Brett Kavanaugh in 2016, from Wikimedia Commons
President Donald Trump is trying to make it harder for Americans to vote, yet a judge he appointed — Justice Brett Kavanaugh — just denied an attempt by MAGA voters in a key swing state as that voter attempts to put a referendum on the ballot requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship.
"Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Thursday refused to order Michigan officials to put a measure on the November ballot over whether to require proof of citizenship to vote in the state," MS NOW's Jordan Rubin reported on Thursday. "A group behind the measure sought an emergency order from the Supreme Court ahead of a Friday deadline. Americans for Citizen Voting | Michigan’s urgent application went to Kavanaugh because he is the justice assigned to field emergency requests from the Michigan region. When justices receive such applications, they can decide the matters themselves or refer them to their colleagues for a full court decision."
He added, "The Trump appointee denied it himself on Thursday. As typical for such orders, the denial was unexplained."
In the filing by the Michigan MAGA voters, they argued that "because the public interest in direct democracy is not abstract — decades of empirical research confirm that the initiative process functions as a meaningful, majoritarian check on unresponsive government — the balance of harms and the public interest favor an injunction preserving, rather than foreclosing, the voters' opportunity to decide this measure for themselves."
Kavanaugh, despite seeming to side with voters' interests in this case, has generally sided with Trump as he attempts to sow chaos and distrust in American elections, as well as possibly rig the midterms for himself. Most notably, he sided with Trump indirectly by allowing his attempts to restrict mail-in voting to go forward despite lower courts pointing out that the provisions blatantly violate the Constitution's requirement that the states alone monitor elections.
"[Judge Indira] Talwani previously blocked an executive order that President Donald Trump issued in March, which ordered the US Postal Service (USPS) to impose a byzantine array of new regulations on voting by mail, but the Supreme Court reinstated the order on Monday," reported Vox's Ian Millhiser at the time.
Millhiser added, "Talwani’s new order sets up a new legal fight that is almost certain to return to the justices, and it is unclear whether this Court, with its 6-3 Republican majority, will allow Trump to make sweeping and unilateral changes to how the United States conducts its elections so close to an actual Election Day. That said, while Talwani’s new order in League of Women Voters v. Trump is brief, it is well-crafted to persuade at least some members of the Court’s Republican majority to break with the leader of their political party."