A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Friday halted key sections of President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order purporting to unilaterally change the rules regarding how federal elections are run, finding that the plaintiffs in the case were “substantially likely to prevail” on the merits.

In a 120-page order, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued a preliminary injunction blocking the president’s measure that would require amending the national voter registration form to require proof of U.S. citizenship as well as a provision ordering federal agencies to “assess the citizenship” of individuals who receive public assistance before they are provided a voter registration form.

Kollar-Kotelly, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, wrote that allowing those measures to be implemented would cause “irreparable harm” to the plaintiffs and “would not be in the public interest.”

“Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States — not the President — with the authority to regulate federal elections,” the order states. “Consistent with that allocation of power, Congress is currently debating legislation that would effect many of the changes the President purports to order. And no statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.”

The court noted that the legislation in Congress is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility [SAVE] Act, a Republican-backed measure critics have said could potentially disenfranchise millions of eligible voters. Many provisions of the SAVE Act are encompassed by Trump’s executive order.

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3. Ex-Wisconsin justice who led election review…

Ethics

Ex-Wisconsin justice who led election review should be compelled to sit for deposition in ethics case, motion says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 6, 2025, 10:00 am CST

A former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice should be compelled to sit for a deposition before a disciplinary review board, a lawyer for the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation argued in a Feb. 28 motion.

The motion asks the Wisconsin Supreme Court to require Justice Michael J. Gableman’s appearance March 20 and 21 and to state that a failure to appear will result in his admission to the facts in a disciplinary complaint. Filed in November 2024, the complaint alleges ethical misconduct in Gableman’s investigation of the 2020 election for the Wisconsin State Assembly.

The motion to compel was filed after Gableman said through his attorney he would not show up for a scheduled February deposition “after much consideration, including Fifth Amendment concerns.”

WisPolitics.com and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covered the motion to compel.

Gableman was initially hired by Republican Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to help a legislative committee gather facts about how recent elections were conducted in Wisconsin and to suggest possible legislative changes. Gableman’s duties were later expanded, and he was named a special counsel. He was fired in August 2022.

Gableman included in an appendix to his legislative report his legal opinion that the state could decertify the results of Wisconsin’s 2020 general election in which former President Joe Biden was declared the winner.

Gableman’s election review did not find significant fraud, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“Taxpayers paid more than $2.3 million for the investigation,” the newspaper reports, “which yielded a steady drumbeat of explosive court hearings and rulings in lawsuits over his desire to jail election officials and mayors who refused to be interviewed behind closed doors, and his decision to ignore requests from the public for records related to his probe.”

Besides serving as a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, Gableman was a former prosecutor, a circuit court judge and an adjunct law professor teaching professional responsibility. Before agreeing to represent the committee, he worked in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for the first Trump administration.

He had “by his own admission, no understanding of how Wisconsin elections worked,” the ethics complaint says.

Part of the ethics complaint concerns Gableman’s quest for information from the cities of Madison, Wisconsin, and Green Bay, Wisconsin, and their mayors. After issuing subpoenas to the mayors, Gableman negotiated agreements that made their appearances unnecessary, the complaint says.

Yet Gableman allegedly failed to tell the legislative committee about the agreements or about his receipt of thousands of pages of documents from the cities. He also falsely said he issued writs of attachment against the mayors because they “failed without reason or excuse to appear for their depositions,” the ethics complaint alleges.

Gableman is also accused of including false statements in the petitions for writs of attachment when he claimed that the two mayors had failed to appear for a deposition “without justification.”

Another part of the complaint alleges that Gableman made improper comments during and after a court hearing on a public interest group’s public-records request. Gableman was called to testify.

Gableman allegedly criticized Judge Frank Remington of Dane County, Wisconsin, who was presiding, instead of responding to questions. He claimed that Remington “has abandoned his role as a neutral magistrate” and later said, “You want to put me in jail, Judge Remington? I’m not gonna be railroaded.”

In a later June 2022 decision and order, Remington said Gableman made his accusations in a “sneering” fashion, raised his voice and pointed and shook his finger at the judge.

During a hearing recess, when the microphone was still live, Gableman allegedly made remarks that “demeaned and belittled opposing counsel by making allegations of improper collusion with the court and by portraying her as an incompetent lawyer whose only role was to aid Judge Remington in his bias,” the ethics complaint says.

