California to sue Trump administration again over mail-in voting restrictions

Naomi Taxay, The Sacramento Bee on Aug 24, 2026

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday that California intends to sue the Trump administration again over President Donald Trump’s efforts to impose new restrictions on mail-in voting ahead of the November midterms.

The announcement came after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the administration to move forward with key parts of Trump’s March executive order on elections, pausing a lower court ruling that California and other states had previously won. Trump’s order called for the federal government to create state-by-state citizenship lists and for the U.S. Postal Service to impose new requirements on mail-in ballots.

The Supreme Court did not rule on whether Trump’s order is legal. Instead, the decision allows the administration to continue pursuing the order while leaving the door open for California and other states to challenge specific policies as they are implemented — setting up another round of litigation just as mail-in voting will begin in some states.

“California will be suing AGAIN to block these Orwellian rules from being implemented,” Newsom said in a news release.

California and 22 other states, along with Washington, D.C., initially sued the Trump administration in April, arguing that the order illegally interfered with states’ constitutional authority to run elections.

A federal judge agreed in June and blocked key parts of the order, finding that Trump had overstepped his authority. The judge also found that the Postal Service did not have authority to control mail-in voting.

The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the states had sued too soon because Trump’s order only directed federal agencies to develop new election policies, which had not yet been finalized. The Supreme Court agreed, allowing the administration to move forward while leaving states free to challenge the policies once they are implemented.

“The Court’s disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful. On that score, time will tell,” the court said in an unsigned majority ruling.

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