Why timing matters in the mail-in voting dispute

The Supreme Court’s collection of art and objects associated with the justices includes a top hat worn by Justice Felix Frankfurter. The hat was made by the same company that “later crafted the wide-brimmed hat worn by Indiana Jones in the 1981 film, Raiders of the Lost Ark ,” according to the court’s website. Last week, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on its emergency docket to clear the way for the implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail-in voting. Twelve states – led by Alabama – later echoed this request in their own application . On Monday, the group of 23 states and the District of Columbia challenging the order urged the court to leave in place a lower-court decision preventing its full implementation. Also on Monday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor denied a request from the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority asking the court to pause a $655.5 million judgment against them while they prepare an appeal. The judgment came in a case brought against Palestinian authorities by American victims of attacks in Israel. In election-related cases over the past two decades, the Supreme Court has repeatedly returned to the “Purcell principle,” which “warns federal courts against making last-minute changes to voting rules.” That principle looms over the emergency docket dispute on President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail-in voting, according to CNN , because the Trump administration and the states that challenged the order are clashing over the timing of the states’ lawsuit. “Trump’s central argument is that the states and groups who are challenging his order sued too soon. If the Supreme Court agrees with Trump, then the states will have to wait to revive their litigation. And that will necessarily push the cases closer to the November election, allowing the administration to raise Purcell to bar courts from weighing in.” Lisa Lerer and Beth Reinhard, The New York Times “Of the more than 10,000 votes cast by Senator Susan Collins of Maine, there is one that has shadowed her like no other as she runs for a sixth term,” according to The New York Times . Maine voters continue to question why “Collins, one of only two Senate Republicans who support abortion rights, cast a deciding vote to confirm Brett M. Kavanaugh” in 2018. “Four years later, Justice Kavanaugh voted with the conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade.” While on the campaign trail this year, the first time she’s run for reelection since that 2022 ruling, Collins has repeatedly said that she doesn’t regret supporting Kavanaugh. “But people who interacted with her during the Kavanaugh hearings say Ms. Collins still harbors frustrations about the continued backlash after a confirmation process she described in 2018 as ‘more like a caricature of a gutter-level political campaign.’” Dietrich Knauth, Reuters On Monday, 25 states led by Democrats filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade against the Trump administration, “arguing that the president’s latest round of tariffs on goods from 60 trading partners, like most of his earlier sweeping tariffs, exceeds his legal authority to tax imports,” according to Reuters . The new tariffs were imposed on July 24 as part of the Trump administration’s effort to rebuild the tariff regime struck down by the Supreme Court in February. They were “imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which is meant to combat unfair or discriminatory economic practices by other nations.” In their new lawsuit, the states contend “that Section 301 tariffs have historically been targeted to address specific nations and industries, and Trump’s broad-brush approach has no historical precedent.” Reason spoke with Ori Zohar, co-founder of Burlap & Barrel, “a single-source spice importer and retailer,” about his company’s effort to block President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Burlap & Barrel is “a lead plaintiff” in a challenge to temporary tariffs imposed after the