Jackson unloads on Supreme Court colleagues after Trump victory: ‘Serious legal error’

BS BULLETIN:

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson says the Supreme Court committed a “serious legal error” and fell for government “gamesmanship.”
USPS is ready with new mail-ballot rules as the court fight continues.
North Carolina starts sending military and overseas ballots Sept. 4.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson thinks her Supreme Court colleagues just got played.

In a blistering 23-page dissent, Jackson accused the Court of swallowing the Trump administration’s “gamesmanship whole,” called its request to lift restrictions on President Trump’s mail-voting order “bad-faith,” and said Monday’s ruling creates a “Kafkaesque nightmare” just as the midterm election machinery starts moving.

“This is not a close call,” Jackson wrote.

The Court’s 6-3 conservative majority lifted one injunction against parts of Trump’s executive order, concluding that Democratic-led states had challenged the administration too soon.

Jackson’s response, translated from Supreme Court-ese: Too soon? Now? “Today’s revelation is that such claims can also come too early,” she wrote, “never mind that an election is looming and related harms are presently occurring.”

And the calendar makes that more than an academic argument. USPS has already produced a 95-page final rule designed to implement Trump’s order if the remaining court block comes down. It would impose new ballot-envelope and voter-list requirements and could prevent USPS from delivering ballots in states that fail to comply.

North Carolina begins sending ballots to military and overseas voters Sept. 4.

One California election official told AP his county’s envelopes have already been printed. “You look at the timeline, and it’s a bit chaotic,” Yolo County Clerk-Recorder Jesse Salinas said.

There is one giant qualification to Trump’s Supreme Court victory: the justices did not rule that his mail-voting order is legal. The majority explicitly said its decision “does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful.”

Then came the words guaranteed to keep election lawyers employed: “On that score, time will tell.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was even more explicit in dissent, writing that the ruling does not suggest the executive branch actually possesses “constitutional or statutory authority” to carry out Trump’s directives.

New York Attorney General Letitia James called Monday’s decision a “painful setback,” but promised it would “not be the final word.”

Notre Dame election-law professor Derek Muller offered perhaps the best description of where this leaves everybody: “This is just the first inning of a very fast nine-inning game.”

And it’s getting faster. The Daily BS flagged the constitutional problem earlier this month when a federal judge blocked Trump’s mail-ballot safeguards nationwide: Whatever you think of tighter ballot security, the Constitution gives election-regulation powers to states and Congress — not expressly to the president.

Monday’s Supreme Court order did not resolve that fight. It just put it on a stopwatch.

MY QUICK TAKE:

The Supreme Court has managed to create an extraordinary election-law Goldilocks problem: Sue too close to an election and courts say it’s too late. Sue before the policy takes effect and apparently it can be too early.

Jackson’s fury may be ideological. But that timing problem is real. And the ballots don’t care. They start moving next week.

DBS WIRE SOURCES: