constitution

NEW YORK — President Trump’s request to add a documentary proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form cannot be enforced, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., sided with Democratic and civil rights groups that sued the Trump administration over his executive order to overhaul U.S. elections.

She ruled that the proof-of-citizenship directive is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers, dealing a blow to the administration and its allies who have argued that such a mandate is necessary to restore public confidence that only Americans are voting in U.S. elections.

“Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress, this Court holds that the President lacks the authority to direct such changes,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her opinion.

She further emphasized that on matters related to setting qualifications for voting and regulating federal election procedures “the Constitution assigns no direct role to the President in either domain.”

Kollar-Kotelly echoed comments she made when she granted a preliminary injunction over the issue.

The ruling grants the plaintiffs a partial summary judgment that prohibits the proof-of-citizenship requirement from going into effect. It says the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which has been considering adding the requirement to the federal voter form, is permanently barred from taking action to do so.

A message seeking comment from the White House was not immediately returned.

The lawsuit brought by the DNC and various civil rights groups will continue to play out to allow the judge to consider other challenges to Trump’s order. That includes a requirement that all mailed ballots be received, rather than just postmarked, by Election Day.

Other lawsuits against Trump’s election executive order are ongoing.

In early April, 19 Democratic state attorneys general asked a separate federal court to reject Trump’s executive order. Washington and Oregon, where virtually all voting is done with mailed ballots, followed with their own lawsuit against the order.

Swenson and Riccardi write for the Associated Press.

There is an unfortunate trend these days to further erode the distinction between law and politics. The formation and enforcement of laws is, of course, connected with the political process. On the other hand, the interpretation of the law should be divorced from the political process as much as possible. The problem is that the Constitution has, more and more, become an arena for carrying on political contests. Where proponents see little hope of legislative success, they have sought to cast their claims in constitutional molds. As a result, there are those who are more concerned with a judge’s politics than with his or her view of the law and the role of the judiciary in our form of government. What is even more alarming is the growing tendency to interpret judicial decisions in political terms that only take account of results.

The blizzard of commentary surrounding the nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork for the vacancy on the Supreme Court has obscured the legitimate issues and served to focus attention on the irrelevant and unknowable. We do not and cannot know whether Bork’s heart was pure on the day he fired Archibald Cox. What we can determine is whether his conduct was within, and indeed required by, the law. We cannot know precisely how Bork, now on the U.S. Court of Appeals, will vote on a variety of issues that will eventually appear before the Supreme Court. What we can reasonably expect to understand is Bork’s opinion as to the nature of the U.S. Constitution and his approach to interpreting it.

In a 1986 article in the San Diego Law Review, Bork sets forth his views on the proper role of the judiciary and the approach that it ought to take to constitutional interpretation. He discusses the problems created by the use of a concept like the “right of privacy” as the criterion for determining the result in Griswold vs. Connecticut. “My point,” Bork says, “is simply that the level of abstraction chosen makes the application of a generalized right of privacy unpredictable.” What concerned Bork was the trend toward generalization in judicial decisions even when the Constitution is silent on an issue, and what this might lead to as a source of unstructured judicial power.

The whole tenor of Bork’s article is strongly reminiscent of the late Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black’s dissent in the Griswold case. “Privacy,” Black said, “is a broad, abstract and ambiguous concept which can easily be shrunken in meaning but which can also, on the other hand, easily be interpreted as a constitutional ban against many things . . . .” Black’s view of the manner in which the Supreme Court ought to interpret the Constitution has much in common with Bork’s as expressed in the San Diego Law Review article.

Both jurists take the position that the function of the Supreme Court is to interpret the Constitution by reference to the words that appear in it. Both believe that the words can and ought to be limiting factors on the discretion that judges have in making their decisions. Yet there is a growing group of law professors who think otherwise. And there appear to be a number of senators who believe that political ideology is the determining factor in judicial decision-making.

But political beliefs held before appointment to the Supreme Court have not been reliable predictors of judicial behavior. Hugo Black’s political background (which included membership in the Ku Klux Klan) would hardly have predicted a judicial record of preserving individual rights. Earl Warren’s performance surprised more than a few people.

More is known about candidates who have had judicial experience than those who have been selected from the political arena. But what is it that we know about current or former judges?

