This bill requires the Attorney General, working with DHS and OMB, to identify and publish a list of State and local governments that have "refused to take reasonable steps" to stop violence or property destruction. Once published, the list must be updated periodically and OMB must issue guidance advising federal agencies to, where they have discretion, restrict or otherwise disfavour listed jurisdictions for federal grant awards.
The measure uses public naming plus grant-eligibility pressure as its principal levers. That combination could shift how federal funds are allocated and create a new administrative channel for the federal government to punish—or incentivize—local public-safety decisions without creating a criminal enforcement mechanism in the statute itself.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill establishes an interagency process (DOJ in consultation with DHS and OMB) to label jurisdictions as "anarchist" and requires periodic updates to that list. Separately, it directs the OMB Director to issue guidance enabling federal agencies to disfavor listed jurisdictions when they exercise grant-making discretion.
Who It Affects
State governments, counties, and cities that set or limit policing practices; federal grant-making agencies and their program officers; and local recipients of federal funds—including nonprofits—who could see eligibility or priority change based on a jurisdiction’s placement on the list.
Why It Matters
The statute replaces direct federal enforcement with administrative leverage tied to funding, creating an outsized role for OMB guidance and DOJ determinations in shaping local public-safety policy. That approach raises enforcement, legal, and intergovernmental implications for grant administration and local policing decisions.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill defines an "anarchist jurisdiction" as a State or unit of local government that has refused to take reasonable steps to stop acts of violence and property destruction. It does not create new criminal penalties or authorize federal law enforcement to act directly; instead it builds a public-administrative mechanism: the Attorney General will identify jurisdictions meeting that definition and publish them on the Justice Department’s website.
Timing and interagency consultation are front-loaded. The Attorney General must post an initial list very quickly after enactment and then refresh the list at least every 180 days.
The statute requires the AG to consult both the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget when deciding which jurisdictions to include, and it spells out four categories of considerations—policies that prevent intervention, prohibitions on policing specific areas (with a narrow tactical exception), defunding or disempowering law enforcement, and refusal of federal assistance.On the funding side, the Director of OMB must issue guidance within a short deadline instructing heads of federal agencies to, "to the maximum extent permitted by law," restrict or otherwise disfavor listed jurisdictions when the agency has discretion over grants. The bill leaves actual grant-by-grant decisions to agencies but elevates the DOJ list and OMB guidance as the administrative basis for applying pressure.
There is no statutory formula for how agencies must adjust award criteria, no earmarked sanctions, and no judicial-review process specified in the text for a jurisdiction challenging placement on the list.Operationally, the measure converts a determination about local policing into a tool for federal fiscal policy. That means program officers, grant rules, and agency legal teams—not courts or Congress—will largely shape how the statute affects on-the-ground funding.
The practical consequences will depend heavily on how tightly OMB defines "disfavor," how conservatively agencies apply it in statutory and regulatory contexts, and how fast jurisdictions either change practices or litigate the determinations.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Attorney General must publish an initial list of identified jurisdictions on the Department of Justice website within 14 days after enactment.
The AG’s list must be updated at least once every 180 days after the initial publication.
The statute lists four considerations for inclusion: policies preventing intervention to restore order, preventing policing of geographic areas except certain tactical withdrawals, disempowerment or defunding of law enforcement, and refusal to accept federal assistance.
The Director of OMB must issue guidance within 30 days of enactment directing federal agency heads to restrict or otherwise disfavor listed jurisdictions in grant-making "to the maximum extent permitted by law.", The bill does not create criminal penalties, specify a judicial-review procedure, or set a statutory mechanism for restoring or removing a jurisdiction other than subsequent updates to the published list.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
Gives the Act the names "Stop Anarchists From Endangering Cities Act" and "SAFE Cities Act." This is purely stylistic but signals the bill’s framing and intent; it does not carry operational effect beyond naming.
