Please click here to opt in to receive the Executive Functions Roundup via email and to subscribe to Executive Functions.
The solicitor general on Sunday asked the Supreme Court for a stay pending appeal and an immediate administrative stay 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. (Application.) (NYT.) The preliminary injunction follows Judge Talwani’s earlier temporary restraining order. For background, see a previous Roundup.
A divided panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday denied the government’s emergency motion for a stay pending appeal of a district court order setting aside the Department of Homeland Security’s modifications to its SAVE immigration- and citizenship-verification system, which would have repurposed SAVE as a voter-identification tool in the midterm elections. (Order.) The court indicated it would issue a full decision on the appeal within 10 days. (NYT.)
Judge Tanya Chutkan (D.D.C.) on Friday ordered the Trump administration to provide 48 hours’ notice before performing any work on the site of the president’s proposed arch other than “information gathering.” (Minute Order.) (NYT.)
Judge Trevor McFadden (D.D.C.) on Friday declined to issue a preliminary injunction halting the Defense Department’s firing of several Stars and Stripes journalists, finding the journalists were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment claim. (Memorandum Order.) (NYT.)
Jonathan Hafetz argued that “[d]enying habeas review of detention for protected speech risks accomplishing in practice what the Constitution forbids without actual suspension” of the writ. (Lawfare.)
Jill Habig argued that cities can resist federal overreach by “us[ing] local policy and spending power to diverge from federal priorities, withhold[ing] local cooperation from the federal government, and increas[ing] rights beyond federal guarantees,” among other measures. (Just Security.)
Ilya Somin reviewed the federal government’s record in recent sanctuary city cases, arguing that state and local governments have rightly prevailed on anti-commandeering challenges while noting a “rare” federal win on a Contracts Clause challenge to a Virginia law requiring termination of law-enforcement agreements with the federal government. (Volokh.)
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. The First Circuit has not yet ruled on the government’s parallel stay application. Justice Jackson set a response deadline of 4 p.m. on September 9.