login, but they show that Lexington personnel used local access to assist a federal agency.

Lexington introduced Flock readers in 2022 with a public explanation focused on reducing crime, recovering stolen vehicles, and locating missing or endangered people. The city says the cameras are not used for speed or red-light enforcement. It also credits the program with reducing the average time required to recover a stolen vehicle during its first year. In April 2024, the Urban County Council approved a five-year agreement for 125 cameras by a 14-1 vote, at a reported cost of about $400,000 a year through February 2029. Those are recognizable local public safety purposes, but they do not answer whether residents or council members understood that Lexington officers could search thousands of outside camera networks for a federal agency.

Lexington’s written policy allows license plate data to be used only for legitimate law enforcement or public safety purposes. It gives control over access to the police chief and the department’s license plate reader administrator, and it requires each user to have individual credentials. Hot-list requests from outside agencies must be approved, and data may be released to verified law enforcement agencies for legitimate purposes. Yet the posted policy says Lexington will retain Flock data for no more than 30 days. The July 3 quarterly audit says the department stores the data for 60 days. The available materials do not explain when that practice changed, whether the policy was formally amended, or why the posted policy still says 30 days.

Lexington has published quarterly reviews of its Flock system, but all 27 audit reports issued since the program began have been internal. The Intelligence Unit administers the system, and the Public Integrity Unit conducts a second review. Lexington says no outside organization has audited the program. Mayor Linda Gorton has now announced an independent panel with expertise in technology, civil rights and law. As of publication, the panel’s membership, rules for public access to its meetings and detailed procedures had not been announced. Basic questions therefore remain unresolved: who authorized the federal assistance searches, what information was returned, which agencies received it, and whether Lexington’s current settings permit any direct federal sharing.

Lexington residents are already debating what that uncertainty means. At an August 27 Urban County Council meeting, 20 people addressed the cameras, with 17 asking the city to end the program and three supporting its continued use. Opponents raised concerns about privacy, police misuse and federal immigration enforcement. Supporters pointed to stolen vehicle recoveries, violent crime investigations and their confidence in the Lexington Police Department. No released record establishes that a Lexington search caused a civil immigration arrest or that local families have changed their behavior because of the cameras. But when the public cannot see how federal requests are approved or what follows, immigrants and mixed-status families cannot tell from the available records whether this same pathway could be used for civil immigration enforcement.

The way these searches became public shows the larger accountability problem. Lexington’s own quarterly reports summarize usage and redact incident descriptions. But the two April entries were found in audit logs released by agencies in five other states whose cameras had been included in the searches.

Lexington has since disabled that feature. As of publication, Lexington had not publicly verified whether one-to-one federal sharing remained enabled, and these records do not show what any other Kentucky police department is doing. What the records show is narrower but still important: local officers can use networked systems to assist federal investigations even when the public cannot determine whether federal agents have direct access.

Kentucky’s new automated license plate reader statute adds rules, but it does not settle the public policy dispute. Effective July 15, 2026, KRS 189.632 limits the sharing of captured data with law enforcement agencies to public safety or criminal investigation purposes. It generally limits retention to 90 days unless an exception applies. It also requires public policies addressing access, retention, training and supervision, along with audits every 90 days. The law does not expressly require agencies to publish the identities of requesting agencies or the stated purpose of each search. It therefore sets statewide rules without resolving what local governments should disclose about searches conducted for federal assistance. The April searches occurred before the law took effect, and Lexington says they involved a criminal pickup order, so the available evidence does not establish that the searches were illegal. The harder question is democratic: whether approval of cameras for local public safety should be treated as blanket consent for searches conducted at a federal agency’s request that the public cannot meaningfully examine.

The independent panel gives Lexington an opportunity to answer that question in public, but only if its work goes beyond a general review of whether Flock is useful. The panel should identify every federal agency and other outside agency that requested or received assistance. It should distinguish direct sharing from searches performed by Lexington personnel and review the department’s current sharing settings. It should also reconcile the 30-day retention policy with the audit’s statement that data is stored for 60 days. The panel should recommend clear approval standards for federal requests, public reporting by requesting agency and investigative category, and an explicit policy governing searches related to civil immigration enforcement.

