Mayor Daniel Lurie wants the money US Attorney General Pam Bondi owes San Francisco to rebuild the city’s police department and he’s going to court today to get it.
Lawyers from the City Attorney’s office are heading to the federal courthouse on Golden Gate Ave. to address what the San Francisco Police Department describes as a critical staffing shortage: As of June, the city was about 690 police officers short of the 2,257 cops it says it needs. Since then, Lurie has announced the graduation of new recruits, but San Francisco argues it still remains hundreds of officers short of the number required to ensure public safety.
Last month, the US Department of Justice approved the SFPD’s request for $6.25 million to ease the shortfall. The money was earmarked to hire new recruits and for programs dedicated to maintaining the mental health and well being of its officers, including counseling for trauma developed in response to critical incidents.
But according to an Oct. 28 complaint filed by the city, the Justice Department is holding the grant money hostage. To get it, the Justice Department says, San Francisco must meet its demands.
First, the SFPD is required to certify that none of its programs rely on any elements of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The funding restrictions prohibit SFPD from promoting what DOJ calls “gender ideology,” and environmental justice. Second, the police department must obey all of President Trump’s 200+ executive orders issued since January as well as any new ones going forward. The ultimatum comes with a tight deadline: For SFPD to get its grant money, the Justice Department says, San Francisco must submit its demands by Jan. 9.
San Francisco says the offer is a Hobson’s choice: all or nothing. If the city accepts the grant money, it risks civil and criminal penalties that the Trump administration may inflict if it chooses to “exploit the ambiguities and contradictions” of its demands, according to the complaint. If the city rejects the administration’s conditions, it must forgo police staffing, training, and officer wellness or reallocate funding from other public safety measures in order to fill the gap.
San Francisco sued Bondi, seeking a court order declaring the Justice Department’s demands unconstitutional and invalid. Since 1994, when Congress authorized the grant program, it has distributed more than $21 billion to police departments nationwide. The city says the Justice Department’s demands violate the separation of powers by trampling on the role of Congress to create laws and determine how federal money is disbursed. (Santa Clara County, San Diego, and Tucson, AZ have joined San Francisco’s lawsuit).
Today’s hearing will lay out the timeline for the arguments. For the city, time is of the essence. Besides being up against the Justice Department’s deadline, the city argues that if it doesn’t get the grant money, it will have to dip into its general fund to cover the salaries and benefits of the approximately 50 officers it would cover. Alternatively, the SFPD may have to divert money from other public safety services.
The SFPD says it has covered staffing shortages with overtime, which has led to officers being overworked and suffering burnout. The stopgap measure further erodes the department’s ability to retain officers, compounding the problem the grant is intended to relieve. The city says the shortage has put it at risk of giving up the gains it has made in reducing crime, a key part of the mayor’s mandate.
For the city’s 2025 through 2027 budget, San Francisco had to close an $800 million deficit. It didn’t cut funding for existing police officers, but, it argues, outside funding, including the $6.25 million from the Justice Department, is required for the SFPD to get fully staffed.
San Francisco got a good draw in James Donato, the judge assigned to handle the case. Nominated to the bench in 2014 by President Barack Obama, Donato was a San Francisco deputy city attorney from 1993 to 1996. The experience may make him more familiar than his peers with the position the Justice Department has put the city in. The judge has demonstrated little patience for illogical arguments based on ideology over legal precedent, and he is quick to chastise attorneys who indulge in such rhetoric.
San Francisco’s court filings play to Donato’s judicial temperament by highlighting how untenable the Justice Department’s ultimatum is. Its demands bear no relationship to the purpose of the grant money to support law enforcement’s ability to recruit, hire, retain, and support sworn officers, the city argues. “To the extent their terms are decipherable,” San Francisco argues, they “impose a host of restrictions having nothing whatsoever to do with increasing resources for community policing.”
The hearing is set for 10:30 a.m. More will be known later today.
