Big Win For Voting Rights As Judge Blocks Trump EO
A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is the TPM Morning Memo.
“The president does not appear at all”
In a ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Washington, D.C., permanently barred President Trump from requiring proof of citizenship on federal voter registration forms.
Trump had tried to force the Election Assistance Commission to impose the proof of citizenship requirement, as part of his sweeping executive order on voting. The president has no legal role in U.S. federal elections, and the March executive order was widely seen as a test of Trump’s how far he could go in asserting his power over election administration.
Kollar-Kotelly had already temporarily blocked the proof of citizenship provision in April, and a federal judge in Massachusetts had also blocked other elements of the order.
In making her ban permanent, Kollar-Kotelly highlighted the president’s lack of role in elections:
The Court pauses to note a glaring absence of the legal and historical context provided thus far. States have the initial authority to regulate elections. Congress has oversight power over these regulations. The president does not appear there at all.
The case, which combined three lawsuits brought by the Democratic Party and voting rights groups, provided an early test of whether courts would resist sweeping claims to presidential power in areas where there was no explicit legal authority or historical custom or tradition allowing the president to exercise his duties.
Proof of citizenship to register to vote has been a Republican obsession for years, driven by a mix of xenophobia and political self-preservation. Trump and the Republican Party have vastly overestimated the prevalence of illegal voting, but additional barriers to voting — such as requiring proof of citizenship — could dampen registration in immigrant communities and among marginalized potential voters. Many Americans do not have easy access to proof of their own citizenship.
“The measure was designed to suppress voter participation in elections; a solution in search of a problem,” writes Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama. “This is akin to the poll taxes used in the South before the Supreme Court ended them.”
Quote of the day
“Everything they’re doing now is another challenge to 2020. They’re trying to discredit the entire electoral system of the United States of America so that Donald Trump can finally say, ‘See, the system was corrupt. My lies were actually the truth.’ »–Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D)
Happy reading
The New York Times’ Alan Feuer has a good overview of why the DCUS Attorney’s Office is the starting point for President Trump’s politicization of the Justice Department.
Lindsey Halligan’s signal problem
The judge in the criminal case against New York Attorney General Letitia James has ordered the Justice Department to preserve all communications that may be relevant to her defense. The judge did not rule that the mind-boggling Signal messages sent by Acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan to Lawfare reporter Anna Bower were discoverable (he has not yet been asked to rule on that), but wants them preserved, along with other communications, in case he is asked to rule on their discoverability later.
Judge orders emergency funding for SNAP
U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to use emergency funds to support the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through November. Funding for the crucial anti-hunger program ran out at the end of October due to the government shutdown.
Judge announces outcome of Oregon National Guard case
Following a three-day trial last week over the legality of President Trump’s ordered deployment of the National Guard to Oregon, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut in Portland issued a preliminary injunction continuing to block the deployment until she issues a final ruling this Friday.
While Immergut stressed that this is a preliminary ruling as she continues to evaluate testimony and exhibits at trial, the preliminary injunction strongly suggests that she will rule against the administration on both the deployment and federalization of the National Guard. Immergut had already issued a temporary injunction blocking the deployment.
Monitoring for foreign entanglements
- BREAKUP: “The Trump administration has begun planning in detail for a new mission to send U.S. troops and intelligence agents to Mexico to target drug cartels, according to two U.S. officials and two former senior U.S. officials familiar with the effort,” reports NBC News.
- The United States carried out its 15th strike against suspected drug trafficking boats on Saturday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced. Three people were killed in the attack.
- Mexico says it has been unable to locate the survivor of one of the US attacks on the high seas last Monday and has ended its search.
- Trump’s Justice Department legal counsel’s office told some lawmakers behind closed doors that the administration did not consider itself bound by the 1973 War Powers Resolution and would not seek congressional authorization to continue hostilities in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. The resolution’s 60-day period from the start of hostilities for the President to seek Congressional approval expires today.
- Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, warns about the extent of the Trump administration’s claim that it can carry out deadly attacks against people merely “affiliated” with groups it has designated as “narcoterrorists”: “They have in no way explained what the ceiling and floor is for ‘affiliates.’ Theoretically, this could go beyond whether they are actually involved in transporting drugs.
Corruption: Ballroom Edition
While the Trump White House released a list of donors to its ballroom project and hosted many of them for a dinner, it withheld the names of some donors and did not release the names of everyone at the dinner, the New York Times reports.
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