A divided Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals let the Trump Justice Department resume asking California election officials to set aside ballots it suspects were cast by noncitizens, according to Gateway Pundit.
The 11-judge en banc court voted 6-5 to pause a temporary restraining order issued last week by U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco. The ruling is a stay while the appeal proceeds, not a final decision on the merits of the case.
The lawsuit was filed by the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the NAACP against the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. They sued after federal officials sent letters to California and Washington asking election officials to "sequester" ballots of voters the government believed were noncitizens.
The letters warned that "an alien voting in a federal election is a federal crimeand knowingly facilitating such conduct is equally unlawful." Thompson's Oct. 30 order barred further sequestration requests and threats of prosecution, and it was set to expire Nov. 16.
Tuesday's ruling capped a chaotic 12 hours at the court. On Monday night, a three-judge panel voted 2-1 to pause Thompson's order, finding the government was likely to prevail in arguing that its requests and criminal investigations were core executive functions.
About three hours later, the full court vacated that decision and ordered the case reheard by 11 judges, Fox News reported. Just before noon Tuesday, the larger panel reinstated the pause, with five Trump appointees in the majority, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"A district court does not generally have the authority to enter an injunction prohibiting the Department of Justice from expressing its views about criminal statutes, even if the court determines that those views are incorrect," Judge Eric Miller wrote in a concurrence. Miller also wrote that many of the government's positions in its letters to election officials "may have little merit" under an earlier Ninth Circuit decision.
Judge Roopali Desai, a Biden appointee, dissented. "In the span of twelve hours in the middle of an ongoing election and on the literal eve of Election Day, our court issued three conflicting orders," she wrote.
The ruling allows the Justice Department to make the requests, but it does not require election officials to comply. On Monday, the Supreme Court separately rejected the administration's bid to set aside about 20,000 California ballots, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Login