Today, federal District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued a 14 day emergency stay on USPS preparing to implement or implementing its now final rule attempting to control how states mail out ballots to vote-from-home voters. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.298449/gov.uscourts.mad.298449.218.0_1.pdf 1/ #LawFedi
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The Roberts Six used the shadow docket to quash an earlier injunction Talwani ordered to prohibit USPS from acting on Trump’s EO to federalize vote-from-home (a more accurate term than mail-in voting or absentee voting). The Six argued that plaintiff states’ challenge was not yet ripe when Talwani issued that injunction, bc the USPS had not issued a final rule. 2/
That argument from the Six was mighty disingenuous, since everybody knew USPS had already circulated a draft of the final rule, which it promulgated before the Six said nobody knew whether USPS would publish a final rule. In any event, USPS published on Wednesday, 8/26. Plaintiff states and plaintiff civic organizations immediately filed motions for emergency stays in Talwani’s court, accompanied by motions for swift consideration of a fuller injunction. 3/
Today, Talwani granted the motion for the emergency stay and set an expedited briefing schedule on the motions for a longer term injunction. 4/
Talwani used the Roberts Six ‘s own words to explain that the case is now ripe for judicial action. 5/
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USPS is now claiming that it is “too late” for the plaintiffs to obtain judicial relief. Addressing this, Talwani used the USPS’s own earlier claims as to why the plaintiffs’ previous effort to obtain relief was too early. 6/