What we know is whether they view the law as a rational enterprise and whether, as judges, they are of the opinion that they must give good reasons for the decisions that they make. We can discover whether they believe that a judge is morally superior and, therefore, morally justified in substituting his or her opinion for the opinions of legislators or the general population. In short, what we can find out, and what we should want to know, is the degree to which the candidate for judicial office is committed to the rule of law.

It is appropriate to ask a political candidate what his or her opinions are in respect to abortion, prayer in schools, gay rights or any other matter within the political domain. What we should ask the candidate for judicial office is his or her opinion with regard to the law on these matters, and whether the candidate is prepared to faithfully apply the law. It is important to determine whether the judicial candidate differentiates between his preferences on matters of social policy and his view of the law on these same issues.

Bork has articulated his views on these matters in numerous law-review articles and judicial opinions. What he has said is neither unique nor radical. As previously noted, his position on constitutional interpretation bears striking resemblance to Hugo Black’s. The view that a judge must justify his decisions by reference to the established meaning of the words does not justify calling him a right-wing ideologue. The nomination, and confirmation, of Judge Bork will not mean substantial change in life as we know it, no matter who “we” are.

GYEONGJU, South Korea — President Trump said Wednesday that “it’s too bad” he’s not allowed to run for a third term, conceding the constitutional reality even as he expressed interest in continuing to serve.

“If you read it, it’s pretty clear,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One enroute from Japan to South Korea. “I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad.”

The president’s comments, which continue his on-again, off-again musings about a third term, came a day after House Speaker Mike Johnson said it would be impossible for Trump to stay in the White House.

“I don’t see the path for that,” he told reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.

Johnson, the Republican leader who has built his career by drawing closer to Trump, said he discussed the issue with the president, and he thinks Trump understands the situation.

“He and I have talked about the constrictions of the Constitution,” he said.

The speaker described how the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment does not allow for a third presidential term and changing that, with a new amendment, would be a cumbersome, decade-long process winning over states and votes in Congress.

“But I can tell you that we are not going to take our foot off the gas pedal,” he said. “We’re going to deliver for the American people, and we’ve got a great run ahead of us — he’ll have four strong years.”

Trump stopped short of characterizing his conversation with Johnson, and his description of the prohibition on third terms was somewhat less definitive.

“Based on what I read, I guess I’m not allowed to run,” he said Wednesday. “So we’ll see what happens.”

Trump has repeatedly raised the idea of trying to stay in power. Hats saying “Trump 2028” are passed out as souvenir keepsakes to lawmakers and others visiting the White House, and Trump’s former 2016 campaign chief-turned-podcaster Stephen Bannon has revived the idea of a third Trump term.

Trump told reporters Monday on Air Force One on his trip to Japan that “I would love to do it.”

He went on to say that his Republican Party has great options for the next presidential election — in Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was traveling with him, and Vice President JD Vance, who visited with senators at the Capitol on Tuesday.

“All I can tell you is that we have a great group of people,” Trump said.

Pressed if he was ruling out a third-term bid, Trump demurred. Asked about a strategy where he could run as vice president, which could be allowed under the laws, and then work himself in the presidency, he dismissed the idea as “too cute.”

“You’d be allowed to do that, but I wouldn’t do that,” he said.

The chit chat comes as Trump, in his words and actions, is showing just how far he can push the presidency — and daring anyone to stop him.

He is sending National Guard troops to cities over the objections of several state governors; accepting untold millions in private donations to pay the military and fund the new White House ballroom, picking winners and losers in the government shutdown.

Johnson, the Louisiana Republican who rose swiftly to become House speaker with Trump’s blessing, dismissed worries about a potential third term by the president’s critics whose “hair is on fire.”

“He has a good time with that, trolling the Democrats,” Johnson said.

Megerian and Mascaro write for the Associated Press.

Oct. 22 (UPI) — Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., passed the 14-hour mark Wednesday morning in his filibuster speech on the “grave threats to democracy” he said President Donald Trump poses.

Merkley began his speech at 6:24 p.m. EDT Tuesday and was speaking as of about 10 a.m. Wednesday. The record for a Senate filibuster was set in April this year by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who spoke for 25 hours and 5 minutes.

The senator from Oregon used the speech to warn about what he described as Trump’s shift toward authoritarianism and weaponization of the Justice Department. He said it was “an incredible threat to our nation.”

