City of Columbus, Ohio

Overview

In 2026, Columbus is not just Ohio’s capital and largest city — it is the capital that had to sue the federal government on its own. On August 17, 2026, the city joined three other local governments in suing the Department of Homeland Security over a June 2026 FEMA decision to withhold 20 percent or all of their anti-terrorism grants unless they met five election-related conditions imposed by the Trump administration (Columbus Dispatch). What no national outlet has spelled out is the catch beneath the filing: twenty-five states plus the District of Columbia filed a parallel suit over the same conditions, but Ohio’s attorney general did not join it — leaving a Democratic-led city in a Republican-led state to fight the case without the backup a state-level ruling might have provided (Columbus Dispatch).

That lonely posture fits the man who filed it. City Attorney Zach Klein, whose office brought the case, had already sued the second Trump administration at least eleven times before this one — a litigation pace that makes Columbus less a reluctant plaintiff than a practiced one in the federalism fights of 2026 (Columbus Dispatch). The basics underneath: the 2020 census counted 905,748 residents, and the Census Bureau’s July 2025 estimate put the city at 938,396 people, making Columbus Ohio’s most populous city (U.S. Census Bureau).

The city that sues alone

The grant program at the center of the case is the Homeland Security Grant Program, created in 2001 to help cities and states prepare for terrorist and cyber attacks (Columbus Dispatch). In June 2026, FEMA announced that jurisdictions would lose a fifth — or potentially all — of that funding unless they satisfied five election-related demands from the administration, including cooperation with federal voter-roll reviews (Columbus Dispatch; Democracy Docket). For fiscal 2026 the program totals $1.064 billion, split among the State Homeland Security Program ($394.3 million), the Urban Areas Security Initiative ($584.3 million), and Operation Stonegarden ($85.5 million), with the funding notice published June 24, 2026 (FEMA).

Columbus’s co-plaintiffs were Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, and Harris and El Paso Counties, Texas; Dallas and Travis Counties in Texas joined the suit after it was filed (Democracy Docket; Associated Press). The cities are represented by the Brennan Center for Justice, the Jacobson Lawyers Group, Protect Democracy, and the Public Rights Project (Democracy Docket). Their complaint drew the line plainly: “Congress authorized FEMA to help jurisdictions protect critical infrastructure from terrorist and cyberattacks… It did not authorize FEMA to decide who may vote” (Democracy Docket). Klein was blunter: “Holding cities hostage by threatening anti-terrorism funding if they don’t go along with the president’s absurd election manipulation is as dangerous as it is illegal” (Columbus Dispatch). A DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, had earlier threatened that local officials who resisted the conditions could face criminal charges (Democracy Docket).

The case moved fast. On September 28, 2026, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled in a 24-page opinion that the administration could not force election changes by blocking counterterrorism funds, siding with the cities (Associated Press). Nashville Vice Mayor Angie Yarbro, a plaintiff, said afterward: “The end result is exactly what we wanted” (Associated Press). Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said the administration had treated anti-terrorism money as “a bargaining chip for partisan politics” (Associated Press).

A capital built on a deal

Columbus exists because four men made the legislature an offer it could not refuse. The site’s first European settlement was Franklinton, founded in 1797 on the west bank of the Scioto River, while the territorial and then state capital sat at Chillicothe from 1803 to 1816, with a two-year interlude at Zanesville from 1810 to 1812 (WOSU / Ohio State). When lawmakers went looking for a permanent, centrally located capital, a group of four offered ten acres for a statehouse, ten acres for a penitentiary, and $50,000 in cash (WOSU / Ohio State). The legislature accepted the proposal on February 14, 1812, and named the not-yet-built town Columbus — in honor of Christopher Columbus — one week later (WOSU / Ohio State; U.S. Congress). The city was officially chartered on March 3, 1834 (U.S. Congress).

The Ohio Statehouse that rose on those ten acres took from 1839 to 1861 to finish, and it still confuses visitors: built in Greek Revival and Roman styles, it has a cupola at its crown rather than the dome most state capitols wear (WOSU / Ohio State). The Civil War made Columbus a military town — Camp Chase, just outside the city, housed 26,000 Union troops, and the Kelton family ran one of the Underground Railroad’s major Ohio stations out of the city (U.S. Congress). The city kept making national history after the war: the American Federation of Labor was founded in Columbus in 1886, and the American Veterans of Foreign Service — the earliest organization of veterans of foreign wars — was founded there in 1899 (U.S. Congress). The Ohio General Assembly used the Morrill Land Grant Act to create the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1870 and renamed it the Ohio State University in 1878 (U.S. Congress).

Cowtown and German Village

Columbus carries a nickname most outsiders have never heard: Cowtown. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the Hartman Stock Farm — then the largest cattle farm in the world — sat just south of the city, and the smell and the stockyards gave Columbus a name that stuck (WOSU / Ohio State). A different migration shaped the city’s south side: by 1865, roughly one-third of Columbus’s population was German, and the neighborhood they built is still called German Village today (WOSU / Ohio State).

The city’s institutions run older than most of its peers’. The Ohio School for the Deaf opened in 1829 and the Ohio State School for the Blind in 1837, among the nation’s earliest schools for Americans living with disabilities (U.S. Congress). Capital University followed in 1830, the Columbus College of Art and Design in 1879, and Columbus State Community College in 1963 (U.S. Congress). Even the landscape keeps deep time: Shrum Mound, on the city’s west side, is one of the last remaining conical burial mounds in the United States and dates back more than 2,000 years (U.S. Congress). The city hosts the Midwest’s largest Fourth of July festival and the Ohio State Fair, and its pro sports teams are the Columbus Clippers, the Columbus Crew, and the Columbus Blue Jackets (U.S. Congress).

City government in 2026

Mayor Andrew Ginther has led Columbus since 2016, when he won a contentious race against then-Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott, and he has not faced a seasoned challenger since (Akron Beacon Journal). Ginther says he plans to run for a fourth term in 2027, which would tie him with his predecessor and mentor Michael B. Coleman as the city’s longest-serving mayor (Akron Beacon Journal). The man suing the Trump administration a dozen times over is City Attorney Zach Klein, who ran unopposed for reelection in 2025 and had raised more than $1 million in campaign funds — a war chest that has both him and City Council President Shannon Hardin in the conversation about who succeeds Ginther whenever he leaves (Akron Beacon Journal).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not state how many dollars Columbus itself would lose if the contested grant conditions stood — that figure has not appeared in verified reporting. It does not claim Columbus received any specific FY2026 award under the State Homeland Security Program or the Urban Areas Security Initiative, since FEMA publishes program-level totals rather than city awards on the page cited here. It does not describe the outcome of any appeal beyond Judge Ali’s September 28, 2026 ruling. And it does not assert current economic rankings for the city, such as Fortune 500 headquarters counts or metro population figures, because the congressional resolution cited here describes the corporate and medical base only in general terms.