President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo/Alex Brandon).
The Trump administration suffered a significant appellate loss in a case over an eleventh-hour request to throw out or set aside vote-by-mail ballots that may be cast by some 20,000 people in California.
In the case, the U.S. Department of Justice said it provided Los Angeles elections officials with a list of people the government refers to as "likely noncitizens," many of whom live in Los Angeles County. Local officials declined the federal push to have those names removed from voting rolls and, two days later, the DOJ sued, alleging the state was "knowingly" facilitating "unlawful voting."
The Trump administration, sensing some urgency — Golden State counties began mailing ballots weeks ago and many have already been returned — was not content with the regular course of action as Election Day crept closer. Days after the lawsuit was filed, the government asked U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, a Bill Clinton appointee, to rule on an emergency request "by noon" on Oct. 22.
But the judge ignored that unilateral timeline, so the DOJ complained about a "constructive denial" and a quick appeal was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit over the weekend.
Working expeditiously, a 9th Circuit panel ruled against the Trump administration on Monday, citing the government's own impatience.
"[T]he United States failed to allow the district court adequate opportunity to consider its application for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO)," the order reads. "For that reason, we lack jurisdiction over this appeal. So we grant the County's motion to dismiss this appeal and deny as moot the United States's emergency motion."
The appeals court also explains how California authorities and the DOJ were initially engaged with one another on the potential of registered noncitizens "months ago." In July, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contacted local officials about the issue. In turn, those local officials asked DHS to provide "a more detailed description of the methodology" the government used "among other indicia of veracity," the court's order explains.
Los Angeles got radio silence in response.
On Oct. 13, nearly two weeks after ballots were sent to every registered California voter, DHS contacted local officials with the list of "likely" noncitizens. Two days later, the lawsuit was filed.
The court goes on to recount the slapdash pace of the litigation as a lead-in to what it views as the equally messy government appeal.
"[T]he United States went straight to the merits, and barely addressed our jurisdiction, making a conclusory assertion that because the district court 'failed to rule' on its TRO, the court constructively denied it," the order recalls. "In fact, the word 'jurisdiction' does not even appear in the United States's emergency motion."
California, in its motion to dismiss, did address jurisdiction, claiming the government had none but had, rather, "manufactured an emergency to prematurely reach" the appellate court.
In response, the DOJ formally addressed jurisdiction, relying on a case in which a district court's inaction for "14 hours and 28 minutes" was deemed long enough to invoke appellate jurisdiction.
Here, however, the DOJ gave the district judge only "three business hours" before asking the appellate court to intervene — while waiting a total of 15 hours from one filing to the next, the court notes.
The 9th Circuit says the focus on the time obscures the real issue.
"[The case cited by the government] does not stand for the proposition that litigants may appeal a request for an injunction whenever the district court fails to rule within fifteen hours of filing," the order goes on. "Rather, that case dealt with an 'imminent threat of severe, irreparable harm'—detainees were in the process of being loaded on buses and taken to the airport to be irretrievably deported beyond the United States's jurisdiction—and the detainees twice urgently attempted to obtain a TRO during deportation proceedings."
To hear the 9th Circuit tell it, the present case "is meaningfully distinct" from the government's cited case.
"[A]ny delay in the availability of judicial relief is, at least in part, the product of the United States's own decisions," the order continues.
The appellate court returns to the locus of the dispute, noting that DHS had the same concerns back in July.
The panel then again rehashes the record, noting that the government repeatedly asked for relief by Election Day — only "abruptly" recognizing the disconnect in its second filing on the night of Oct. 21.
"The United States's claimed emergency, at least in part, is a self-constructed one," the order summarizes. "[T]he delay here is attributable to the United States's own delay in filing suit, in realizing that existing California state law governs the issuance and processing of ballots, in recognizing that California has millions of registered voters and processes ballots on a schedule aligned with that scale, and in communicating to the court its desired relief."