“I’ve come to the Senate floor tonight to ring the alarm bells,” Merkley said in his opening remarks. “We’re in the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic since the Civil War.

“President Trump is shredding our Constitution.”

Merkley took issue with the level to which Trump has used executive actions and powers, the mass deportations carried out by his administration, the deadly strikes used against suspected drug cartels in South and Central American waters, federal troop deployments to U.S. cities, and his work to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, according to Newsweek.

“President Trump wants us to believe that Portland, Ore., in my home state, is full of chaos and riots,” Merkley said. “Because if he can say to the American people that there are riots, he can say there’s a rebellion. And if there’s a rebellion, he can use that to strengthen his authoritarian grip on our nation.”

Merkley’s filibuster comes days after thousands of “No Kings” protests were held across the country. The anti-Trump demonstrations addressed many of the same issues as Merkley’s speech.

The Senate, which has yet to pass a stopgap funding bill to reopen the government after a 22-day shutdown, will be unable to carry out any business on the Senate floor until Merkley concludes his speech.

Presidential election is currently expected to take place in December.

Voters in Guinea have overwhelmingly backed a new constitution that could allow coup leader Mamady Doumbouya to run for president if he chooses to, according to partial results.

The constitution looked set to pass with 90.6 percent votes in favour and 9.4 percent against, the head of Guinea’s General Directorate of Elections, Djenabou Toure, told reporters late on Monday. Those figures were based on 91 percent of the votes cast in Sunday’s referendum.

An overall figure for voter turnout was not available, but officials had counted more than 4.8 million votes out of more than 6.6 million registered voters, meaning turnout had exceeded 70 percent.

Critics called the results a power grab, but the military government said the referendum paves the way for a return to civilian rule. The presidential election is currently expected to take place in December.

Reporting from the capital, Conakry, Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris said members of the opposition were opposed to the referendum.

“The elections were held all across Guinea with no incidents at all – 45,000 security forces were deployed. … The opposition said this is a way of harassing the voters,” he said.

Presidential election

Doumbouya, a 40-year-old former member of the French Foreign Legion, voted along with his wife at a health centre in Conakry, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap with a drawing of a traditional mask symbolising fertility.

He seized power in Guinea, home to the world’s largest reserves of bauxite, in 2021. It was part of a wave of eight coups that swept West and Central Africa from 2020 to 2023.

A charter adopted after the coup barred members of the transitional government from seeking office. But that language was not included in the constitution put to voters on Sunday.

Doumbouya has not said yet whether he intends to run for office.

The country’s two main opposition leaders, Cellou Dalein Diallo and deposed former President Alpha Conde, are among those who called for a boycott of the referendum.

Their political parties are currently suspended, and Human Rights Watch has accused the government of disappearing political opponents and arbitrarily suspending media outlets.

The government has denied any role in disappearances but has promised to investigate such allegations.

Guinea’s 6.7 million voters eligible to cast a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote on a new constitution.

Guinea is holding a long-awaited referendum on a new constitution that could allow coup leader Mamady Doumbouya to run for president and would transition the African nation from military to civilian rule.

Polls opened and will close later on Sunday for the 6.7 million eligible voters to cast a “yes” or “no” vote on a new constitution that would lengthen the presidential term from five to seven years, renewable once, and create a Senate, one-third of whose members the president would directly appoint.

In the capital, Conakry, where political campaigning was banned on Friday and Saturday, people gathered at polling stations early on Sunday to cast their votes.

Reporting from Conakry, Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris said the government has deployed security officers with a government statement outlining that “more than 40,000 security personnel have been deployed to provide security for this election”.

“People are expecting that the referendum will result in the approval of the draft constitution that some people call impressive and progressive,” Idris said.

“However, people who are opposed to this referendum are saying it will legitimise the current military rulership to participate in the election. The transitional charter said, in fact, no member of the current military government will participate, but a lot of people fear that the referendum will result in a constitution that will allow every member of this government to participate in the [next] election,” he added

Critics are closely watching the referendum, fearing that this is the latest attempt by the government to legitimise its rule on a continent where eight coups since 2023 in West and Central Africa have changed the political landscape.

