Democrats won a major legal victory Friday as a federal district court permanently enjoined the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) from implementing the provision in President Donald Trump’s executive order demanding a proof-of-citizenship requirement on the federal voter registration form.
The March executive order purported to direct the EAC, an independent commission, to add documentary proof of citizenship to the standard voter application form. A coalition of pro-voting groups and Democrats* immediately filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, winning a preliminary injunction in April, with the court holding that Trump had exceeded his executive authority in an area the Constitution left to the states and Congress.
The court reaffirmed that on Friday, ruling on a motion for partial summary judgement.
“Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress, this Court holds that the President lacks the authority to direct such change,” Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote.
Kollar-Kotelly, a Ronald Reagan appointee who Bill Clinton promoted to Washington D.C.’s federal district court, penned an 81-page opinion explaining in exacting detail why Trump’s executive order violated the Constitution’s separation of powers.
“The Constitution’s allocation of authority over federal elections between Congress and the States may not be intuitive. But it is no accident,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote. “Instead, this design was the product of carefully considered compromises among our Constitution’s Framers.”
The order specifically blocks the EAC from implementing Section 2(a) of Trump’s order, which would have also directed state and local election officials to check voter registrant’s identities.
At a recent panel, EAC commissioner Christy McCormick said she was working along with EAC Chairman Don Palmer to implement Trump’s order, but that the Democrats on the panel had kept the commission from adopting the voter ID requirement.
The consolidated case pitted the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Governors Association, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem S. Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the League of United Latin American Citizens, Secure Families Initiative, the Arizona Students’ Association against Trump, the EAC and the Department of Justice. The Republican National Committee also intervened in the lawsuit to defend Trump’s order.
Schumer celebrated the ruling on social media, tweeting: “BIG COURT WIN: I’m announcing that we just won a big court case as a lead plaintiff to stop the Trump administration from disenfranchising Americans, and especially women and service members, through his voter suppression EO.”
*Democracy Docket Founder Marc Elias’s law firm represented Democratic plaintiffs in this lawsuit.