Jay Jones files suit against Trump over executive order on mail-in voting

Attorney General Jay Jones is, to borrow from Donald Trump’s oddball Easter message to Erika Kirk, suing the Trump regime’s asses off, over the March 31 executive order attempting to ban mail-in voting.

“This is a blatant attempt by Donald Trump to sow confusion and distrust in our democratic processes and to influence the midterm elections for his own personal gain,” said Jones, who has joined a coalition of 21 attorneys general that is suing Trump in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

In the suit, the coalition explains what anybody who has taken a constitutional law class already knows – that U.S. Constitution not only gives states the primary authority to administer elections, it also doesn’t allow the president to impose changes to federal election procedures without an act of Congress permitting him to do so.

See Article I, Section 4, Clause 1:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

I mean, if a president could have just changed the rules for the administration of elections from the get-go, we wouldn’t have had many elections after, say, maybe the second one?

We wouldn’t have even had a Constitution if the proposal on the floor for the delegates in 1787 was to allow the executive to be able to rewrite the law prescribing the conduct of elections.

The Founders weren’t so sure about the concept of having an executive in the first place.

We weren’t that long from having fought a war to get out from under the yoke of a king, you may remember, from middle school civics class.

There is no federal government in 1787 if the states don’t agree to form one.

So, no, a president can’t just write and then pass his own new law, as Trump is trying to do, with an executive order that:

• directs the Department of Homeland Security, with the assistance of the Social Security Administration, to use federal databases to assemble a list of adult citizens that states can then compare to their voter rolls.
• instructs the Postal Service to transmit ballots only for states that have provided the federal government a list of its eligible mail voters 60 days before the election and that have met several requirements for making their mail ballots compatible with the USPS automated tracking service.

Last time anybody checked, Donald Trump is the president, not Congress, which has the power to “make or alter” the regulations in the first part of Clause 1; nor is Donald Trump, as the president, a “State” or “Legislature thereof,” who are the only entities empowered to prescribe the “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives.”

“This order does not affect balloting for the April 21 referendum, but if left in place, it will disenfranchise voters in the November election,” Jones said. “This fearmongering and arrogation of States’ authority is plainly unconstitutional. I’m proud to join attorneys general across the country in defending the right to the franchise and to use every legal tool available to us to stop the president’s illegal power grab.”