The Trump administration has started a new push to clear the way for the U.S. Postal Service to implement President Donald Trump’s executive order to change mail-in voting.
In a filing in Massachusetts federal court late Monday, the Justice Department asked a judge to lift her ruling that had prevented the USPS from moving forward with mail ballot rules.
The request came only hours after the Supreme Court had sided with the Trump administration in a different but related case, finding that Judge Indira Talwani had acted too soon to block parts of the executive order in a case brought by 23 states and the District of Columbia.
The Justice Department argues that the Supreme Court ruling should also apply to Talwani’s injunction that blocked the USPS rule before it was final, this time in a case brought by voting rights groups and enforced nationally.
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The government asked the judge to reconsider or pause the injunction by the close of business Tuesday, and acknowledged that the voting rights groups could still seek to stop the USPS rule.
“Of course, if plaintiffs want to challenge the Final Rule directly, they can amend their complaint and seek any relief that they think they are entitled to,” the Justice Department wrote. “What they cannot do is leverage a jurisdictionally void injunction against a Final Rule that they have never challenged and that neither this Court (nor any court) has ever held is unlawful.”
The Postal Service made the final rule public on Friday night. Although it’s set to officially publish in the Federal Register on Wednesday, the rule makes clear it would be enforced “immediately” pending the ongoing court cases.
The Supreme Court ruling Monday did not address that the rule has been finalized, but indicated that federal courts need to allow that to happen before they block rules.
“Federal courts review final rules, not proposed rules—and certainly not antecedent internal directives to propose a rule. If the Postal Service’s final rule harms the States, they may challenge that rule,” the Supreme Court wrote.
The challengers to the rule, including the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, argued in a court filing that the administration is operating under an “artificially compressed deadline” and that it can not force the court’s hand in making a decision by threatening to appeal.
The groups also added that this case has now changed because the final rule had been released publicly, and they will now ask the Massachusetts court to consider the final rule in its decision and to block the Justice Department from pausing the injunction.
“That decision addressed a materially different record and did not consider the critical development that occurred last Friday: The USPS Defendants promulgated a Final Rule, transforming the posture of this case and supplying a final agency action that was not before the Supreme Court,” the voting rights groups wrote.
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