A federal judge in Massachusetts lifted restrictions preventing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from implementing President Donald Trump’s anti-mail voting executive order. The decision allows the administration to continue work on the order for now as a legal battle over its constitutionality looms.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani’s decision to lift her own blockade Wednesday came two days after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated her other injunction against the order in a separate lawsuit.
In explaining her decision, Talwani noted that the Supreme Court’s procedural reasoning in the other case — that she was too quick to issue an injunction before Trump’s order was actually implemented — also applied in this case.
“The Supreme Court found that this court erred in [the other case] by ‘speculat[ing]’ that the USPS would (1) propose a rule; (2) weigh the comments; and (3) issue a final rule consistent with the EO’s directives, and admonished that ‘[f]ederal courts review final rules, not proposed rules––and certainly not antecedent internal directives to propose a rule,’” Talwani wrote. “The court finds it likely that the Supreme Court would apply the same reasoning here.”
While she removed her injunction, Talwani took veiled swipes at the conservative majority’s logic in the other case, State of California v. Trump.
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