Lexington residents can ask Mayor Linda Gorton and the Urban County Council to require clear, enforceable rules for searches conducted on behalf of federal and other outside agencies. Those rules should disclose who may request and approve a search, what purposes are permitted, how searches are audited, what happens when the rules are violated, and whether Lexington’s system may be used for civil immigration enforcement. The city should also publicly report outside-agency searches so residents can see how a surveillance system purchased for local public safety is actually being used.

We began this story with two short entries typed into a search log: “agency assist (ICE).” Those entries do not prove that ICE controlled Lexington’s cameras, that the searches involved civil immigration enforcement, or that they caused an arrest. They prove something more specific: Lexington personnel conducted two searches for federal assistance that queried 2,081 camera networks, while the public was left to discover that cooperation through records released elsewhere. If Lexington’s surveillance system is going to serve federal investigations as well as local ones, that role should be governed by public rules, disclosed through public reporting, and debated in public.

Sources

Lexington Police Department Flock Safety search and audit records, April–June 2026. Records obtained through the Kentucky Open Records Act, including individual searches, stated search purposes, agencies associated with searches, and the Flock networks searched. No public URL.

Lexington Police Department, License Plate Readers. Overview of Lexington’s Flock Safety program, including the number of city-operated readers and program information.
https://www.lexingtonky.gov/government/departments-programs/public-safety/police/license-plate-readers

Lexington Police Department, General Order 2022-01: License Plate Readers. Department policy governing the capture, storage, access, auditing and release of license-plate-reader data.
https://content.lexingtonky.gov/sites/default/files/migrated-files/sites/default/files/2022-05/GO%25202022-01%2520License%2520Plate%2520Readers.pdf

Lexington Police Department, License Plate Reader Audits. Lexington’s publicly posted quarterly LPR audits.
https://www.lexingtonky.gov/government/departments-programs/public-safety/police/license-plate-readers/license-plate-reader-audits

Lexington Police Department, Q2 2026 Quarterly Flock Audit, April–June 2026. The July 3, 2026 audit reports 14,014 searches in April, 14,970 in May and 10,135 in June and describes enhanced auditing of external-network and other searches.
https://content.lexingtonky.gov/sites/default/files/2026-07/Q2%202026%20Audit_0.pdf

Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, Flock Group Inc. Government Agency Agreement / Services Agreement Order Form, Resolution 670-2022. Council record authorizing expansion of Lexington’s Flock program by 75 automated license plate readers.
https://lexington.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?GUID=270BE2A8-6FA5-442C-93B5-08A21BDF1B57&ID=5937623&Options=&Search=

Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, Flock Group Inc. Master Services Agreement / Order Form, Resolution 163-2024. Council record authorizing purchase of Lexington’s license plate reader system from Flock Group Inc.
https://lexington.legistar.com/ViewReport.ashx?GID=159&GUID=F8816DFD-BB9F-4AB7-82FE-1B5D4B359EBA&ID=6588082&M=R&N=Master&Title=Legislation+Details

Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, Flock Group Inc. Amended Contract Quote, Resolution 346-2024. Council record authorizing the purchase of 25 additional Flock cameras, warranty and implementation.
https://lexington.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?GUID=FD947804-2138-44F3-93CD-C792C5AD603F&ID=6721614&Options=&Search=

Kentucky Revised Statutes § 189.632, Automated License Plate Reader. Kentucky law governing permitted ALPR uses, retention and sharing of data, written policies and related requirements.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=57500

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations: Our Priorities. Federal description of HSI’s investigative mission and authorities.
https://www.ice.gov/about-ice/hsi/priorities

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE’s Mission. Federal background on Homeland Security Investigations and its work with domestic and international law-enforcement partners.
https://www.ice.gov/mission

Flock Safety network-audit records from law-enforcement agencies outside Kentucky. Records obtained through public-records requests and used to examine Lexington searches of Flock networks outside its locally operated camera system. No single public URL.

Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, “Mayor to appoint independent, external panel to review automated license plate reader technology,” Sept. 4, 2026. Mayor Linda Gorton’s announcement of an external review of Lexington’s ALPR technology, policies, and practices.
https://www.lexingtonky.gov/news/mayor-appoint-independent-external-panel-review-automated-license-plate-reader-technology

Roughly 1,200 outside organizations are now under review at the University of Kentucky, and UK has temporarily restricted spending on some memberships, renewals, and conference participation. What began as a federal civil-rights case involving a single outside organization, The PhD Project, has grown into a sweeping examination of UK’s external relationships. The university says the roughly 1,200 entries are not final decisions and that being flagged does not necessarily mean a membership or partnership will be discontinued. But the scale of the review raises a sharper question: how did one Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 investigation expand this far, and where does federal legal obligation end and the UK’s own decision-making begin?

The relationship at the center of the case was comparatively small. UK paid about $5,000 a year to participate in The PhD Project’s conference, part of an organization created to increase racial and ethnic diversity among business-school doctoral students and faculty. UK discontinued the relationship effective March 17, 2025, but that limited dispute eventually led to a review involving roughly 1,200 outside organizations. The federal concern was not simply that The PhD Project promoted diversity, but how it defined who could participate.

During the 2024–25 academic year examined by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR), eligibility for The PhD Project’s conference was limited to applicants who identified as Black/African American, Latinx/Hispanic American, or Native American/Canadian Indigenous. At that time, white and Asian American applicants were not eligible. The restriction governed eligibility for The PhD Project’s conference. UK separately said its own graduate programs remained open to all qualified applicants. OCR nevertheless concluded that UK violated Title VI because the university paid to participate in and benefited from a conference that limited participation by race.

OCR’s finding did not rest on the conference’s eligibility rules alone. UK paid annual partnership fees during the 2023–24 and 2024–25 academic years and sent two faculty members to the Chicago conference at university expense. UK also staffed a university fair to recruit doctoral students and used The PhD Project’s logo on a program flyer. On September 23, 2025, OCR concluded that these actions meant UK had endorsed, promoted, and benefited from a program that limited participation by race, violating Title VI. UK responded by signing a resolution agreement on October 1 that established what the university had to do next.

Under the October 1 agreement, UK had 60 days to review its outside memberships and partnerships for possible race-based participation restrictions. For each one it identified, UK had to tell OCR what the organization was, describe its relationship with the university, and say whether the university intended to keep or end that relationship. OCR then reviewed UK’s proposed decisions and provided feedback. The agreement required UK to investigate possible violations, but it did not establish that every organization caught in the review had done anything unlawful.

UK did not limit its implementation to outside groups with race-based eligibility rules. During a 60-day review, its Office of Legal Counsel and dozens of administrators and budget officers screened more than 60,000 financial and contractual transactions. They identified 1,831 unique organizations for evaluation and classified 1,642 as likely memberships or partnerships. UK’s criteria examined restrictions based on race, gender, or similar protected characteristics, as well as whether a relationship was required for accreditation, licensure, certification, or a mission-critical function. That broader screen placed about 1,200 organizations in a potential-termination or further-review category, but it did not mean OCR had found those organizations unlawful.

The review also broadened beyond the specific language of the UK’s agreement with OCR. The signed resolution agreement required the university to identify memberships or partnerships with organizations that “may restrict participation based on race,” but by December UK said it had examined relationships for restrictions involving race, gender or similar characteristics. UK said other federal guidance and Kentucky’s 2025 law known as House Bill 4, which restricts the use of institutional funds for certain diversity, equity and inclusion activities, also informed that broader approach. The result was no longer simply a search for another relationship resembling The PhD Project; UK created a university-wide screening process to decide which outside professional and institutional relationships could continue to receive university support.

Those figures do not mean the UK confirmed that 1,642 organizations were discriminatory. The university says it searched several years of financial and contractual records across UK, UK King’s Daughters and UK St. Claire, using intentionally broad criteria because the review covered a large enterprise and had to be completed quickly. As a result, some entries may be purchases, subscriptions, or other transactions rather than memberships or partnerships. UK must still determine what each flagged entry actually represents and what action, if any, follows under the OCR process and other applicable federal and state requirements.

UK’s own public explanation later made clear that appearing on the flagged list did not mean a membership or partnership had been terminated. By December, UK said roughly 400 relationships had been retained because they were tied to accreditation, certification, licensure or another mission-critical function. About 1,200 remained under additional review. Months later, many of those relationships were still subject to spending restrictions while UK waited for the process to conclude.

