Un-president-ed

A new States United report released this week analyzes President Trump’s unprecedented use of executive orders this year. It not only finds that Trump’s use of executive orders far outpaces any other president in modern history, but also that his efforts to create policy singlehandedly has incurred enormous legal pushback from states and disapproval from the American people.

Since John F. Kennedy was sworn into office in 1961, presidents averaged just under 20 executive orders issued in their first 100 days. In the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, he issued 143.

But executive orders aren’t laws. The president doesn’t have the power to create laws; that belongs to Congress. Our country’s founders built that safeguard into the Constitution intentionally, so that no president can completely take over the job of setting nationwide policies.

Americans support that system; they don’t want Trump to be able to make and remake federal policy alone. States United polling shows that more than half of Americans believe Trump is relying too heavily on executive orders, and that nearly three-quarters believe that the best way to make policy changes is for Congress to pass a bill.

And that’s why state officials have stepped in, challenging executive orders that would directly harm the people they serve. Back in February—not even a month into Trump’s second term—we wrote that the importance of those officials would be proven over the next four years. As we approach the one-year mark, it’s clear they’ve already made a massive impact.

You can read our full report here.

This Week in Democracy

• The U.S. Department of Justice sued six more states, seeking to force election officials to turn over their state’s voter registration lists. The department is demanding that state officials include voters’ private information, like driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

  The Justice Department sued eight other states for their lists in September and has sent demands to at least 40, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

  Ten secretaries of state wrote to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last month, asking what their departments intend to do with the information. The secretaries requested answers by Dec. 1 but did not receive a response.

  ➡️ READ: What’s Breaking Through About the Justice Department’s Election Investigations

• Twelve secretaries of state wrote to the Department of Homeland Security, warning that its proposal to repurpose a federal program to verify voters’ citizenship “threatens to expose hundreds of millions of Americans’ private data to cyberattack and misuse.” Research also continually shows that voting by noncitizens is extremely rare.

  The program is also unreliable. Just this week, county election officials in Texas found that hundreds of people identified by the program as “potential noncitizens” had, in fact, already provided proof of their citizenship to the state’s Department of Public Safety.

  ➡️ READ: Sharing the Facts About Using the SAVE Program for Elections

• Following an appeal from the Trump administration, a federal appeals court paused a judge’s order that blocked the deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. The pause temporarily allows the administration to deploy troops in the nation’s capital while the appeal is litigated.

  Earlier this week, more than 30 former military leaders represented by States United and Protect Democracy Project filed a brief in the case, urging the appeals court to leave the order blocking the deployment in place. The group, including former secretaries of the U.S. Army and Navy, retired senior officers, and Vet Voice Foundation, argued that the deployment of troops in Washington risks the nonpartisan reputation of the military, damages troop morale, and makes the Guard less ready to serve in times of need.

  ➡️ READ: More about our brief

• A federal grand jury declined to re-indict New York Attorney General Letitia James. Justice Department prosecutors attempted to charge James again after a judge found that the former lead prosecutor, interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed and dismissed the case.

  The judge last week also dismissed the case against former FBI Director James Comey, based on the same finding that Halligan did not have the authority to bring charges. Reports indicate that the Justice Department is considering trying to re-indict Comey, too.

  States United represented a group of democracy experts in filing briefs in the now-dismissed cases, arguing that the politically motivated prosecutions were a threat to the rule of law.

  ➡️ READ: About our briefs in the cases against Comey and James

• A federal appeals court upheld a judge’s ruling that disqualified Alina Habba, one of President Trump’s former personal lawyers, from serving as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey. Habba was appointed to the position by Bondi using unusual tactics, which the judge called an attempt to “sidestep” federal law.

  Bondi used similar tactics to appoint U.S. attorneys in California and Nevada, both of whom were disqualified earlier this year for being unlawfully appointed. This week, a federal judge in New York raised the prospect that the U.S. attorney appointed by Bondi for the northern part of the state could be disqualified on the same basis.

• The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments about Trump’s executive order that seeks to deny citizenship to some children born on U.S. soil. The justices will likely decide if the order is constitutional next year.

  ➡️ READ: Sharing the Facts About Birthright Citizenship

• The New York Times sued the Department of Defense, arguing that the limits it recently imposed on journalists’ access to the Pentagon violates the First Amendment. The vast majority of reporters—from every major news outlet—refused to agree to the new rules and had their press credentials revoked in October.

State of the States

In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis affirmed state officials’ decision to decline the Trump administration’s request to move Tina Peters, a former county clerk, to federal custody. The administration made the request after Trump allies reportedly pressured the president to step in and help free her, even though he has no legal authority to do so.

Last year, Peters was convicted of participating in a 2021 breach of her county’s election equipment. A jury found her guilty of helping an associate of Mike Lindell—a prominent Election Denier and CEO of MyPillow—access the equipment in an effort to prove the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump. (The breached equipment was quickly taken out of service; no election was compromised.) She was sentenced to nine years.

In D.C., the Department of Defense announced that all National Guard members deployed in Washington would be armed, a significant escalation following the tragic shooting of two deployed members of the West Virginia National Guard. Trump said that he would send troops to New Orleans next.

➡️ READ: Background about lawsuits challenging National Guard deployments

Separately, a federal judge blocked federal agents from arresting people in the nation’s capital without warrants during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts. A federal judge in Colorado issued a similar ruling last week.

Federal agents began operations in New Orleans and Minnesota’s Twin Cities area this week.

➡️ READ: What’s Breaking Through About Federal Law Enforcement Tactics

In Georgia, the judge overseeing the prosecution of Trump and his allies dismissed the election interference case against them. The dismissal came at the request of Peter J. Skandalakis, the prosecutor appointed to take over the case following the disqualification of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. It marks the end of open criminal cases against Trump.

Watch This

In a press briefing, States United Senior Counsel Andrew Boyle spoke about the consequences of the Trump administration’s National Guard deployments. You can watch his full remarks below.