Trump’s assistant AG pick has history of attacking voting rights
President-elect Donald Trump selected Harmeet Dhillon to lead the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. In the past few years, Dhillon — or an attorney from her law firm — has been involved in more than a dozen lawsuits challenging voting rights laws across the country.
Most recently, Dhillon represented Trump and various GOP plaintiffs and defendants in election-related cases throughout the 2024 election cycle — including defending Trump against the various state efforts to have him removed from the ballot for violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Riggs’ win in North Carolina Supreme Court race solidified
North Carolina officials said a second recount affirms state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs' (D) victory over Jefferson Griffin (R) and they will not order a full hand recount of the race.
“The initial vote count confirmed Justice Riggs’ victory by 734 votes, and a statewide machine recount confirmed her win by the exact same margin,” Riggs’ campaign said in a statement. “The sample hand recount, which also confirms her win, is the third and final count of votes.”
Griffin still continues to challenge over 60,000 ballots in the race. Today, the North Carolina Court of Appeals rejected his petition to expedite his ballot challenges. This follows the rejection of a similar petition in the Wake County Superior Court yesterday.
Biden will veto bill to add more federal judgeships
The White House announced Tuesday that if a bipartisan bill to add 63 federal judgeships gets to President Joe Biden’s desk, he will veto it.
The Senate unanimously passed the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved (JUDGES) Act back in August to lessen the load for overburdened district courts — months before Trump won the 2024 general election.
“The bill would create new judgeships in states where Senators have sought to hold open existing judicial vacancies,” the White House said in a statement. “Those efforts to hold open vacancies suggest that concerns about judicial economy and caseload are not the true motivating force behind passage of this bill now.”
Oral argument coming up tomorrow
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is set to hear a Republican lawsuit seeking to nullify two pro-voting amendments enshrined in the Michigan Constitution. Republicans alleged that the voter-approved amendments violate the U.S. Constitution.
A federal district court in Michigan dismissed the case back in April, and the GOP plaintiffs filed an appeal in the 6th Circuit a few weeks later.