After the hearing, in remarks to the press, Gableman again alleged that Remington had abandoned his neutral role.

“The deck was stacked,” he told reporters.

Another allegation in the complaint is that Gableman wrongly revealed information about his representation of the state Assembly committee as a guest on video broadcasts organized by Mike Lindell, the founder and CEO of MyPillow and a supporter of President Donald Trump.

Gableman said he supported an effort to recall Vos, that Vos did not want a serious investigation, and that Vos was a “serial liar who is interested only in his personal monetary financial gain.”

To support his allegation that Vos didn’t want a serious investigation, Gableman described discussions with Vos and staff members, revealing information related to the representation, the ethics complaint says.

The motion to compel says Gableman has a right to refuse to answer deposition questions when he has reasonable cause to think that his answers could expose him to criminal liability, but he does not have the right not to appear for the deposition.

Gableman is represented by lawyer Peyton B. Engel, who did not immediately reply to the ABA Journal’s request for comment via email and voicemail.

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3. Who won election to top North Carolina court?…

Election Law

Who won election to top North Carolina court? Case belongs in state court, for now, 4th Circuit says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 5, 2025, 3:03 pm CST

A federal court shouldn’t decide lawsuits over a contested election for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, at least not yet, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Richmond, Virginia, ruled Tuesday.

The 4th Circuit ruled in consolidated appeals stemming from the race between the Democratic incumbent, Justice Allison Riggs, and her Republican challenger, North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin.

Law360, the Associated Press, the New York Times and the News & Observer have coverage, while How Appealing linked to the per curiam, unpublished Feb. 4 opinion.

Riggs leads by 734 votes, but Griffin is questioning the counting of about 66,000 ballots, according to the AP. Griffin wants to throw out ballots in which voters did not prove identity with a driver’s license or partial Social Security number when they registered to vote. He is also seeking to toss overseas ballots, including those cast by voters who didn’t produce a photo ID with their absentee ballots.

Riggs and the North Carolina State Board of Elections wanted two cases filed by Griffin transferred to federal court.

“While Riggs and the State Board of Elections argued that his case implicated national election laws,” the News & Observer reports, “Griffin argued that it should be left to the jurisdiction of North Carolina courts—where Republican judges predominate.”

The New York Times reports that the case has “unsettled election experts and government watchdogs across the country, who say that overturning the election would undermine democracy and provide a blueprint for doing it again in the future.”

Judges on the 4th Circuit panel were Judge Paul V. Niemeyer, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush; Judge Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., an appointee of President Donald Trump; and Judge Toby J. Heytens, an appointee of former President Joe Biden.

One case filed by Griffin asked the North Carolina Supreme Court to stop the elections board from counting challenged ballots. Another asked the superior court in Wake County, North Carolina, to review the elections board’s rulings against him.

The 4th Circuit ruled that Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers II was correct when he refused to assert federal jurisdiction. But Myers, a judge in the Eastern District of North Carolina, should have based his decision on the Pullman doctrine, the 4th Circuit said. That doctrine can be applied when there are unclear issues of state law that once resolved could moot federal constitutional issues.

Under the doctrine, the federal court retains jurisdiction of the federal constitutional claims, while state court issues are addressed in state court.

The 4th Circuit provided an example of how the federal case could become moot. If the elections board prevailed on state law issues, the resolution of federal claims may not be necessary, the appeals court said.

Another section of the opinion addressed Griffin’s writ of prohibition filed with the North Carolina Supreme Court, which dismissed the application Jan. 22. That sent the case back to state court in Wake County.

Because the appeal had asked the 4th Circuit to retrieve the case from the North Carolina Supreme Court, the issue is moot, the 4th Circuit said.

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3. Ethics complaint dropped against Texas AG…

Ethics

Ethics complaint dropped against Texas AG over challenge to 2020 election results

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 28, 2025, 8:54 am CST

The Texas Commission for Lawyer Discipline has dropped an ethics complaint alleging that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton made dishonest statements in December 2020 litigation seeking to overturn 2020 election results in four battleground states.

The commission dropped the complaint after the Texas Supreme Court dismissed a similar ethics complaint filed against Brent Edward Webster, Paxton’s first assistant attorney general, report Law360, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News and Houston Public Media.

