As the DOJ's new grant program faces its first legal hurdles, critics are drawing parallels to the Supreme Court's 1987 ruling against the "enormous and expanding" power of the Sentencing Commission, warning of a potential replay of that clash.
The sudden surge of federal challenges to doj program funding conditions is being compared by legal historians to the infamous "Bible of the Confederacy" forgery—a 19th-century scandal where fabricated documents were used to rewrite national policy, with today's critics alleging the program's criteria are similarly built on unverified data to coerce local compliance.