For UK faculty and staff, the review is already changing what university money can pay for. UK says institutional funds cannot be used to renew memberships with organizations on the review list unless the relationship is considered mission-critical. The restriction also applies to grant money and other outside funds administered through UK. Conference participation is also limited, although exceptions exist for documented scholarly work such as presenting research, peer review or elected leadership.

The most important decisions, however, have not yet been made. Under the resolution agreement, OCR can review UK’s proposed treatment of each identified relationship and provide feedback; after OCR approves the report, UK must formally cancel the memberships or partnerships designated for cancellation and document those actions within 30 days. As of September 1, 2026, UK said it was still waiting for OCR’s response, while the roughly 1,200 flagged organizations remained under review and the funding restrictions remained in place. The OCR investigation that began with one roughly $5,000 relationship therefore triggered a university-wide review that, together with other federal directives and state law, is still affecting which professional and institutional relationships UK can financially support.

That makes transparency the clearest public test of what happens next. The record already shows where OCR’s written requirement began: UK was required to identify memberships and partnerships that might restrict participation based on race. It also shows that UK’s review grew broader than that mandate. What the public still cannot see is where that distinction falls in the final decisions: which relationships OCR requires UK to change or end, which decisions UK makes under other legal requirements, and which choices the university makes on its own.

Kentuckians do not have to wait passively for those answers. Readers can ask UK President Eli Capilouto and the Board of Trustees to disclose how the review is being conducted, what standards are being applied, who is making the decisions, which memberships or partnerships are changed or ended, and which of those actions are required by OCR or other law rather than chosen by the university. UK should also publish OCR’s feedback, the final disposition of the relationships under review, and any permanent policy that emerges from the process. If federal pressure is changing which professional relationships Kentucky’s flagship public university will support, the public should be able to trace each decision from the federal requirement to UK’s response.

Sources

• U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, Letter of Finding and Resolution Agreement, University of Kentucky, OCR Case No. 03-25-2099, September 23 and October 1, 2025.

• University of Kentucky Office of the President, Important Update on Federal Actions, October 1, 2025.

• University of Kentucky Office of the President, Update on Office for Civil Rights Agreement, December 9, 2025.

• University of Kentucky Office of the President, Monitoring Federal Changes, including the university’s current membership and partnership review guidance and organization list.

• Kentucky General Assembly, 2025 House Bill 4, enacted as Acts Chapter 120.

• The PhD Project, Media Guidance, including its description of the organization and its 2025 change in application eligibility.

A federal grant decision in Kentucky now shows how political priorities can shape whether publicly funded work continues. The U.S. Department of Education declined to continue Project EXCEL after concluding that parts of the program conflicted with the current administration’s priorities. That matters because political priorities are becoming a more explicit part of decisions about whether some federally funded work continues.

Project EXCEL is not the only Kentucky award to undergo priority-based review. Kentucky records show that other University of Kentucky Research Foundation awards have already been reviewed against agency or administration priorities, while eight Department of Energy awards that underwent portfolio review were retained. Separately, the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, is proposing a government-wide framework that would give senior political appointees a more formal role in reviewing grants and give agencies broader discretion to terminate awards. This Dispatch examines what that shift could mean for federal grantmaking, institutional independence, and public accountability.

Project EXCEL was funded through a Department of Education award T365Z210014. On September 23, 2025, the department notified the University of Kentucky Research Foundation that it would not continue the award beyond September 30. The department said the project reflected priorities of the previous administration that conflicted with those of the current administration. The notice specifically cited recruitment through UK’s Center for Graduate Diversity and outreach to underrepresented groups, women, and persons with disabilities.

A grant non-continuation decision by itself would not establish a broader shift in federal grantmaking. In Project EXCEL’s case, however, the Department of Education explicitly tied its decision to whether the project aligned with the current administration’s priorities. That makes the award significant beyond a single program because it shows political-priority alignment becoming an explicit part of the judgment about whether federally supported work should continue.

The same broader pattern appears in eight named Department of Energy awards to the University of Kentucky Research Foundation that went through DOE’s Portfolio Review Process. All eight were retained, showing that priority-based review does not necessarily end in termination or non-continuation. The review letters also raised the possibility of changing award terms or adding compliance requirements, although our reporting has not established that DOE later imposed those changes. The reviews still matter because they show agency priorities becoming an explicit part of the review of individual Kentucky awards.

