emergency appeal

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for President Trump to seek new limits on the use of mail ballots, but they are not likely to take effect this year.

Acting by a 6-3 vote, the court’s conservatives granted an emergency appeal from Trump’s lawyers and set aside a judge’s order that blocked new federal regulations on states and their use of mail ballots.

It’s not clear, however, what happens now, since the midterm elections are less than three months away.

About 30% of the nation’s voters — and 80% of Californians — cast their ballots by mail in 2024. Trump, however, has long maintained the voting by mail leads to fraud, including voting by noncitizens.

The court’s order stressed the new regulations do not put new requirements on the states this year.

Trump’s executive order “is internal directive from the President to his subordinates mandating that certain agencies pursue certain policies. It neither requires nor forbids anything of anyone outside the Executive Branch,” the court said.

The Department of Homeland Security will compile state-by-state lists of citizens who are over 18 and eligible to vote.

“States are not required to use the Lists,” the court said, although they could lead to future prosecutions.

The most disputed provision could have authorized the Postal Service to restrict mail ballots to those who are on the Homeland Security lists, but that is a future proposal, not a rule that will take effect this year.

The unsigned order spoke for the six Republican appointees. The three liberals, all Democratic appointees, dissented into two separate opinions.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said Trump’s order was unlawful and should have been struck down. “It needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections,” she said.

“Today’s decision does not address whether the President’s attempts to interfere with States’ administration of the November 2026 elections are lawful,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Elena Kagan. “Nor does it suggest that the Executive Branch has any constitutional or statutory authority to implement the President’s directives. Instead, today’s decision merely postpones adjudication of those challenges.”

Trump issued his executive order on March 31 with the aim of “ensuring citizenship verification” in federal elections. California and 22 other Democratic-led states sued a few days later and said Trump sought to use the Postal Service to impose new restrictions on voting by mail. They also argued the Constitution gives states and Congress the power to regulate elections, not the president.

A federal judge in Boston and 1st Circuit Court agreed with the challengers and blocked Trump’s executive order from taking effect for the November elections.

The case on appeal was Trump vs. California because California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta was a leader of the Democratic state attorneys who sued.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court on Monday to lift a judge’s order and clear the way for state-by-state lists of citizens who are eligible to vote by mail.

Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer filed an emergency appeal and said judges in Boston had wrongly intervened too soon.

In March, Trump ordered the U.S. Postal Service to direct states to compile a list of citizens who are eligible to vote. This list would limit who may receive a mail ballot.

He also ordered the Department of Homeland Security to “compile and transmit state-specific lists of individuals who are citizens and will be 18 years of age or older at the time of an upcoming election,” Sauer said.

Lawyers for California and 22 other Democratic-led states sued, arguing the states, not the federal government, have the constitutional authority to set the rules for voting and elections.

In June, they won before a federal judge in Boston who blocked Trump’s order from going forward, at least in the 23 states which had sued. Her decision was upheld over the weekend by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

In his appeal, Trump’s solicitor general focused on a procedural question, not the issue of whether the president has the legal authority to impose national rules on state-run elections.

Sauer said the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security had not issued final specific plans to comply with Trump’s directive.

“Courts cannot enjoin implementation of Executive Orders that leave open material issues that still need to be resolved by agencies,” he wrote.

He asked the court to lift or stay the “premature injunctions.”

Time is running short, he said.

“Absent a stay … there will not be sufficient time to obtain appellate relief before the November election,” Sauer said. “That is especially true because implementation efforts for any USPS rule or DHS policy will need to begin well before November … particularly given that absentee and mail-in voting begin (in some States) several weeks prior to Election Day.”

The justices asked for a response from the 23 Democratic states by Aug. 3.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday night that Alabama Republican leaders may redraw their congressional voting districts to oust a Black Democrat and elect a white Republican.

The court’s conservatives, who ruled for Louisiana Republicans in a redistricting dispute, extended that decision to Alabama. The three liberals dissented.

The decision clears the way for the governor and state lawmakers to redraw their congressional voting map with six districts that favor Republicans and one that favors a Democrat.

“Weeks ago, I warned that vacating the District Court’s injunction in these cases would ‘unleash chaos and … confuse voters,’ ” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent. “Yet just as Alabama doubled down on racial discrimination, the Court today doubles down on chaos. Because I choose to defend the rule of law and the right of all Alabamians to participate equally in democracy, I respectfully dissent.”

The justices granted an emergency appeal that was backed by the Trump administration and set aside the decision of a three-judge panel in Alabama.

The court in a brief opinion said the three judges should not have blocked Alabama’s new map.

“While federal courts should not impose changes close to an election, states are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests,” the court said.

Alabama’s emergency appeal went to Justice Clarence Thomas, who referred it to the full court.

Those three judges, two of them Trump appointees, ruled that Alabama’s state lawmakers discriminated against Black voters, who made up a near majority in the center of the state.

Three years ago, the Supreme Court agreed.

In a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the justices upheld the creation of a second district in the center of the state where Black voters had a near majority.

The result then was an Alabama state voting map that favored five Republicans and two Democrats for the House of Representatives.

But last month, in the wake of the Louisiana decision, Alabama’s lawmakers went back to court, arguing that the state may return to the voting map with only a single Black majority district.

In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Alabama’s Atty. Gen. Steven Marshall argued that the high court’s decision in favor of Louisiana “vindicates Alabama position on the lawfulness” of its earlier voting map. He said the state should not be penalized for “refusing to intentionally discriminate” to favor Black voters.

The court’s decision has cleared the way for Republican-led states in the South to flip congressional districts in Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida and now Alabama.