The referendum has also been criticised as a power grab by Doumbouya. His military-led government missed a December deadline it had set to return the government to civilian rule after he had seized power four years ago.

A presidential election is scheduled to take place in December.

While the military leader has not yet said if he would run in the presidential election, a transitional charter adopted by his government after it took power said coup members would be barred from standing in the next elections.

Sunday’s vote is likely to pass as two of the prominent opposition leaders, Cellou Dalein Diallo and deposed former President Alpha Conde, have called for a boycott of the vote.

Both Diallo’s and Conde’s parties are currently suspended with Human Rights Watch accusing the military government of disappearing political opponents, which it has denied.

The results of the election are expected within the next two to three days, Idris said.

Sept. 17 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1787, the U.S. Constitution, completed in Philadelphia, was signed by a majority of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Nine states ratified the document in June 1788, and it became the supreme law of the United States on March 4, 1789.

In 1862, Union forces led by Gen. George McClellan attacked Confederate troops led by Gen. Robert E. Lee near Antietam Creek in Maryland. McClellan blocked Lee’s advance on Washington but fell short of victory.

In 1939, Soviet troops invaded Poland, 16 days after Nazi Germany moved into the country. Warsaw capitulated to Nazi armies 20 days later.

In 1972, North Vietnam released three American pilots, the first U.S. prisoners of war released by the country since 1969.

In 1976, NASA displayed its first space shuttle, the Enterprise, an airplane-like spacecraft costing almost $10 billion that took nearly a decade to develop.

File Photo by Michael Kleinfeld/UPI

In 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords, laying the groundwork for a permanent peace agreement between Egypt and Israel after three decades of hostilities.

In 1983, Vanessa Williams of New York became the first Black woman to be named Miss America. She resigned 11 months later after nude photos were published but regained stardom as a singer and actress.

In 1991, North Korea, South Korea, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were admitted to the United Nations.

File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

In 1993, Cambodia’s two leading political parties agreed that Prince Norodom Sihanouk would lead the nation. Sihanouk was installed as king a week later.

In 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush said Osama bin Laden, the suspected ringleader in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was “wanted dead or alive.” Bin Laden was killed in a 2011 U.S. commando raid in in Pakistan.

In 2024, thousands of pagers and walkie talkies meant to be used by members of Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon and Syria over the course of two days. The attacks killed 42 people and injured thousands. The Israeli government manufactured devices, installing the explosives in a plan dubbed Operation Grim Beeper.

File Photo by Wael Hamzeh/EPA-EFE

Florida’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the state’s congressional redistricting map, rejecting a challenge over the elimination of a majority-Black district in north Florida that was pushed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The court, dominated by DeSantis appointees, ruled that restoration of the district that previously united Black communities from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee, or across 200 miles, would amount to impermissible racial gerrymandering. That, the majority ruled, violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees.

“The record leaves no doubt that such a district would be race-predominant. The record also gives us no reasonable basis to think that further litigation would uncover a potentially viable remedy,” said Chief Justice Carlos Muniz in the court’s majority opinion.

The decision means Florida’s current congressional districts that give Republicans a 20-8 advantage over Democrats will remain in place for the 2026 midterm elections and beyond. The former north Florida district was most recently represented by a Black Democrat, former Rep. Al Lawson. The new districts divide that area among three Republicans.

A panel of three federal judges previously upheld the current congressional districts.

“This was always the constitutionally correct map — and now both the federal courts and the FL Supreme Court have upheld it,” DeSantis said on X.

One of the plaintiffs, the National Redistricting Foundation, called the new ruling “alarming” because it “diminishes the voting power of Black Floridians” by upholding the GOP-drawn map.

“The court is abandoning the most basic role of the judiciary: to provide justice for the people,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the foundation.

Earlier redistricting efforts by the state Legislature included versions of the north Florida district that preserved Black voting power. But after a veto by DeSantis, the governor pushed through the current map that eliminated it.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said one problem for the plaintiffs was they did not propose a viable alternative map but only pointed out potential problems with the current one.

“It is not enough in the redistricting context for challengers to identify a flaw in an enacted districting plan and demand that the court send the Legislature back to the drawing board,” the decision said.

Justice Jorge Labarga was the lone dissenter, contending the lawsuit should be sent back to a lower court for further proceedings to allow the challengers a chance to produce different districts.

