So, That Happened…

 First, calm down. The Supreme Court opinion is bad, for reasons the dissent lays out. I will warn you, it’s a legal argument, which means it’s technical. Two of the primary points are statutory interpretation, and equitable relief. You really don’t want me to give you a tutorial on those subjects, do you? Suffice to say I think Professor Vladeck got it exactly right:

This is a bad ruling for all of the reasons Justice Jackson’s dissent make clear. But as both the majority and dissent point out, it’s not likely to have major effects *this* cycle because we’re inside the 90-day NVRA purge window.

So, bad ruling, but what else do you expect? The majority doing the government’s bidding? What else is new? But this one can be corrected by Congress. As I said, it’s statutory interpretation, not a constitutional one. The Congress can more easily change the statute; and should. 

As the dissent points out:

Since 2005, States have used a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) database called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) to ensure that registered voters are American citizens. For most of its life, SAVE consisted almost entirely of immigration records from DHS. In 2025, however, DHS and the Social Security Administration (SSA) decided to connect SSA’s database of master files, including all its sensitive information, to SAVE. A group of organizations sued, arguing that the modifications to SAVE violated various federal privacy laws, and that the staleness of SSA’s citizenship records risked disenfranchising recently naturalized U. S. citizens. After months of litigation, the District Court agreed and vacated the modifications.

There’s a shadow docket critique there; a sting in the tail. It’s in the last sentence: the trial court went through months of litigation. The Sinister Six issued a per curiam order without arguments or briefs. The order stands until the case rises back on regular appeal. In, you know, a couple of years.

As Jackson says, this is not how the Court is supposed to work. But aside from that, DHS had the SAVE database for 20 years; until Trump decided to “weaponize” it and fuck it up. Reason enough to support the trial court ruling; but that’s an extrajudicial matter in this context. The issue here is that statutory interpretation depends on the statute. And Congress can change the statute to tell the Supremes that they got it wrong. Especially when Trump has fucked it up this badly.

I have serious questions about the authority of the Feds to oversee voter rolls.  I understand the value of a database for the states; but this database has proved wholly unreliable. The real issue is: how much authority does Trump try to exert over state election laws? He can’t do it except by going through the courts, and even the Sinister Six aren’t going to give Trump authority the law and the Constitution don’t give him. Not over elections, anyway. They didn’t do it in 2020, after all.

So the real harm of the decision is ultimately to the Supreme Court. Which is a serious problem. Just not the one anyone is looking at; although they should be.