BREAKING: SCOTUS Blocks Trump's Mail-In Ballot BS

Leah Litman (0:00)

Strict Scrutiny is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It's back to school season. And this year, five million children across Texas are going to be greeted by the Ten Commandments in their classrooms. Texas politicians passed a law requiring the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom, forcing their religion on every kid in those schools. 28 families in Texas supported by Americans United for Separation of Church and State are taking the fight to the Supreme Court.

We need you to amplify their voices before the Supreme Court gets its hands on this case.

We've already talked about on the podcast how the Fifth Circuit decision allowing this practice was total BS. I mean, it had to liken the Ten Commandments to basically like a poster, almost suggesting, oh, what, you triggered libs? But the reality is, there's a human cost of Christian nationalist policies like these Ten Commandments laws, as well as the decisions the Supreme Court hands down. Public schools are supposed to be accessible to all. They're not supposed to be instructing on the state's preferred religion or the state's edited version of scripture. Visit au.org/tenc to learn more about this case and how you can help join the fight to protect church-state separation.

SPEAKER_2 (1:14)

Mr. Chief Justice, please report. It's an old joke, but when a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they're going to have the last word.

SPEAKER_3 (1:27)

She spoke, not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity. She said, I ask no favor for my sex.

All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.

Leah Litman (1:57)

Hi, y'all, it is the ladies of Strict Scrutiny coming to you with a quick morning after analysis of the Supreme Court's decision to block the Trump administration's postal service regulation announcing that the postal service did not want to deliver mail-in ballots unless states adopted a bunch of last-minute, unnecessary, very burdensome, and likely impossible to meet policies governing mail-in ballots.

Kate Shaw (2:17)

Okay, so the top line, most important thing to know in terms of the upcoming critical midterm elections is this.

It is now crystal clear that under the law, the Trump administration cannot interfere with absentee voting via the postal service. That means if your state allows you to vote by mail, you will be able to do so consistent with your state's rules regardless of the Trump administration's diabolical efforts to the contrary.

Melissa Murray (2:42)

The Supreme Court told the administration that it cannot use the postal service to steal or rig an election by throwing out thousands of ballots and disenfranchising people. I'm just going to say, right answer took a long time to get there. Specifically, the court declined to issue a stay, which is a pause of the lower courts ruling that had invalidated the postal services regulation.

Leah Litman (3:04)

We're going to spend a little bit of time analyzing what the court did, which is going to involve a fair bit of mocking Brett Kavanaugh, the most pathetic and needy Pick Me Justice who may have ever lived, and then Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas who took their adult pickled Fox News consuming right-wing Manosphere podcast, Listening Brains, to new lows. In addition to all of that, just wanted to emphasize, do not congratulate, do not give the Supreme Court credit for telling Donald Trump that he doesn't have the power to rig an election in the sloppiest, most chaotic, wildly illegal, last-minute-dash way possible.

Melissa Murray (3:42)

Shorter, Leah, do not give the Supreme Court credit for finally deciding to crack open their copies of the Constitution and read the elections clause. Okay.

Just to remind you all, the other reason you ought not congratulate the Supreme Court is because this is the same court that just a few months ago killed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and cleared the way for a little unprecedented, completely unorthodox, mid-cycling redistricting where Republicans are authorized and indeed encouraged to cheat democracy and erase the political power of Democratic voters and Black voters in particular. This is the same court that just a few weeks ago opted not to block the underlying executive order, the same one that announced Donald Trump's plans to try and interfere with this election including using the US Postal Service to do so.

Kate Shaw (4:30)

And then just strung us along for these valuable days as the election drew ever near, as we all wondered, are we really going to have an election that works in any meaningful way or not? And luckily, the answer for now is yes, we will. But the court is again crowning itself the ultimate decider of that critical Democratic question. And just to elaborate on what Melissa was just saying, it is because of the earlier Supreme Court decision that the only thing that is blocked right now is the Postal Service Regulation announcing plans to decline to deliver batches of ballots.