“By foreclosing further litigation, the majority’s decision now allows to remain in place a congressional redistricting plan that is unconstitutional under the Florida Constitution,” Labarga wrote.

Anderson writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON  — Public health advocates won a big case in the Supreme Court on the last day of this year’s term, but the victory came with an asterisk.

The decision ended one threat to the no-cost preventive services — from cancer and diabetes screenings to statin drugs and vaccines — used by more than 150 million Americans who have health insurance.

But it did so by empowering the nation’s foremost vaccine skeptic: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Losing would have been “a terrible result,” said Washington attorney Andrew Pincus. Insurers would have been free to quit paying for the drugs, screenings and other services that were proven effective in saving lives and money.

But winning means that “the secretary has the power to set aside” the recommendations of medical experts and remove approved drugs, he said. “His actions will be subject to review in court,” he added.

The new legal fight has already begun.

Last month, Kennedy cited a “crisis of public trust” when he removed all 17 members of a separate vaccine advisory committee. His replacements included some vaccine skeptics.

The vaccines that are recommended by this committee are included as preventive services that insurers must provide.

On Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups sued Kennedy for having removed the COVID-19 vaccine as a recommended immunization for pregnant women and healthy children. The suit called this an “arbitrary” and “baseless” decision that violates the Administrative Procedure Act.

“We’re taking legal action because we believe children deserve better,” said Dr. Susan J. Kressly, the academy’s president. “This wasn’t just sidelining science. It’s an attack on the very foundation of how we protect families and children’s health.”

On Wednesday, Kennedy postponed a scheduled meeting of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that was at the center of the court case.

“Obviously, many screenings that relate to chronic diseases could face changes,” said Richard Hughes IV, a Washington lawyer and law professor. “A major area of concern is coverage of PrEP for HIV,” a preventive drug that was challenged in the Texas lawsuit that came to the Supreme Court.

By one measure, the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision was a rare win for liberals. The justices overturned a ruling by Texas judges that would have struck down the popular benefit that came with Obamacare. The 2012 law required insurers to provide at no cost the preventive services that were approved as highly effective.

But conservative critics had spotted what they saw was a flaw in the Affordable Care Act. They noted the task force of unpaid medical experts who recommend the best and most cost-effective preventive care was described in the law as “independent.”

That word was enough to drive the five-year legal battle.

Steven Hotze, a Texas employer, had sued in 2020 and said he objected on religious grounds to providing HIV prevention drugs, even if none of his employees were using those drugs.

The suit went before U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, who in 2018 had struck down Obamacare as unconstitutional. In 2022, he ruled for the Texas employer and struck down the required preventive services on the grounds that members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force made legally binding decisions even though they had not been appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The 5th Circuit Court put his decision on hold but upheld his ruling that the work of the preventive services task force was unconstitutional because its members were “free from any supervision” by the president.

Last year, the Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to hear the case of Xavier Becerra vs. Braidwood Management. The appeal said the Texas ruling “jeopardizes health protections that have been in place for 14 years and millions of Americans currently enjoy.”

The court agreed to hear the case, and by the time of the oral argument in April, the Trump administration had a new secretary of HHS. The case was now Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vs. Braidwood Management.

The court’s six conservatives believe the Constitution gives the president full executive power to control the government and to put his officials in charge. But they split on what that meant in this case.

The Constitution says the president can appoint ambassadors, judges and “all other Officers of the United States” with Senate approval. In addition, “Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers” in the hands of the president or “the heads of departments.”

Option two made more sense, said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. He spoke for the court, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and the court’s three liberal justices.

“The Executive Branch under both President Trump and President Biden has argued that the Preventive Services Task Force members are inferior officers and therefore may be appointed by the Secretary of HHS. We agree,” he wrote.

This “preserves the chain of political accountability. … The Task Force members are removable at will by the Secretary of HHS, and their recommendations are reviewable by the Secretary before they take effect.”

The ruling was a clear win for Kennedy and the Trump administration. It made clear the medical experts are not “independent” and can be readily replaced by RFK Jr.

It did not win over the three justices on the right. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a 37-page dissent.

“Under our Constitution, appointment by the President with Senate confirmation is the rule. Appointment by a department head is an exception that Congress must consciously choose to adopt,” he said, joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito and Neil M. Gorsuch.

