Supreme Court Lifts Block on Trump Mail-Voting Order
The Supreme Court has lifted a lower-court block on parts of President Donald Trump’s mail-voting executive order. Federal agencies may keep working on citizenship-data access, enforcement priorities and proposed Postal Service ballot rules while the lawsuit continues.
The administration won time and room to act. It did not win a ruling that the order is lawful.
In a 6-3 decision, the majority said California and the other states challenged the order before federal action created an imminent, concrete injury. States are not required to use Department of Homeland Security citizenship lists. The Justice Department’s instruction to prioritize certain election cases does not itself force a state to change its rules. The Postal Service must still use normal rulemaking and follow federal law.
Trump’s Executive Order 14399 directs DHS to make citizenship data available to states, tells the attorney general to prioritize investigations of officials who issue ballots to ineligible voters and orders the Postal Service to pursue new mail-ballot procedures.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said the states should not have to wait. Her dissent argues that the Constitution gives election-rule authority to states and Congress, not the president, and that federal implementation creates costs and uncertainty before the next election.
The majority left that constitutional fight for another day. Its opinion says the stay does not mean final implementation will be legal. A separate injunction also continues to affect some Postal Service provisions.
That line matters. Voters deserve clean rolls, lawful ballots and an honest count. They also deserve election rules made by officials who actually possess the power to make them. The Court has allowed the machinery to turn while reserving judgment on whether it belongs there.
Justice Department Lists 41,150 Radiation Claims Still Pending
The federal government has approved 9,395 claims worth $657,040,015 under the expanded Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. Another 41,150 claims remain pending.
The Justice Department’s August 24 tally covers new categories for downwinders, onsite nuclear-test participants, people exposed to Manhattan Project waste and uranium workers. Only 42 expanded claims have been denied so far, which puts the approval rate among completed cases at 99.6 percent.
That strong approval rate does not erase the queue. Nor does the pending count prove that every claim is late or valid. The table does not show when those claims arrived.
Congress designed RECA as a non-adversarial alternative to litigation for people who developed serious illnesses after exposure connected to the federal nuclear-weapons program. DOJ says high application volume may delay acknowledgement letters and has opened an electronic claims portal. The deadline to file is December 31, 2027.
The government built the weapons program. It should pay eligible people without making them spend their remaining years fighting the bureaucracy that exposed them.
Missouri Watch
John Combest’s Monday roundup points to tougher penalties for drivers who pass a stopped school bus in Missouri.
The law takes effect August 28. A conviction now brings five license points and a first-offense fine of $500 to $1,000. A second offense within five years carries a mandatory 90-day license suspension. A third brings 180 days. The new statute keeps a first-offense suspension at the court’s discretion.
KOMU reports that the changes arrive as students return to school. Districts may install cameras on buses with school-board approval, but the footage cannot feed an automated ticketing system. Prosecutors may use it as evidence in court, and unused video must be deleted within 180 days.
Missouri is drawing a hard line around children boarding a bus while keeping a judge and prosecutor between a camera and a penalty. That is the right place to insist on both safety and due process.
From the 4Liberty Network
Huey Long promised to make every man a king. Jon Miltimore tells Austin Petersen how the Kingfish came close to making Louisiana his personal kingdom instead, and what parts of the New Right are seeking when they invoke his brand of populism.
Watch Miltimore’s conversation with Austin Petersen.
Going Viral
The Babylon Bee hands “abolish prisons and defund the police” to an AI simulator and lets the imaginary utopia run for 102 seconds. The machine’s version of public safety goes about as smoothly as the slogan.