By Bill Lucia | Editor
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld a lower court order blocking President Donald Trump’s plan to impose new restrictions on mail ballots for this year’s midterm elections. The unsigned, one-paragraph order did not decide whether the U.S. Postal Service rule at the center of the dispute is lawful. But a majority of justices said Democratic officials and voting rights groups challenging the rule were likely to succeed. Opponents of the rule argued it was illegal and unconstitutional because the executive branch of the federal government has virtually no role in election administration.
Also in today’s edition…
Trump nominates former state attorney general candidate Pete Serrano to be the next U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington.
And, Washington and other states sue over tightened green card rules.
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The U.S. Supreme Court. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
By Jacob Fischler
Washington officials celebrated Monday’s Supreme Court ruling. “Today’s decision reaffirms what we already know: the USPS rule would create unnecessary disruption and put our voters at risk,” said Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat.
“Washington’s election workers are already hard at work preparing to carry out a safe, secure, and accurate election. Now, that work continues without having to upend our election processes to meet unrealistic ballot mail requirements,” Hobbs added.
Washington was one of the states to file this latest lawsuit to prevent the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict mail-in voting. Attorney General Nick Brown, also a Democrat, called the ruling a “huge win for orderly elections this November.”
Two of the court’s conservatives, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented. 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.
The rule sets new requirements for envelopes carrying ballots and requires states to collect and send to the federal government lists of eligible voters.
Pete Serrano, who leads the federal prosecutor's office in eastern Washington, was nominated Monday to be U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington. Serrano, a Republican, lost a 2024 bid to be Washington’s attorney general. He’s seen here at a debate that year in Spokane. (Photo by Bill Lucia/Washington State Standard)
By Jerry Cornfield
Serrano currently leads the federal prosecutor’s office in eastern Washington in his dual roles of first assistant U.S. attorney and special attorney to Attorney General Todd Blanche. His appointment is the latest development in a turbulent chapter for judicial nominees in the state.
Serrano served about four months in 2025 as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington. That appointment expired in December when Trump failed to formally nominate him for the job in the face of staunch opposition from Washington’s two Democratic U.S. senators.
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said in a statement yesterday that she will “be using every tool I have to block” Serrano’s nomination to the western Washington job. Serrano ran unsuccessfully to be state attorney general in 2024.
By Nada Hassanein
States, cities and counties filed a pair of lawsuits Monday against new federal rules that will allow immigrants’ use of safety net resources to be taken into account for green cards and other applications to stay in or enter the country. The new federal policy goes into effect Friday. Washington, Seattle, and King County are among the states and localities challenging the rule. The federal policy would broaden the discretion of immigration officers to consider enrollment in benefits, such as housing and food assistance, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, as a “public charge.” When officers determine a person could become dependent on government benefits, that public charge can be grounds for inadmissibility.
ICYMI
WA’s longest-serving state House member at risk of ouster | by Jake Goldstein-Street
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