Trump Secures Another Temporary Win In Tax Return War | How The Courts And SCOTUS Are Shaping The Election Already
September 2, 2020
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
|Yesterday, PRESIDENT TRUMP secured another round of victory in his ongoing effort to shield his tax returns from the Manhattan district attorney’s office. In a brief order, a federal appeals court in New York said Tuesday that it would temporarily block a grand jury subpoena for Trump’s financials while it considers the president’s arguments that the request was “wildly overbroad.” This outcome all but ensures that the district attorney’s office won’t receive the tax returns for at least another month, and perhaps longer if SCOTUS is asked to intervene.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE SHADOWS
|In the Economist, Steven Mazie explains how the Supreme Court could tip the presidential election, and he notes that the justices have “already been shaping the race through small decisions on voting rules, reached without a hearing and often with little written explanation.” Mazie reviews the litigation over voting that’s already been moving along — and at a record pace. “The rush of election questions is making its way to America’s highest court in an unfortunate context. They are packaged not as slow-moving petitions on the ordinary docket but as emergency applications on a so-called “shadow docket” where justices hand down edicts with little or no explanation after only partial briefing, no live hearing and quick deliberation.”
SPEAKING OF
|The fight over mail-in voting in Texas was ratcheted up on Monday when the state sued to stop more than 2 million voters around Houston from receiving applications to submit their ballots by mail. The Associated Press reports that Harris County had announced plans to send all registered voters the applications, regardless of whether they qualify to vote by mail — which is generally restricted in Texas to voters who are 65 or older, disabled or will be outside the county on Election Day. The lawsuit filed by Republican Texas Attorney General KEN PAXTON wants to stop the County from sending the applications, but the County says it would be up to the voters who receive them to discern if they’re eligible to cast a mail ballot.