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executive order
Judge Blocks 'Unconstitutional and Dangerous' Trump Order Designed to Derail Mail-In Voting
"The court rightly recognized that the president and the executive branch lack both the legal authority and the capacity to compile a complete and accurate list of US citizens or eligible voters in every state."
Jun 25, 2026
On the heels of a federal judge in the District of Massachusetts siding with Democratic state attorneys general who challenged President Donald Trump's executive order requiring Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote, another judge in the same district on Thursday blocked key portions of a second Trump order attacking US elections.
In the latest decision, District Judge Indira Talwani struck down Section 2, which orders the US Department of Homeland Security to create "confirmed citizen lists" of eligible voters, as well as Section 3, which directs the US Postal Service to create rules to limit the mailing of ballots to voters not included on its own lists.
"The Constitution does not grant the president any specific powers over elections. Broadly, the Constitution vests the president with 'executive power' and commands him to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed,'" wrote Talwani, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. "Sections 2 and 3... are legally void as they are ultra vires and unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers."
The judge also struck down Section 5, which requires the US Deparment of Justicee and all other executive agencies "with relevant authority" to "take all lawful steps to deter and address noncompliance with federal law," plus mandates that states and localities "preserve, for a five-year-period, all records and materials—excluding ballots cast—evidencing participation in any federal election (e.g., ballot envelopes, regardless of carriers)." She found that this portion of the order "is merely precatory."
Several state attorneys general were involved in both of this week's cases, including New York Democrat Letitia James, who called Thursday's decision a "major victory" as well as a "critical step in defending the foundation of our democracy and protecting the sacred right to vote."
California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Thursday also cheered the back-to-back wins against the Republican president.
"Just yesterday, President Trump's first elections-related Executive Order was blocked. Now, his second elections-related executive Order has suffered the same fate, and rightfully so. As the federal judge wrote in today's decision, 'The Constitution does not grant the president any specific powers over elections.' Those powers are reserved to the states and Congress," Bonta said. "Democracy doesn't work on its own—it requires constant vigilance. And that's what my fellow attorneys general and I will continue to provide."
The AGs weren't alone in challenging Trump's order. The Association of Americans Resident Overseas, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, League of Women Voters, LWV of Massachusetts, OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates, and US Vote Foundation also filed suit, represented by the national and Massachusetts arms of the ACLU as well as Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Brennan Center for Justice, Legal Defense Fund, and LatinoJustice PRLDEF.
The attorneys and plaintiffs in that case said in a joint statement that as Thursday's decision "makes clear, President Trump's executive order from March 2026 attempting to seize control of elections is unconstitutional and dangerous."
"This ruling is a critical step in preserving free and fair elections," they said. "The court rightly recognized that the president and the executive branch lack both the legal authority and the capacity to compile a complete and accurate list of US citizens or eligible voters in every state. The ruling also rightly recognizes that the US Postal Service has no authority to limit the distribution of mail ballots."
"The court has yet to rule on our request to block the executive order's provisions on mail voting on behalf of a nonpartisan coalition of voting rights groups," they noted. "The same reasoning underpinning today's decision should hold in our case. President Trump's unlawful executive order violates the separation of powers, threatens the integrity of our elections, and must be enjoined from taking effect in the upcoming primary and midterm elections."
Meanwhile, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson signaled the administration will continue the fight, telling multiple media outlets that "President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of our elections. The president's executive order lawfully protects our elections, and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail in its implementation."
Jackson also reiterated the administration's support for the proposed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, saying that "President Trump has also urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting to secure our elections for generations to come."
Trump on Wednesday canceled his planned signing ceremony for the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act "until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency."
In response, US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) summarized: "Congress overwhelmingly passed a housing bill to bring down costs. But Trump just threw a tantrum. He's refusing to sign bipartisan legislation to make housing more affordable in a bizarre effort to try to rig the elections."
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Appellate Court Tosses Youth Case Against 'Unconstitutional' Trump Orders Fueling Climate Crisis
“This decision lets the president direct a sweeping fossil fuel agenda, with no authorization from Congress and no meaningful judicial review, and then tells the children harmed by that agenda that they cannot challenge it until it is unconstitutionally implemented piece by piece," one lawyer said.
Jun 02, 2026
A federal judge in the District of Montana last year "reluctantly" dismissed a lawsuit filed by young Americans challenging a trio of President Donald Trump's anti-climate executive orders and invited the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to correct him—but the panel on Tuesday again tossed the case.
Backed by attorneys at Our Children's Trust and Public Justice, Eva Lighthiser, Rikki Held of Held v. State of Montana, and 20 other children and young adults sued in May 2025 over Trump's executive orders (EOs) boosting the coal industry, declaring a "national energy emergency," and calling on federal agencies to accelerate fossil fuel development.
After the first dismissal from US District Judge Dana Christensen, the young Americans and their lawyers vowed to appeal. However, the 9th Circuit on Tuesday found that "plaintiffs can only speculate that the executive orders are the cause of the many agency actions they allege will exacerbate climate change," and "they have not plausibly alleged that enjoining federal agencies from implementing the executive orders is substantially likely to prevent agencies from taking similar emissions-inducing actions under other lawful authorities."
Issuing an injunction sought by the plaintiffs "would effectively place one federal district court in charge of executive branch energy policy—'an extraordinary and unprecedented role' for a member of the 'unelected and politically unaccountable branch,'" the appellate court also concluded. "Further, by effectively challenging hundreds of current and anticipated agency actions in one lawsuit, Plaintiffs seek to circumvent the jurisdictional and procedural rules Congress has established for challenges to agency actions."