ATLANTA — A federal judge on Friday blocked President Trump’s attempt to overhaul elections in the U.S., siding with a group of Democratic state attorneys general who challenged the effort as unconstitutional.

The Republican president’s March 25 executive order sought to compel officials to require documentary proof of citizenship for everyone registering to vote for federal elections, accept only mailed ballots received by Election Day and condition federal election grant funding on states adhering to the new ballot deadline.

The attorneys general said the directive “usurps the States’ constitutional power and seeks to amend election law by fiat.” The White House defended the order as “standing up for free, fair and honest elections” and called proof of citizenship a “commonsense” requirement.

Judge Denise J. Casper of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts said in Friday’s order that the states had a likelihood of success as to their legal challenges.

“The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Casper wrote.

Casper also noted that, when it comes to citizenship, “there is no dispute (nor could there be) that U.S. citizenship is required to vote in federal elections and the federal voter registration forms require attestation of citizenship.”

Casper cited arguments made by the states that the requirements would “burden the States with significant efforts and substantial costs” to update procedures.

The ruling is the second legal setback for Trump’s election order. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., previously blocked parts of the directive, including the proof-of-citizenship requirement for the federal voter registration form.

The order is the culmination of Trump’s longstanding complaints about elections. After his first win in 2016, Trump falsely claimed his popular vote total would have been much higher if not for “millions of people who voted illegally.” Since 2020, Trump has made false claims of widespread voter fraud and manipulation of voting machines to explain his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

He has said his executive order secures elections against illegal voting by noncitizens, though multiple studies and investigations in the states have shown that it’s rare and typically a mistake. Casting a ballot as a noncitizen is already against the law and can result in fines and deportation if convicted.

The order also would require states to exclude any mail-in or absentee ballots received after Election Day and puts states’ federal funding at risk if election officials don’t comply. Currently, 18 states and Puerto Rico accept mailed ballots received after Election Day as long they are postmarked on or before that date, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Oregon and Washington, which conduct their elections almost entirely by mail, filed a separate lawsuit over the ballot deadline, saying the executive order could disenfranchise voters in their states. When the lawsuit was filed, Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs noted that more than 300,000 ballots in the state arrived after Election Day in 2024.

Trump’s order has received praise from the top election officials in some Republican states who say it could inhibit instances of voter fraud and will give them access to federal data to better maintain their voter rolls. But many legal experts say the order exceeds Trump’s power because the Constitution gives states the authority to set the “times, places and manner” of elections, with Congress allowed to set rules for elections to federal office. As Friday’s ruling states, the Constitution makes no provision for presidents to set the rules for elections.

During a hearing earlier this month on the states’ request for a preliminary injunction, lawyers for the states and lawyers for the administration argued over the implications of Trump’s order, whether the changes could be made in time for next year’s midterm elections and how much it would cost the states.

Justice Department lawyer Bridget O’Hickey said during the hearing that the order seeks to provide a single set of rules for certain aspects of election operations rather than having a patchwork of state laws and that any harm to the states is speculation.

O’Hickey also claimed that mailed ballots received after Election Day might somehow be manipulated, suggesting people could retrieve their ballots and alter their votes based on what they see in early results. But all ballots received after Election Day require a postmark showing they were sent on or before that date, and that any ballot with a postmark after Election Day would not count.

Cassidy writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld, for now, President Trump’s decision to fire two agency officials who had fixed terms that were set by Congress.

By a 6-3 vote, the justices set aside rulings that would have reinstated Gwynne Wilcox to the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris to the Merit Systems Protection Board. Both were appointees of President Biden.

The decision is the latest in which the court’s conservative majority sided with the president’s power to fire agency officials in violation of long-standing laws.

“Because the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf,” the court said in an unsigned order.

But the justices were quick to add the Federal Reserve Board is not affected by this decision.

“The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States,” the court said.

President Trump has threatened to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whose term extends to next year.

At issue is a fundamental dispute over whether the Constitution gave the president or Congress the power to set the structure of the federal government.

In 1935, the court ruled unanimously that Congress can create independent and “nonpartisan” boards and commissions whose members are appointed by the president for a fixed term. The court then drew a distinction between “purely executive officers” who were under the president’s control and members of boards whose duties were more judicial or legislative.

