“The Constitution demands such respect, and the executive may not unilaterally usurp the authority over elections it seeks to do so here,” Carter wrote.
A federal court has taken California’s side in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s demands that the state hand over the names and personal information of more than 23 million voters.
According to The New York Times, the ruling was issued earlier this week by Judge David O. Carter of U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California. Carter’s decision could pose a significant impediment to the White House’s attempts to obtain voter data from nearly two-dozen states, almost all of which are run by Democrats.
“The taking of democracy does not occur in one fell swoop; it is chipped away piece-by-piece until there is nothing left,” Carter wrote in his 33-page ruling. “The case before the court is one of these cuts that imperils all Americans. The erosion of privacy and rolling back of voting rights is a decision for open and public debate within the legislative branch, not the executive.”
Carter noted that the Trump administration’s demands, if enforced, would likely violate a plethora of federal and state privacy laws. Furthermore, Carter found that the Justice Department appears to be attempting to leverage civil rights laws to “amass and retain an unprecedented amount of confidential voter data.”
“The Constitution demands such respect, and the executive may not unilaterally usurp the authority over elections it seeks to do so here,” Carter wrote.
In a statement, California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber praised Carter’s decision and the subsequent dismissal.
“As California secretary of state, I am entrusted with ensuring that California’s state election laws are enforced—including state laws that protect the privacy of Californians’ data,” said Weber, who was a named defendant in the lawsuit. “I will continue to uphold my promise to Californians to protect our democracy, and I will continue to challenge this administration’s disregard for the rule of law and our right to vote.”
The New York Times notes that, a day before Carter issued his ruling, another federal court upheld California’s recently-approved congressional maps. The new maps are heavily gerrymandered to favor Democratic candidates and were developed in response to President Donald Trump’s command that conservative states redraw battleground districts to favor the Republican Party. While the Trump administration argued that California’s maps unlawfully used race as a metric for setting new district boundaries, the court found that they were manipulated to create a mere political advantage—an act that isn’t necessarily illegal under federal law.
“Back-to-back days now of Trump and his Administration losing to California,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in a social media post on Thursday.
Sources
A federal judge dismisses the DOJ’s effort to get voter data from California
Trump Administration Lawsuit Seeking California Voter Data Is Dismissed
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