John,

Here’s some good news for you on the democracy front:

A federal court in Massachusetts granted a preliminary injunction blocking Donald Trump’s attempt to give himself sweeping power to set the rules for future elections.

California, Nevada and seventeen other states sued to stop him, and were granted this preliminary injunction by the court, whose ruling cited the amicus brief CREW filed earlier this year on behalf of a bipartisan group of former secretaries of state.

The court agreed with our argument that the president is not allowed to change election rules and that for him to do so violates the key democratic principle of the separation of powers and cited the brief several times.

Here’s an excerpt from the decision, citing our arguments:

“[A]llowing the President to change election rules and procedures on [his] whim whenever [he] see[s] fit, without any input from election administrators charged with executing those rules and without the checks and balances provided by Congress, would be equivalent to dropping an anvil onto the carefully balanced scales of justice.”

Our amicus brief explains that the Constitution gives each state, not the president, the primary authority to regulate and administer elections.

That’s why Trump’s executive order claiming presidential authority over elections violates the separation of powers laid out in the Constitution.

Donald Trump’s executive order oversteps his authority by ordering the Election Assistance Commission to unilaterally add new requirements to the federal voter registration form, requiring the review and potential decertification of certain voting systems and preventing states from processing absentee and mail-in ballots received after Election Day.

And while this group of former secretaries of state we represented didn’t always agree on the best election policies, they do agree on this: The Constitution gives states, not the president, the power to run elections.

And we all know—the Constitution is not optional.

Thank you,

CREW HQ