But in recent years, conservatives have questioned that precedent and argued that the president has the executive power to hire and fire all officials of the government.

Shortly after taking office, Trump fired Wilcox and Harris even though their terms had not expired. They sued contending the firings were illegal and violated the law.

They won before a federal judge and the U.S. court of appeals.

Those judges cited the Supreme Court’s 1935 decision that upheld Congress’ authority to create independent boards whose members are appointed by the president to serve a fixed-term.

Trump’s lawyers say the Constitution gives the president full executive power, including control of agencies. And that in turns gives him the authority to fire officials who were appointed to a fixed term by another president, they said in Trump vs. Wilcox.

Justice Elena Kagan filed an eight-page dissent joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“Today’s order favors the President over our precedent; and it does so unrestrained by the rules of briefing and argument—and the passage of time— needed to discipline our decision-making,” Kagan wrote. “I would deny the President’s application. I would do so based on the will of Congress, this Court’s seminal decision approving independent agencies’ for-cause protections, and the ensuing 90 years of this Nation’s history.”

The court said its decision was not final.

The NLRB was created by Congress in 1935 as a semi-independent agency tasked with enforcing the labor laws. Its general counsel serves as a prosecutor while the board‘s five members act as judges who review administrative decisions arising from unfair-labor claims brought by unions.

Under the law, the president appoints the general counsel who can be fired but board members have five-year terms. They may be fired for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office,” but not simply because of political disagreements.

Trump could have controlled the board by appointing members to fill two vacancies. He chose instead to fire Wilcox, leaving the board without a quorum of three members.

Wilcox argued there was no reason to rush to change the law.

“Over the past two centuries, Congress has embedded modest for-cause removal restrictions in the structure of numerous multi-member agencies,” she said in response to the administration’s appeal. She noted that all past presidents — Republicans and Democrats — did not challenge those limits.

The Merit System Protections Board was created by Congress in 1978 as a part of a civil service reform law. Its three board members have seven-year terms, and they review complaints from federal civil servants who allege they were fired for partisan or other inappropriate reasons.

Trump’s decision to fire Harris also left the board without a quorum.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Trump vs. CASA Inc. Though the case arises out of President Trump’s January executive order on birthright citizenship and the 14th Amendment, Thursday’s oral argument had very little to do with whether everyone born in the U.S. is automatically a U.S. citizen. Instead, the argument mostly focused on a procedural legal issue that is just as important: whether lower-court federal judges possess the legitimate power to issue nationwide injunctions to bring laws or executive orders to a halt beyond their districts.

There is a very straightforward answer to this question: No, they don’t. And it is imperative for American constitutionalism and republican sef-governance that the justices clearly affirm that.

Let’s start with the text. Article III of the Constitution establishes the “judicial Power” of the United States, which University of Chicago Law School professor Will Baude argued in a 2008 law review article “is the power to issue binding judgments and to settle legal disputes within the court’s jurisdiction.” If the federal courts can bind certain parties, the crucial question is: Who is bound by a federal court issuing an injunction?

In our system of governance, it is only the named parties to a given lawsuit that can truly be bound by a lower court’s judgment. As the brilliant then-Stanford Law School professor Jonathan Mitchell put it in an influential 2018 law review article, an “injunction is nothing more than a judicially imposed non-enforcement policy” that “forbids the named defendants to enforce the statute” — or executive order — “while the court’s order remains in place.” Fundamentally, as Samuel L. Bray observed in another significant 2017 law review article, a federal court’s injunction binds only “the defendant’s conduct … with respect to the plaintiff.” If other courts in other districts face a similar case, those judges might consider their peer’s decision and follow it, but they are not strictly required to do so. (For truly nationwide legal issues, the proper recourse is filing a class-action lawsuit, as authorized by Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.)

One need not be a legal scholar to understand this commonsense point.

Americans are a self-governing people; it is we the people, according to the Constitution’s Preamble, who are sovereign in the United States. And while the judiciary serves as an important check on congressional or executive overreach in specific cases or controversies that come before it (as Article III puts it), there is no broader ability for lower-court judges to decide the law of the land by striking down a law or order for all of the American people.

