The Roberts Court has issued a shadow docket ruling in USPS v. California, rejecting the Trump regime’s request for a stay of lower court judges’ preliminary injunctions prohibiting USPS from implementing a Final Rule meant to take over vote-from-home (absentee/mail voting). 1/ #LawFedi
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@heidilifeldman In many places, including where I live, you can vote from home and return your ballot via a dropbox.
@heidilifeldman cannot *legally* meddle
So what we are waiting for is a ruling on the merits from the lower courts, and its appeal and certiorari going nowhere?
@martinvermeer The underlying litigation of the merits will go on and there will be all manner of appeals before it reaches the Roberts Court. Only the new Congress could stop the suit, by enacting clear law that eliminates any argument that USPS is authorized to do what Trump is trying to have it do. But even Democratically controlled Congress, no sure thing, won’t have a veto-proof majority for such a law. 1/2
@martinvermeer I suppose Trump could get USPS to withdraw the current Final Rule, which would end current litigation, and try to substitute a more defensible one. That would just spark a new suit over that Rule. Basically, what we have seen so far is the just the overture to the long-running effort by Trump to destroy free, fair elections and the effort by pro-democracy states and NGOs to prevent this. 2/2
The Roberts Court majority, the 6 members who voted to deny the Trump regime’s stay request, gave no reasons for the grounds stated in the unsigned, per curiam shadow docket order. We don’t know if the members agreed on reasons for concluding the regime is unlikely to win on the merits of its challenge to the preliminary injunctions. We certainly don’t know which, if any, of the 6 would be inclined to permit Trump/USPS to take over vote from home on the merits of that substantive question. 3/
@heidilifeldman Alito and Thomas. They are bought by the Heritage Foundation. Intent on destroying the rule of law.
We do know that Kavanaugh would allow it, even though he concurred in tonight’s shadow docket ruling. He took the position that problem is in how and when USPS/Trump tried to make and implement this year’s Final Rule. He said that they ran afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a305_4g15.pdf So, if they take their time and are less sloppy in the run-up to 2028, Kavanaugh will presumably greenlight Trump-driven USPS takeover of vote from home. 4/
Alito and Thomas dissented. Alito wrote and Thomas joined. Unsurprisingly, these two think neither the plaintiff-states nor the plaintiff-NGOs suffer a judicially cognizable injury from letting Trump/USPS run vote from home this year and that even if they do, the law allows it. Alito makes a farfetched argument to conclude that this is just a plain vanilla USPS regulation, within its Congressional grant of authority…. 5/
This means that USPS cannot meddle in the states’ administration of vote-from-home for the 2026 general elections. That’s good. The picture for the 2028 elections is murkier. Bottom line: for as long as we have meaningfully free and fair elections in the U.S., people should vote in person, early wherever that’s an option. Next best is in person, on Election Day. States that rely on USPS to deliver ballots to voters bc all voting is from home face a real challenge. 2/