Law and Disorder
Plus: We’re working to ensure Nevada ballots are counted. 🗳️
This Week in Democracy
- The U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to issue its first decisions about the second Trump administration.
Earlier this month, President Trump attempted to fire Hampton Dellinger, the head of an independent agency that enforces the Hatch Act and protects federal whistleblowers from retaliation. Dellinger sued, arguing that he was improperly removed and should be reinstated. A federal district court agreed to temporarily reinstate him, leading the administration to appeal to the Supreme Court.
That’s not all. On Wednesday, a federal appeals court declined to lift a block on Trump’s executive order to deny citizenship to some children born on U.S. soil. The block was a result of a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of four states, led by Washington Attorney General Nick Brown. The Trump administration is likely to appeal that case to the Supreme Court, too.
- The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is continuing to drastically reshape the federal government. Its work is continuing to raise privacy concerns, halt basic government functions, and fire or lay off thousands of federal employees — making everyday life harder for everyday Americans.
Last week, 17 employees of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) who worked with state and local officials on election security efforts were put on leave. On Saturday, an official from the Department of Homeland Security said that CISA was pausing all election security work. This week, Wired reported that two DOGE engineers have joined CISA’s staff.
On Tuesday, a federal judge declined to block DOGE from terminating employees or accessing data systems of several federal agencies while litigation is ongoing. The judge also raised concerns about its work, saying that “DOGE’s unpredictable actions have resulted in considerable uncertainty and confusion for plaintiffs and many of their agencies and residents.” The attorneys general of 14 states, led by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, sued to block DOGE’s work last week, arguing that the authority it’s exercising violates the U.S. Constitution.
- Trump is continuing to fill his administration with loyalists and Election Deniers.
On Monday, Trump nominated Ed Martin to be the U.S. Attorney for D.C. after Martin indicated last week that he would investigate former Special Counsel Jack Smith. Martin went to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after giving a speech calling on the crowd to “stop the steal.” He was also on the board of an organization that raises money for Jan. 6 defendants.
And on Thursday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Kash Patel as director of the FBI. At his confirmation hearings, Patel refused to say that Trump lost the 2020 election, only saying that “President Biden’s election was certified” and that Biden “was the president of the United States.”
- Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that seeks to give the executive branch more control over independent agencies, including the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Election Assistance Commission. Congress specifically established these agencies to be independent so that they could serve as a check on other branches of our government.
Experts are especially concerned about the risks associated with politicizing the FEC. “The FEC, unlike basically every other federal agency, has a role in enforcing the law against the president as a candidate and as a holder of federal office,” said Adav Noti, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center and a former FEC official. There are multiple complaints against the 2024 Trump campaign currently before the FEC.
State of the States
In Nevada, Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar is fighting back against attempts to change the state’s election laws in a way that would block valid votes from being counted. Last May, Aguilar and state election officials were sued in an effort to block mail-in ballots that were postmarked by Election Day but received afterwards from being counted. Last July, a federal judge dismissed the case. The plaintiffs appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where litigation is ongoing. States United is serving as pro bono co-counsel to Aguilar in the appeal.
➡️ READ: More about the case