As President Lincoln warned in his first inaugural address: “The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by” the judiciary, “the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”

Simply put, the patriots of 1776 did not rebel against the tyranny of King George III only to subject themselves, many generations later, to the black-robed tyranny of today. They fought for the ability to live freely and self-govern, and to thereby control their own fates and destinies. Judicial supremacy and the concomitant misguided practice of nationwide injunctions necessarily deprive a free people of the ability to do exactly that.

It is true that Chief Justice John Marshall’s landmark 1803 ruling in Marbury vs. Madison established that “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” But it is also true, as Marshall noted in the less frequently quoted sentence directly following that assertion: “Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule.” Note the all-important qualifier of “apply the rule to particular cases.” Marbury is often erroneously invoked to support judicial supremacy, but the modest case- and litigant-specific judicial review that Marshall established has nothing to do with the modern judicial supremacy and nationwide injunctions that proliferate today. It is that fallacious conception of judicial supremacy that was argued Thursday at the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., one of the swing votes in CASA, is not always known for judicial modesty. On the contrary, in clumsily attempting to defend his institution’s integrity, he has at times indulged in unvarnished judicial supremacist rhetoric and presided over an unjustifiable arrogation of power to what Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist No. 78, referred to as the “least dangerous” of the three branches.

If Roberts and his fellow centrist justices — namely, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — have any sense of prudence, they must join their more stalwart originalist colleagues in holding that nationwide injunctions offend the very core of our constitutional order. Such a ruling would not merely be a win for Trump; it would be a win for the Constitution and for self-governance itself.

Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer

WASHINGTON — A Democratic lawmaker is launching a renegade effort to impeach President Trump, pushing past party leaders on Wednesday with an attempt to force a procedural vote in the U.S. House that is expected to fail.

Rep. Shri Thanedar of Michigan announced his intention to charge ahead, saying that as an immigrant to America he wants to do all he can to protect its Constitution and institutions from Trump’s lawlessness. His resolution contains seven articles of impeachment against the Republican president.

“Donald J. Trump has been committing crimes since day one — bribery, corruption, taking power from Congress, creating an unlawful office in DOGE, violating 1st Amendment rights, ignoring due process,” the congressman said earlier from the House floor.

It would be the historic third time Trump has faced impeachment efforts after being twice impeached during his first term as president — first in 2019 on charges related to withholding military aid to Ukraine as it confronted Russia and later on a charge of inciting insurrection over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters. Trump was acquitted both times by the Senate.

Thanedar is not the only Democrat who has signaled impeachment efforts against Trump. But his decision to go it almost alone, without backing from party leadership, comes as he faces his own political challenges at home, with several primary opponents looking to unseat him in his Detroit-area congressional district.

Timing is also key. His resolution claiming Trump committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” comes as Trump is traveling in the Middle East in his first major trip abroad of his second term, violating a norm in American politics of not criticizing the president once he leaves the U.S.

But Thanedar said he was pressing ahead in part because of Trump’s trip abroad and the potential conflicts of interest as the president appears to be mixing his personal business dealings with his presidential duties and is considering accepting a lavish gift of an airplane from the Qatari government.

“My constituents want me to act,” Thanedar told the Associated Press late Tuesday.

“It’s time for us to stand up and speak. We can’t worry about, ‘Is this the right time?’ We can’t worry about, ‘Are we going to win this battle?’ It’s more about doing the right thing,” he said. “I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. So did Mr. Trump. He has violated his oath, and he’s doing unconstitutional activities. It’s time for someone to stand up and say that, and if that’s just me, then so be it.”

Thanedar is using a procedural tool to force a vote Wednesday on whether to proceed to the issue or shelve the matter.

One top Trump ally, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, criticized Thanedar and dismissed the impeachment effort.

“It’s DOA,” she posted on social media.

Impeachment of a president or other U.S. officials, once rare, has become an increasingly common in Congress.

Republicans in the House opened an impeachment inquiry into then-President Biden, a Democrat, but stopped short of action. The Republicans in Congress did, however, impeach Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The Senate dismissed two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, ending his trial.

Thanedar, who’s from India, has said he came to the United States without many resources. He said he loves the U.S. and wants to defend its Constitution and institutions.

When he took over the Detroit congressional district, it was the first time in decades the city was left without a Black lawmaker in Congress.

Mascaro, Brown and Askarinam write for the Associated Press.