But trying to withhold funds that aren’t directly relative to election can run into what is known as the anti-commandeering doctrine, which is based on the 10th Amendment. That’s the doctrine SCOTUS used to kill the part of Obamacare that tried to force states to expand Medicaid. And even those that are directly related to elections may have an issue if the funds aren’t being withheld due to some congressional authority.
Please educate me here. I have witnessed POTUS withhold federal funds many times. They did withhold money from states that didn’t expand Medicaid for Obamacare (or didn’t grant it) because some states opted out because the cost was greater than funding. They have withheld infrastructure funding as well. The 10th Amendment grants states rights. I don’t see anything in it that gives them the right to federal money.
What Obamacare did initially was say that states would lose ALL Medicaid funding if they didn't agree to expand it to cover more people. SCOTUS struck that down, saying that penalizing states by depriving them of Medicaid funds that had nothing to do with the expansion violated the 10th Amendment. So, the result was that States could only lose whatever additional funds that were supposed to go to the expansion.
That's why threats that "states will lose every bit of federal funding if they don't agree to do "x" are just ludicrous. That's so far outside what is permissible that it is a slam-dunk loss of the Administration were to actually try and do that.
I mean, would we really want the rule to be different? Considering how large a percentage of federal taxes people in each state pay, to have the Feds - and think of the Dems being in power - able to cut off all> federal funds if states don't do exactly what the feds want on every issue would effectively destroy federalism.