The state supreme court ruled in the Webster case that the Texas Constitution’s separation-of-powers doctrine prevents disciplinary authorities from filing an ethics complaint against executive branch attorneys, according to the commission’s motion to dismiss an appeal in the Paxton case.

The complaints stemmed from an original jurisdiction lawsuit challenging 2020 election results filed in the U.S. Supreme Court by Paxton and Webster.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled in the Webster case Dec. 31.

“By second-guessing the contents of initial pleadings filed on behalf of the state of Texas, under the attorney general’s authority, the commission has intruded into terrain that this court’s precedent has described as belonging to the attorney general,” the state supreme court said in the Dec. 31 opinion.

The state supreme court noted that the Supreme Court did not impose discipline on Webster in connection with the election suit and did not refer him or anyone else for discipline.

“Generally, scrutiny of statements made directly to a court within litigation is by the court to whom those statements are made,” the state supreme court said.

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Georgia election workers defamed by Rudy Giuliani are now asking for him to be slapped with “severe sanctions” for allegedly violating several court orders and repeatedly flouting his discovery obligations.

On Thursday, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss filed a 22-page motion asking U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman to hold the former New York City mayor in civil contempt and harshly punish him to enforce compliance with recent court orders.

Those orders were issued by the court on Oct. 28, and Nov. 22. The first order directed the defendant to expediently reply to discovery requests and set deadlines for such replies. After the first deadline was missed, the court set another deadline for Giuliani to explain himself and avoid being held in contempt. Now, that second deadline has whooshed on by and the plaintiffs have lost their patience.

“Mr. Giuliani has not produced a single document in response to Plaintiffs’ discovery orders in this matter notwithstanding multiple orders from this Court requiring him to do so,” the latest motion reads.

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3. RNC election lawyer, a ‘very genial guy,’…

Careers

RNC election lawyer, a ‘very genial guy,’ will be new White House counsel

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 13, 2024, 11:24 am CST

The White House counsel in the new Trump administration is a former BigLaw lawyer who worked as the Republican National Committee’s outside counsel for election integrity in the 2024 presidential campaign.

President-elect Donald Trump announced the appointment of former Jones Day partner William “Bill” McGinley on Tuesday. It will be McGinley’s second White House job. In the prior Trump administration, he was Cabinet secretary until July 2019, working as a primary liaison between the White House and the Cabinet.

Publications with coverage of McGinley’s appointment include Bloomberg Law, Politico, the New York Times, USA Today and CNN.

As White House counsel, Politico reports, McGinley “will likely be among Trump’s closest advisers.” He will provide advice on policy issues, government ethics, congressional oversight and presidential powers. He is also expected to be “the primary conduit” between Trump and the U.S. Department of Justice, the article says.

McGinley has been “a vocal supporter” of Trump, according to the New York Times. He has the backing of some Trump allies who would like to see more aggressive lawyers working for Trump than in the past, the article says.

McGinley is currently a partner at Holtzman Vogel in Washington, D.C., which has a “well-respected stable of political lawyers,” according to CNN. He was a partner at Jones Day for nearly three years and was formerly an associate, of counsel and a partner at the law firm then known as Patton Boggs (now called Squire Patton Boggs), according to his LinkedIn page.

CNN spoke with Jan Baran, a colleague at Holtzman Vogel, who said McGinley is a “very genial guy” who is “not a publicity hound.”

“I really don’t know anyone who dislikes him or has a complaint about him,” Baran said. “I’ve never seen friction in his dealings with other clients or with other lawyers.”

Jessica Furst Johnson, another Holtzman Vogel lawyer, told CNN that McGinley is well-suited for his new White House role because of his “skill set” and his past experience working with Trump.

McGinley “was the attorney I called when I had a precarious situation. He was really good at righting the ship,” Johnson said.

In a statement, Trump described McGinley as “a smart and tenacious lawyer who will help me advance our America First agenda while fighting for election integrity and against the weaponization of law enforcement.”

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3. Meet Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias,…

Election Law

Meet Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias, who wears GOP scorn ‘like a badge of honor’

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 4, 2024, 11:23 am CST

Updated: Even his detractors call Democratic lawyer Marc Elias one of the toughest election lawyers in the country.