Julia Olson, chief legal counsel and co-executive director of Our Children's Trust, declared in a Tuesday statement that "this decision lets the president direct a sweeping fossil fuel agenda, with no authorization from Congress and no meaningful judicial review, and then tells the children harmed by that agenda that they cannot challenge it until it is unconstitutionally implemented piece by piece. That is not how the Constitution works."
"The court did not decide whether these executive orders are constitutional. It did not decide whether the federal government may knowingly endanger children," she explained. "Instead, it slammed the courthouse doors on children fighting for their lives and told them to file hundreds of cases against every agency action carrying out the president's unconstitutional executive orders. Courts do not become policymakers when they stop unconstitutional government action. That is their job. These young people deserve a court willing to do it."
The lead plaintiff, Lighthiser, stressed that "the court never said we were wrong. They never said the harm isn't real. They just said they wouldn't stop the harm."
"They had the power to act. and they chose not to," she continued. "By the time we are harmed enough to satisfy them, it will be too late. I am a young person. This is my life, my health, my future. And I deserve better than this. We all do."
The decision comes as Trump and his allies continue to serve the interests of the fossil fuel executives who helped him return to power, regardless of the consequences for people and the planet—from gutting key agencies and attacking clean power projects to dismantling a deep-ocean monitoring system that helps researchers understand the impacts of the climate crisis.
"The Trump administration is responsible for a children's health emergency by obligating federal agencies to take actions that dramatically increase greenhouse gas emissions and climate change," Dan Snyder, director of Public Justice's Environmental Enforcement Project, said Tuesday. "The 9th Circuit makes no mention of this emergency. Indeed, the 9th Circuit's decision is shocking in what it lacks."
"The court didn't even consider US Supreme Court decisions—or decisions from within its own circuit—which would require it to reach a very different decision than the one it did today," he highlighted. "The court ignored significant and undisputed facts that Trump's executive orders are causing real-world injuries to our children today. And the court ignores its most basic responsibility: finding workable remedies that provide relief to the uncontested injuries being inflicted by the Trump administration on our kids."
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Trump Accused of ‘Intimidation Tactic’ for Attending Supreme Court Birthright Citizenship Hearing in Person
In an unprecedented move, Trump arrived at the court after accusing conservative justices of being "disloyal" for ruling against him in previous cases.
Apr 01, 2026
President Donald Trump is being accused of trying to "intimidate" the US Supreme Court as it hears oral arguments on his attempt to kill birthright citizenship.
Trump broke nearly 250 years of precedent as he arrived at the high court on Wednesday morning to personally observe the proceedings, which no sitting president has done.
As Kathryn Watson, a reporter for CBS News, explained, historically, "presidents have avoided attendance in part to honor the separation of powers."
Trump was in attendance as the justices—three of whom he appointed—mulled what could be their most consequential decision in decades: whether to uphold an executive order that would strip away a fundamental guarantee of citizenship enshrined in the US Constitution.
Making it all the more unnerving were the president's comments about the high court on Tuesday night in the Oval Office after letting reporters know he was "going" to keep tabs on Wednesday's proceedings.
He specifically zeroed in on the Republican-leaning justices, describing those he appointed as “disloyal” for ruling against him in previous cases. While describing the liberal justices as rank partisans, who’ll vote against him no matter what, he said the conservatives were “very different.”
"They want to show how honorable they are, so a man can appoint them, and they can rule against him and be so proud of it," Trump said.
"Some people would call it stupidity," Trump went on. "Some people would call it disloyal."
The court is expected to rule this summer on the legality of Trump’s executive order declaring that the children born to undocumented immigrants or those on temporary visas would no longer automatically become US citizens.
A lower court has already ruled against Trump's order, declaring it in violation of the 14th Amendment, which was passed following the Civil War and plainly states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
The Supreme Court will now hear arguments from the Trump administration seeking to undo that fundamental understanding, including ones advanced over a century ago by a former Confederate officer who also helped to establish the “separate but equal” doctrine that legalized racial segregation for over half a century.
If the court votes to uphold Trump's executive order, hundreds of thousands of American citizens could become effectively stateless.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said it could also throw the citizenship of tens of millions more into doubt, as it would effectively require people with legal birth certificates to "prove" their parents' legal status.
Trump's effort to strip millions of people of their citizenship comes as his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has pushed to ultimately deport "100 million people" from the country—a number that far exceeds the population of undocumented immigrants in the US.
DaMareo Cooper explained on Tuesday for Common Dreams that the Supreme Court's decision will determine "whether a president can rewrite one of the clearest promises embedded in American law":
If the court strikes down birthright citizenship, it would let the government decide who counts as American based on the circumstances of their birth.
The 14th Amendment’s authors understood the danger of that approach.
Once citizenship becomes conditional, every other right soon follows. Ending birthright citizenship would affect everyone—not just children of immigrants—in a system that has long questioned the belonging of people of color, including Black Americans.
Allowing the Trump administration to determine who counts as a citizen takes on even more weight in light of another likely unconstitutional executive order signed by the president on Tuesday, requiring DHS to create a "citizenship list" to determine who is allowed to vote in the 2026 election.
Given these extraordinary stakes, many observers fear that Trump’s appearance before the Supreme Court's deliberations on Wednesday is designed to send a message to the justices he's accused of being "disloyal."
Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat called Trump's arrival at the high court an “intimidation tactic to remind judges of the costs of defying him.”
Josh Sorbe, a spokesperson for the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, said, "The separation of powers is pure fiction at this point."
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