April 27, 2025
Judge Not
By Clarice Feldman
Another week where America turns its attention to a rotten judiciary which is fast erasing any respect we once had for it.
As the prior outrageous injunctions by numbers of (judge shopped) District Courts make their way up the judicial ladder, even more of them were issued this week. I think everything the President has done is the object of at least one District Court injunction. In the meantime, corruption of the judiciary has become so overt that two judges were placed under arrest this week.
The case that particularly caught my attention this week unsurprisingly is once again from the District of Columbia.
Federal law makes it a crime for non-citizens to vote in federal elections (18 U.S.C. Sec. 611). D.C. federal district court judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued an injunction against an Executive Order requiring proof of citizenship to vote and for welfare applicants to prove their citizenship before being given voter registration forms (LULAC v. Executive Office of the President):
Section 2(a) mandates that the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) revise the Federal Form to require documentary proof of citizenship. Both the civil rights groups and the Democratic Party moved to enjoin Section 2(a). The bulk of the Trump Administration’s defense was that the challenge was not yet ripe. However, the DDC pointed to a letter -- which DOJ counsel at oral argument claimed “no knowledge” of -- sent by the EAC to the chief election officials in the States. As that is a required part of the EAC’s process, the DDC found that the case was ripe.
On whether the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits, the DDC concluded that States have the power to set voting qualifications -- subject to the anti-discrimination voting rights amendments -- and Congress has the power to set registration requirements through the Elections Clause. As the DDC emphasized, the President is not granted these powers. Moreover, Congress in the NVRA and HAVA gave the EAC power to alter the Federal Form. Intriguingly, the DDC invoked the Major Questions Doctrine in rejecting the Trump Administration’s position. I suspect that we are going to see this move a lot in the coming months, and many lawyers/academics who were skeptical of that doctrine will find it suddenly useful. It will be interesting to see whether the Supreme Court is willing to apply the Major Questions Doctrine as assiduously against the Trump Administration as it did the Biden Administration.
Because the President is not given the exclusive and conclusive power to trump Congress’s judgment on voter registration rules, the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their claim against Section 2(a).
Section 2(d)
Section 2(d) directs federal voter registration agencies to “assess” the citizenship of individuals who receive public assistance before providing a voter registration form. Only the Democratic Party moved to enjoin this provision.
Here, the DDC relied on the NVRA’s plain language, which provides that federal agencies “shall” provide the Federal Form to each voter who receives their services, unless the voter declines in writing. In the DDC’s view, this mandatory language does not leave room for citizenship checks prior to handing out a voter registration form.
more
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/04/judge_not.html
