President Joe Biden lacks the authority to mandate federal agencies to conduct a voter registration campaign aided by leftist third-party groups, contend members of Congress and top state election officials who have filed in support of a lawsuit aiming to halt “Bidenbucks.”
Eleven Republican U.S. House Representatives and nine state secretaries of state have submitted amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that Biden’s Executive Order 14019 is unconstitutional for multiple reasons.
“Allowing the executive branch and its political appointees to operate a ‘get out the vote’ program on a national scale, using federal authority and funding, risks turning the White House into a partisan political campaign headquarters,” asserts the court filing from the House members, including seven representatives from Pennsylvania.
‘No Such Authority is Granted’
The high court is considering an appeal from 27 Pennsylvania state lawmakers who earlier this year filed a federal complaint alleging the order “nullifies the votes of individual legislators, nullifies the enactment of the Legislature, violates the Electors Clause, violates the Elections Clause, deprives the legislators of their particular rights, and jeopardizes candidates’ rights to an election free from fraud and abuse.”
The amicus filings from the House members and the top election officials in Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming echo these charges.
“The President’s use of executive action to turn federal agencies into get-out-the-vote operations is prohibited by the United States Constitution,” states the secretaries’ brief. “The Elections Clause of the Constitution empowers the states to regulate elections subject to Congress’s pre-emption power. No such authority is granted to the executive branch.”
They argue that Biden’s order violates Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act, which “requires that States offer voter registration opportunities at certain State and local offices, including public assistance and disability offices.”
“The states, not the executive branch of the federal government, determine what offices should designate as a Section 7 voter registration agency,” states the court filing. “Under no circumstances have those state legislatures voluntarily agreed to designate a federal office as a voter registration agency.”
‘Dangerous Precedent’
The secretaries argue that the executive order has empowered federal agencies to do what Congress or the U.S. Constitution has not authorized them to do. For instance, under Biden’s directive, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Field Policy and Management has “connected with local election officers and placed voter registration materials in all ten HUD Regional offices across the country,” according to the brief. The Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service has “issued letters to state SNAP and WIC [Women, Infants and Children] agencies to encourage the promotion of President Biden’s voter registration drive.”
Critics of the federalized GOTV effort call it “Bidenbucks,” similar to Zuckbucks, referring to the hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave to local election offices during the 2020 election. Biden maintains that his order is about promoting the “exercise of the right to vote” and eliminating “discrimination and other barriers to voting.” These lofty-sounding goals, however, seem lost in the implementation, which appears designed to target traditionally Democrat voters with assistance from White House-“approved” leftist groups. Longtime Obama-Biden adviser Susan Rice was in charge of the initiative before stepping down last year.
In March, Judge Jennifer P. Wilson of the Middle District of Pennsylvania granted the Biden administration’s motions to dismiss the Pennsylvania lawsuit due to the “Plaintiffs’ lack of standing to raise the claims at issue.” The Keystone State legislators then appealed to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals but requested it be taken directly to the Supreme Court as November’s presidential election approaches. Attorneys for the plaintiffs are asking SCOTUS to decide the critical — and conflicting — question of whether individual lawmakers have the right to take up such constitutional issues in federal court. If the Supreme Court answers affirmatively, the case would return to the lower court to decide the merits.
But the amicus briefs filed this week contend that the Supreme Court should also decide the merits.
“In the interest of preventing a dangerous precedent and for expedience with the 2024 election cycle underway, this Court is poised to exercise its discretion, rule on the underlying merits, and set aside Executive Order 14019 by finding it unconstitutional and enjoining any efforts to enforce said Order,” argues the court filing from the state secretaries.
