By Steve Crane | Editor-in-chief
“This executive order was a blatant power grab designed to silence voters and undermine our elections, but it failed because the people and the law were on our side. Our Constitution is clear: states run our elections, and voters choose their leaders—not the other way around. No administration can strip the people of their power.” - Virginia Kase Solomón, the president and CEO of Common Cause, after the Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s plan to impose nationwide restrictions on mail-in voting before the Nov. 3 election.
The U.S. Supreme Court blocked a Trump administration effort to impose new restrictions on mail-in balloting, and a new state commission looks to make licensing boards more responsive. Happy Tuesday.
After first saying an executive order by President Donald Trump that would have imposed strict new requirements on mail-in ballots could proceed, the Supreme Court halted the order Monday, saying the government was unlikely to win that fight. The ruling comes as a relief to state election officials who predicted chaos if the rules were imposed this close to Election Day, with some ballots already mailed out. Jacob Fischler has that story.
As part of a larger effort to address audits that keep coming up with the same problems, lawmakers this year created a new commission aimed at improving the responsiveness and performance of the state’s healthcare licensing boards. The commission met for two hours Monday to talk about information technology challenges, as Danielle J. Brown reports.
Those stories, plus news that the White House wants to lift restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, and other headlines are below for your Tuesday. Enjoy!
The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
By Jacob Fischler
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday kept in place a lower court’s order blocking President Donald Trump’s embattled plan to place new restrictions on mail ballots for this year’s midterm elections.
The unsigned, one-paragraph order upheld a Massachusetts federal court’s injunction on a U.S. Postal Service rule until after Nov. 3 and did not decide whether the rule itself was lawful. But a majority of the court said the Democratic state officials and voting rights groups challenging the rule were likely to succeed.
Two of the court’s stalwart conservatives, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented from the decision. Alito wrote that the Postal Service has “broad authority to regulate the mail” and that at this preliminary stage of the suit challenging the rule, its policy should remain in place. In a brief concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the rule, which codifies technical requirements on the envelopes carrying ballots and requires states to collect and send to the federal government lists of eligible voters, may be legal, but was unworkable for the midterm elections 50 days away.
The rule’s challengers argued, in part, that the regulations would be impossible to install ahead of Election Day. Democrats and voting rights advocates also argued the rule was an unconstitutional intrusion on states’ rights that would have created chaos this close to the election.
Del. Anne R. Kaiser is co-chair of a new commission tasked with helping health occupations boards overcome administrative challenges. A Senate co-chair has yet to be named. (Photo by Danielle E. Gaines/Maryland Matters)
By Danielle J. Brown
When Marylanders go to the doctor or see a nurse, they expect the professionals treating them have been properly vetted by state officials, and their facilities meet health and safety standards.
But after state audits reported inadequate response times by some licensing boards to complaints about licensees, and other boards that were behind on annual inspections of healthcare facilities, lawmakers responded with a new commission to iron out the challenges contributing to those oversight issues.
After an organizational meeting this summer, and a second where board directors laid out the issues they are facing, the Maryland Health Centralization Commission met virtually Monday to discuss the first of those issues, information technology challenges. Later meetings will include the issue of funding for occupational licensing boards and stagnant fee increases for licensing. The commission has until Dec. 1 to report on ways to improve "efficiency, transparency and accountability" of the occupational licensing boards, a report that will be required annually thereafter.
IN OTHER NEWS
Public charge challenge: Maryland signed on to one of two lawsuits filed by states, cities and counties challenging new federal rules that the use of safety net resources by immigrants count against them for green cards and other ways to stay in or enter the U.S.
Greenhouse gas greenlight: The Environmental Protection Agency will revoke Biden-era limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that run on coal and natural gas, according to regulatory documents EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin signed Monday.
Rush to recess: Congress returns briefly this week, then heads back to the campaign trail until mid-November, with the House in for a week and the Senate for three, giving the GOP little time to act before voters decide whether they get two more years in power.
Shifting immigration rules: Advocates fear new rules taking effect this week, allowing immigrants’ enrollment for food or housing benefits to be used against their immigration status applications, could cause mixed-status families to forgo benefits for citizen children.
MATTERS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED
Belt-tightening for budget: State agencies are being asked to include reductions of roughly 3% in their fiscal 2028 requests, with two dozen agencies told to outline reductions up to 10%, as the state braces for a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall.
Reparations anticipation: To Del. Aletheia McCaskill “this moment still doesn't feel real.” She means the pending launch of a Reparations Commission, years after it was first proposed and 17 months after it was passed, vetoed by the governor and then overridden.
A watchful new world: Twenty-five years after 9/11, the surveillance infrastructure built and expanded in its aftermath has become part of a far larger digital ecosystem — producing tools that can collect and analyze information on a scale unimaginable in 2001.
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