Blanche Eyes Supreme Court in Voter-Roll Fight
Blanche Eyes Supreme Court in Voter-Roll Fight
The News
Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday the Justice Department may ask the Supreme Court to step into its fight for access to state voter rolls, after losing 22 cases in the lower courts.
"Absolutely, it's a possibility," Blanche told NBC's "Meet the Press" when asked whether he would appeal those losses to the high court.
The Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C. — 31 suits in all — over their refusal to hand over voter registration data ahead of November's midterm elections.
Several of the states resisting are led by Republicans, including Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Georgia and Vermont.
What DOJ Wants
The cases stem from an executive order Trump signed asking states to turn over their voter rolls, including voters' names, dates of birth, residential addresses, state driver's license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.
The federal government says it is collecting the data so the Justice Department can investigate "deficiencies" or "anomalies," including whether any noncitizens are registered to vote.
Elections in the United States are run by the states, and the federal government does not typically keep voter rolls.
Timeline
Trump signs the executive order directing states to produce voter registration data. Some states comply voluntarily; DOJ sues the 30 states and D.C. that don't.
Federal judges — including in Oregon and Michigan, where suits were dismissed — side with at least 22 states seeking to block federal access.
Vermont's Republican Gov. Phil Scott tells "Meet the Press" that state leaders are better positioned to run elections than the federal government.
The Senate confirms Blanche as attorney general after several months as acting AG, following a deal with GOP Sens. Thom Tillis and John Cornyn.
Blanche says a Supreme Court appeal is "absolutely" a possibility.
Reactions
Blanche defended the effort in his own words: "Election integrity is something that President Trump ran on, and the American people elected him. It's something that every American should care about. And so the idea that the Department of Justice is trying to investigate issues around elections to make sure they're fair and make sure they're conducted the right way is not something that we should be running away from. That's something we should be running right towards."
He added: "We're not going to stop doing what I think every American should expect us to do, which is make sure that we have elections that are fair. And as that relates to the Department of Justice, that means making sure that there are no constitutional legal violations, even at the state level."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, appearing later on the same program, said the department under Blanche has "become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump cartel and Donald Trump's extreme agenda, as opposed to standing up for the rule of law."
Blanche answered Democrats' concerns about his closeness to Trump this way: "I will act with integrity. Our prosecutors will act with integrity. We will prosecute without fear or any sort of favor." He added that the president "will never ask me to do something unethical or legal or illegal. He never has. He never will."
What's Next
No appeal has been filed. Blanche described a Supreme Court petition only as a possibility, which means the immediate action stays in the district and appeals courts — with the clock running toward the November midterms.
Blanche also repeated Sunday that the roughly $2 billion "anti-weaponization" fund that worried Tillis and Cornyn before his confirmation is finished: "I've said repeatedly: It's dead."
More
Blanche took over as acting attorney general after Trump fired Pam Bondi in April. Before returning to government, he was Trump's personal attorney in the New York case where the president was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
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