“In his three-decade career,” the New York Times reports in a profile, Elias “has arguably done more than any single person outside government to shape the Democratic Party and the rules under which all campaigns and elections in the United States are conducted.”

Supporters celebrate Elias’ many victories, including his fight against efforts to overturn the 2020 election and two significant decisions last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, the New York Times says. This year, Elias “has been in the middle” of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign’s response to dozens of Republican lawsuits challenging voting rules.

“My team of lawyers is better than the GOP’s,” Elias recently bragged, as recounted by the Hill. “And we’re ready to beat them again in 2024.”

Elias was similarly combative when Republicans recently targeted him in an ad campaign highlighting his work to keep third-party candidates off ballots. The campaign portrayed Elias as a hypocrite for trying to eliminate voter choice, according to the New York Times. Elias responded in a social media post.

“Republicans hate me because I stand up to them and fight. I wear their scorn like a badge of honor,” Elias wrote.

Elias grew up suburban New York, according to the New York Times profile. His father was a small-business owner and both parents were “New Deal Democrats,” he once told Roll Call. He has a law degree and a master’s degree in political science from Duke University.

Elias joined Perkins Coie after law school and became leader of its political law practice in 2009. In that role, the New York Times says, he “expanded its team of lawyers, its client roster and its profits while becoming increasingly influential with key Democratic leaders.”

Elias left Perkins Coie and formed the Elias Law Group in 2021 following controversy over his involvement in the hiring of opposition research company Fusion GPS. That company compiled a dossier with “largely debunked” allegations about former President Donald Trump’s Russia connections, the New York Times says. The Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign paid for the research without their knowledge.

Elias took more than 40 Perkins Coie lawyers with him to form his new law firm.

Firm members helped achieve two Supreme Court victories. In one, the Supreme Court struck down a congressional map that diluted Black voting strength in Alabama. In the other, the Supreme Court rejected the “independent state legislature” theory contending that state legislatures have the exclusive power to regulate congressional elections. The high court ruled that state courts have the power to review congressional maps created by state legislatures.

In a controversial move in January, the Elias Law Group asked the Federal Election Commission to allow a political action committee funded by billionaire George Soros to coordinate with Democratic campaigns and party committees in Texas for voter turnout efforts.

The FEC approved the petition. It wasn’t long before the Trump campaign used the opinion to coordinate with groups funded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other wealthy donors, according to the New York Times.

One critic is Tom Moore, a former chief of staff for a Democratic member of the FEC who opposed the petition.

“Opening the money faucets up as wide as they go strikes me as a bad idea for Democrats because Republicans just have a bigger faucet,” Moore told the New York Times.

Elias responded to the New York Times in a statement.

“I am proud of my record in fighting back against Republican voter suppression, election subversion and gerrymandering in court,” he said.

See also:

5th Circuit sanctions Marc Elias and other Perkins Coie lawyers for ‘redundant and misleading’ motion

Perkins Coie hired company that compiled Trump dossier

Updated Nov. 4 at 12:20 p.m. to move information regarding sanctions to a “See also” list.

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3. Courtroom ‘is not a theater’ for unsubstantiated…

Rule of Law

Courtroom ‘is not a theater’ for unsubstantiated election claims, says letter signed by 125 bar leaders

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 5, 2024, 12:42 pm CST

All lawsuits—including election-related actions—must be “grounded in fact, supported by law and free from improper motives,” according to an open letter signed by 125 past and current bar leaders when it was published Monday evening.

“The courtroom is not a theater for unsubstantiated claims,” according to the letter.

Among the bar leaders who signed the letter are four people who identify themselves as former ABA presidents: R. William “Bill” Ide (1994-95), Dennis W. Archer (2003-2004), Laurel G. Bellows (2012-2013) and James R. Silkenat (2013-2014).

Mary Smith, who is the immediate past president of the ABA, also signed the letter but identified herself as a past president of the National Native American Bar Association.

Another former ABA president, Linda Klein, (2016-2017) also signed the letter but identified herself as a past president of the State Bar of Georgia.

Some members of the ABA Task Force for American Democracy organized the letter in their personal capacity.

