A federal judge has heard from voting rights groups and a coalition of two dozen states that want the courts to halt President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot, The plaintiffs argued in two lawsuits that Trump's order should be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. The government argued the cases should be dismissed, arguing it was premature to worry about harm when the voter list had not yet been created. Trump's order is aimed at ensuring that only citizens vote, but instances of noncitizens casting ballots are extremely rare.
Two advocacy groups have asked a judge to unseal court records and preserve public access to hearings in the class action lawsuit against the federal Bureau of Prisons over the sexual abuse of incarcerated women at a now-shuttered California prison. The bureau announced suddenly on April 15 that it would close FCI Dublin and transfer about 600 women despite attempts to reform the facility after an Associated Press investigation exposed rampant staff-on-inmate assaults. The legal nonprofit Public Justice and the ACLU of Northern California on Wednesday jointly filed a motion for increased transparency in the case, which is set for trial next June. The prisons bureau didn't immediately comment.