These actions are related, but they do not all arise from the same legal mechanism. DOE’s Portfolio Review Process came from a May 2025 Secretarial Policy and predates Executive Order 14332. Existing law and regulations can already permit some priority-based grant actions. The executive order separately directs greater political supervision of discretionary grants, and OMB’s May 2026 proposal would make related practices more uniform across government. The Kentucky evidence, therefore, does not depend on the proposed OMB rule having taken effect.

OMB’s proposal would give designated senior political appointees a formal role in reviewing discretionary awards before they are issued and require them to exercise independent judgment. It would also expressly make peer-review recommendations advisory. The proposal would further broaden agencies’ authority to suspend or terminate awards, while remaining subject to statutory limits. Together, those changes would shift more grantmaking discretion toward politically accountable officials and reduce the independent weight of professional or peer-review recommendations.

As of August 29, OMB’s proposal was still not a final rule. The comment period closed July 13, and the federal regulatory agenda still lists the proposal at the Proposed Rule Stage; OMB has proposed an October 1 effective date for a final rule. The Senate also passed a provision that would temporarily block the rule, but that restriction has not become law. That distinction matters because the proposal could still change before any final rule is issued.

Elected administrations do have policy discretion within congressionally created federal programs. Political oversight is not inherently improper, and executive officials can reasonably argue that accountability to elected leadership should matter in decisions about how public money is used. The harder question is how far that discretion should extend when professional, scientific, or statutory review also shapes a grant decision, and what safeguards should constrain political officials.

Political discretion over federal grants is substantial, but it is not unlimited. Program-specific laws can require peer review or other procedures, while appropriations law constrains how agencies use or withhold money Congress has provided. Courts may review some disputes, and Congress retains its own legislative, funding, and oversight powers, including the Congressional Review Act. Those protections vary across programs, however, and do not preserve the same degree of independent judgment everywhere.

For Kentucky universities and other federal grant recipients, the practical question is who ultimately decides whether supported work continues. Scientific, professional, or programmatic review may inform that decision without necessarily settling it if agency leadership concludes that an award no longer advances current priorities. That does not mean every grant is vulnerable to cancellation, but it does mean political change can affect individual awards alongside other forms of review. Project EXCEL makes that possibility concrete for Kentucky rather than leaving it as an abstract national debate.

The University of Kentucky administers federal awards that support public research and programs, and politically significant decisions affecting those awards should be easier for Kentuckians to see. UK should make federal review letters, material award amendments, termination or non-continuation notices, reconsideration outcomes, and material changes imposed through priority-based review readily accessible.

Political judgment has a legitimate place in administering public programs, but its consequences become more significant when it reaches decisions about individual grants. When political priorities help determine which publicly funded work continues, the public needs enough information to see how that judgment was exercised and what other forms of review shaped the outcome. Accountability depends not on removing political judgment from grantmaking, but on making its role visible when political priorities influence decisions also shaped by professional or statutory review.

Sources

1. U.S. Department of Education, Project EXCEL non-continuation notice, Sept. 23, 2025, award T365Z210014. The notice says the award would not continue after Sept. 30 and identifies the Administration-priority conflict and the program elements ED cited.

2. U.S. Department of Energy Portfolio Review letters for eight UKRF awards, produced by UK through Open Records on Aug. 27, 2026. All eight awards were retained; the letters contemplated possible modifications or compliance requirements.

3. Executive Order 14332, “Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking,” Aug. 7, 2025. It directs senior-appointee involvement in discretionary-grant review and requires independent judgment. Executive Order 14332

4. OMB, “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance,” RIN 0348-AB88. OMB’s current regulatory agenda continues to list it at the Proposed Rule Stage. OMB regulatory agenda entry

5. OMB proposed federal financial-assistance revisions, May 29, 2026. The Reporting Package identifies the proposal as the source of the proposed senior-appointee review, advisory peer-review status and broader termination/suspension structure.

6. H.R. 6500, Senate action, Aug. 8, 2026. The Senate passed the amended measure 90-6; the restriction discussed in the article had not become law when the body text was locked. Senate roll-call vote