U.S. News & World Report spoke with Monte E. Frank, a member of the ABA Task Force for American Democracy’s advisory commission. He said the letter is intended to remind lawyers that they are “oath-bound protectors of the Constitution and rule of law.”

“By having state bar and local bar and national bar leaders stand up and lead on this sends a very powerful message to those who are seeking to undermine the integrity of our elections,” said Frank, who signed the letter as a past president of the Connecticut Bar Association and the New England Bar Association.

After the 2020 presidential election, “some 628 legal cases were filed alleging fraud or impropriety, and they were overwhelmingly unsuccessful,” the letter said. Five lawyers connected to the cases were disbarred or suspended from law practice.

The baseless cases stirred confusion and anger, leading to threats against election workers, judges and others and likely contributing to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the letter said.

“Filing election-related lawsuits without a solid factual and legal foundation endangers the very institutions lawyers are oath-bound to defend,” the letter said. “In a functioning democracy, lawsuits are not weapons to spread distrust—they are tools for justice.”

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3. One of 2 prosecutors ousted by DeSantis wins…

Prosecutors

One of 2 prosecutors ousted by DeSantis wins election; how did other progressive prosecutors fare?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 6, 2024, 10:36 am CST

Voters have rejected several progressive prosecutors.

Among high-profile races in Florida and California, the only liberal victor was Monique H. Worrell, who reclaimed her position as the Orange-Osceola state attorney in Florida after being ousted in August 2023 by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, report the Orlando Sentinel and the Florida Phoenix.

“I feel vindicated,” Worrell told the Orlando Sentinel shortly before final results confirmed her win.

DeSantis had said he suspended Worrell partly because of charging decisions that avoided the triggering of mandatory minimum sentences and sentencing enhancements.

Another prosecutor ousted by DeSantis, Andrew Warren, lost to Republican Suzy Lopez in Hillsborough County. DeSantis suspended Warren in August 2022, citing “woke” positions on abortion and transgender medical care.

In California, progressive Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón lost a reelection bid to Nathan Hochman, report the Associated Press and NBC News.

“The voters of Los Angeles County have spoken and have said enough is enough of DA Gascón’s pro-criminal extreme policies,” Hochman said in a statement.

In Oakland, California, voters recalled another progressive prosecutor, Pamela Price, according to the Alameda County, California, election website and results posted by ABC 7 News.

Losses by Gascón and Price follow the recall of progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin in June 2022.

The three prosecutors had “offered new approaches to the criminal justice system, ones promising a greater focus on pursuing police wrongdoing and less emphasis on prison sentence enhancements,” Law.com reports. Public sentiment apparently changed after an increase in violent crime in California.

In keeping with the more conservative trend, California voters approved Proposition 36, which increased penalties for fentanyl and other drug charges, KABC reports. The measure also creates a new crime category in which drug defendants could receive treatment instead of prison. It also creates heightened penalties for shoplifting and theft, the Hill reports.

Another high-profile Democratic prosecutor, Fani Willis of Fulton County, Georgia, won reelection Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. Willis is the prosecutor who indicted then-former President Donald Trump in August 2023 for an alleged racketeering conspiracy intended to overturn the 2020 election results.

“While Willis is a Democrat,” the Associated Press reports, “she doesn’t fit into the group of progressive prosecutors elected in jurisdictions across the country in recent years. Some critics on the left believe she’s overzealous in her use of the state’s anti-racketeering and anti-gang laws, unnecessarily complicating cases to get the enhanced penalties attached to those statutes.”

See also:

Progressive prosecutors are encountering pushback

Politics are at play in states seeking to rein in ‘progressive’ prosecutors

An election staffer in Colorado claims in a new lawsuit that the City and County of Denver booted her from a supervisor position for allegedly talking about poll worker safety on Apple TV+’s “The Problem with Jon Stewart” show — and now she’s suing.

Virginia Chau, a Voter Service and Polling Centers supervisor fired in 2022, alleges in a civil rights lawsuit filed on Monday that Denver officials axed her shortly after her Season 2, Episode 4 appearance. She claims the city didn’t appreciate her talking about the “increasing hostility from voters” being shown at the time toward “all election judges, particularly after former President Trump was spreading the Big Lie” about the 2020 presidential election being stolen from him, Chau’s lawsuit said.