‘The President Does Not Feature At All’
In a ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of D.C. permanently barred President Trump from requiring proof of citizenship on federal voter registration forms.
Trump had tried to strong-arm the Elections Assistance Commission into imposing the proof of citizenship requirement, as part of his broad executive order on voting. The president has no legal role in U.S. federal elections, and the March executive order was widely seen as Trump testing how far he could go in asserting power over election administration.
Kollar-Kotelly had already temporarily blocked the proof of citizenship provision back in April, and a federal judge in Massachusetts had likewise blocked other elements of the executive order.
In making her ban permanent, Kollar-Kotelly noted the president’s lack of a role in elections:
The Court pauses to note a conspicuous absence from the legal and historical context thus far provided. The states have initial authority to regulate elections. Congress has supervisory authority over those regulations. The President does not feature at all.
The case, which combined three lawsuits by the Democratic Party and voting rights groups, presented an early test for whether the courts would resist sweeping claims of presidential power in areas where there was no explicit legal authority or historic custom or tradition for the president to be operating.
Proof of citizenship to register to vote has been a Republican fixation for years, driven by a mix of xenophobia and political self-preservation. Trump and the GOP have wildly overstated the prevalence of illegal voting, but additional hurdles to voting — like requiring proof of citizenship — could dampen registration in immigrant communities and among marginalized potential voters. Many Americans lack ready 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. “It’s akin to the poll taxes used in the South before the Supreme Court put an end to them.”
Quote of the Day
“Everything that they’re doing now is a relitigation of 2020. They’re trying to discredit the entire electoral system in the United States of America so that Donald Trump can finally be able to say, ‘You see, the system was corrupt. My lies were actually the truth.’ ”–Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D)
Good Read
The NYT’s Alan Feuer has a good rundown on why the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office is ground zero for President Trump’s politicization of the Justice Department.
Lindsey Halligan’s Signal Problem
The judge overseeing the criminal case against New York Attorney General Letitia James ordered the Justice Department to preserve all communications that might be relevant to her defense. The judge stopped short of ruling that the bewildering Signal messages sent by acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan to Lawfare reporter Anna Bower are discoverable (he wasn’t being asked to rule on that yet), but wants them and another communications preserved in the event that 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 sustain the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through November. Funding of the critical anti-hunger program ran out of money at the end of October because of the government shutdown.
Judge Signals Outcome of Oregon National Guard Case
Following a three-day trial last week on the legality of President Trump’s ordered deployment of the National Guard in Oregon, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut of Portland issued a preliminary injunction continuing to block the deployment until she issues a final ruling this Friday.
While Immergut stressed that it was a preliminary ruling as she continues to assess trial testimony and exhibits, the preliminary injunction strongly suggested she is going to rule against the administration on both the deployment and the federalization of the National Guard. Immergut had already issued a temporary injunction blocking the deployment.
Foreign Entanglements Watch
- BREAKING: “The Trump administration has begun detailed planning for a new mission to send U.S. troops and intelligence officers into Mexico to target drug cartels, according to two U.S. officials and two former senior U.S. officials familiar with the effort,” NBC News reports.
- The U.S. conducted its 15th strike against alleged drug-smuggling 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 U.S. high seas attacks last Monday and has ended its search.
- The Trump DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel told some lawmakers behind close doors that the administration doesn’t consider itself to be bound by the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and will not seek congressional authorization for continuing hostilities in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. The 60-day window that the resolution gives from the commencement of hostilities for the president to seek approval from Congress expires today.
- Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, is warning of the breadth of the Trump administration’s claim it can conduct lethal attacks against people merely “affiliated” with groups it has designated as “narco-terrorists:” “They did not in any way, shape, manner, or form explain what the ceiling and floor are for ‘affiliated.’ Theoretically, that could go beyond whether they’re in the actual action of moving drugs.”
The Corruption: Ballroom Edition
While the Trump White House has put out a list of donors to his pet ballroom project and hosted many of them for a dinner, it has withheld the names of some donors and did not divulge the names of everyone in attendance at the dinner, the NYT reports.
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