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A coalition of 23 states and the District of Columbia, and a group of civic organizations led by the League of Women Voters (LWV), responded on Wednesday to the government’s application to the Supreme Court to stay a district court order preliminarily enjoining implementation of parts of the United States Postal Service’s mail-in ballot rule. (States’ Response.) (LWV Response.) (SCOTUSblog.)
President Trump issued a series of proclamations on Tuesday barring importation of certain Canadian alcoholic beverages, dairy products, and motor vehicles. (Alcoholic Beverages Proclamation.) (Dairy Proclamation.) (Motor Vehicle Proclamation.) (AP.)
The Census Bureau on Wednesday issued a proposed rule that would exclude from the census count “illegal aliens and aliens whose legal status is less durable and indefinite in length than lawful permanent resident status.” The proposed rule also would “prohibit the inclusion of questions about race and ethnicity or sexual orientation on the decennial census short-form questionnaire or any questionnaire used for purposes of the enumeration.” (Proposed Rule.) (NYT.) (WaPo.)
The Justice Department has reportedly sent letters to election officials in 30 states, asking them to preserve records related to the 2024 election and warning the officials they are “currently under investigation.” (NYT.)
Elie Honig argued that President Trump’s tariffs on Canada are legally vulnerable. (Stay Tuned.)
Caleb Nelson argued in a new article that the “current Supreme Court has enthusiastically embraced… aggressively pro-President readings of the Constitution. But the text of the Constitution is at best ambiguous about the issues that the Court takes it to resolve. As for history, the Court has flitted imprecisely between the idea that history reveals a determinate original meaning on these points and the idea that historical practices have “liquidate[d] & settle[d]” ambiguities in the original meaning—but in any event, the Court is wrong about both its historical evidence and the theory of liquidation.” (SSRN.)
Miriam Seifter argued in a new article that in the face of “presidential aggrandizement, governors possess important and underappreciated powers to resist, counteract, and reshape national action.” (SSRN.) (Just Security.)
Ernest Young argued in a new article that “Congress retains—and has long exercised—the power to delegate authority to administer and enforce federal law outside the executive branch altogether to states and private persons….. These arrangements do not violate the unitary executive principle because states and private actors do not exercise the executive power “of the United States.” And they offer a degree of independence far beyond that of traditional independent federal agencies.” (SSRN.)
Pending Interim Order Applications Involving the U.S. Government in the Supreme Court
United States Postal Service v. California: The government filed an application with the Supreme Court on September 6 seeking an immediate administrative stay and a stay pending appeal of Judge Indira Talwani’s (D. Mass.) preliminary injunction barring the U.S. Postal Service from implementing the mandatory sections of its mail-in ballot rule. California and the League of Women Voters each filed responses on September 9. The First Circuit has not yet ruled on the government’s parallel stay application.
Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters: The government filed an application to the Supreme Court on September 8 seeking a stay pending appeal of a June 22 order issued by Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan (D.D.C.) that vacated a Department of Homeland Security program that used Social Security data to verify voters’ citizenship status. Chief Justice Roberts set a response deadline of 4 p.m. on September 15.