What control do stat and federal governments have over police funding?
Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano weighs in.
Judge Andrew Napolitano told "Your World" Wednesday that while the federal government has limited power over local police departments, it can use its appropriations power to hold law enforcement to certain standards.
"There are thousands of police departments in the United States, from little, tiny hamlets to the New York City Police Department ... " Napolitano told host Neil Cavuto. "They are not regulated federally. They are, however, of course, required to follow the Bill of Rights and comport with the Constitution, which they have taken an oath to uphold."
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"When the federal government wants to regulate something that is essentially local, or even statewide where the power to regulate it is not given to the federal government in the Constitution, its favorite way to do it is its checkbook," he added. "They can offer funds to states to distribute to local police departments, or funds to local police departments directly, in return for which the police departments would have to conform to certain federal standards,"
Napolitano added that the U.S. Supreme Court has reaffirmed Congress' power to spend money however it wants, so long as the way in which the money is spent is not otherwise unlawful.
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He gave the example of lawmakers wanting to offer funding to municipalities that enact regulations eliminating "chokeholds" by police, or ending "qualified immunity" for those officers.
"It really depends upon when the money got here," he said. "Is that money that was authorized in the Obama Administration or did it come from the present Congress and President Trump signed [off on] it? And what legislation distributed the money? What did Congress intend it to be used for?"
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