Definition of 'anarchist jurisdiction'
Defines the core term used throughout the bill as any State or unit of local government that has "refused to take reasonable steps" to stop acts of violence and destruction of property. The definition is compact and intentionally capacious: it ties the label to a factual judgment about refusal to act and deliberately leaves the key phrase "reasonable steps" undefined, passing interpretation to the executive branch during implementation.
Publication and update schedule
Requires the Attorney General—after consulting DHS and OMB—to publish an initial list of anarchist jurisdictions on DOJ’s website within 14 days of the Act taking effect, with updates at least every 180 days. The deadlines force a fast operational tempo on the agencies and embed a recurring administrative review process without setting evidentiary thresholds or review procedures.
Factors the agencies must consider
Enumerates four nonexclusive considerations for the AG, DHS, and OMB when deciding whether to list a jurisdiction: (1) policies or practices that prevent or restrict law enforcement from intervening to restore order; (2) prevention of policing of geographical areas or structures (with an exception for tactical, temporary withdrawals intended to resolve imminent threats); (3) disempowering or defunding a law enforcement agency; and (4) unreasonable refusal to accept federal law enforcement assistance. These are framed as discretionary, not mandatory, evaluative points.
OMB guidance to federal grant-making agencies
Directs the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to issue guidance within 30 days instructing agency heads to restrict eligibility of, or otherwise disfavor, anarchist jurisdictions in federal grants where the agency has lawful discretion. The statute emphasizes using agency discretion "to the maximum extent permitted by law," but it leaves the substance of that guidance, and how agencies will operationalize 'disfavor,' to OMB and individual grant programs.
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Explore Justice in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Federal law enforcement leadership (DOJ, DHS): Gains a formal mechanism to label jurisdictions and leverage funding policy to press for law-enforcement actions without statutory changes to policing authority.
- OMB and federal grant program officers: Receives new policy direction to prioritize or deprioritize applicants, increasing administrative influence over subnational priorities.
- Local governments that comply with federal expectations: Avoid placement on the published list and thereby reduce the risk of losing discretionary federal grant opportunities tied to the guidance.
Who Bears the Cost
- States and localities labeled as 'anarchist jurisdictions': Face the prospect of reduced access to certain federal grants and reputational harm that could affect private investment and cooperation with federal partners.
- Community-based service providers and grant recipients in listed jurisdictions: May lose federal funding or face increased competition if their jurisdiction is disfavored, even when their programs are separate from local policing decisions.
- Federal agencies and DOJ/DHS/OMB staff: Confront new administrative workload, interagency coordination costs, and likely litigation defenses if jurisdictions challenge the determinations or the OMB guidance.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is straightforward: the bill seeks to protect public safety by using federal naming and funding pressure to change local policing behavior, but doing so risks overriding local discretion, harming residents who rely on federal programs, and triggering constitutional and statutory conflicts over when and how the federal government may condition aid on compliance with federal public-safety expectations.
The bill centralizes a high-stakes determination—whether a jurisdiction "refused to take reasonable steps"—in executive-branch agencies without setting clear legal standards for that finding. That vagueness hands significant discretion to the Attorney General and DHS to interpret 'reasonable steps' and to OMB to decide how strongly to push agencies to withhold funds.
Agencies will face tough choices balancing statutory grant purposes, statutory nondiscrimination or equal-access requirements, and the new policy to 'disfavor' certain jurisdictions.
Practical and legal challenges are foreseeable. The 14- and 30-day deadlines are aggressive and may pressure agencies to rely on imperfect or incomplete information.
The guidance to disfavor jurisdictions "to the maximum extent permitted by law" will force program lawyers to reconcile this policy with specific statutory eligibility criteria and congressional intent for each grant program. Finally, the absence of a defined appeals or review process for listed jurisdictions raises due-process and intergovernmental-federalism questions that could prompt litigation over administrative action and the limits of federal conditioning of funds.
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