The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has filed a brief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts showing why challenges to President Trump’s executive order helping to ensure that only citizens vote in federal elections must be dismissed by the court.
The plaintiffs claim that the President has no authority for his order, in which he provides for the creation of lists of citizen voters in each state and the transmission of these lists to the states. But the President’s executive order setting this system up says that the order is being issued pursuant to his authority under the Guarantee Clause of the Constitution, which places a duty on the United States to guarantee to each state a republican form of government.
As FAIR notes in its brief, the President is a principal component of the United States government, since its executive power is vested in him. He therefore may act, consistently with federal law, to guarantee to states a republican form of government. Also, since citizen self-government is a constitutional right rooted in the very nature of representative democracy, vindicating that right by keeping noncitizens from voting is essential to maintaining a republican form of government. The President’s order is therefore an exercise of his direct constitutional power under the Guarantee Clause.
Because the authority for his order comes from the Constitution, and the President is not an agency, his order cannot be reviewed by courts under the Administrative Procedure Act. Nor can the acts of the President’s subordinates in carrying out the order be so reviewed; they act not as agency heads under a statute, but merely as agents of the President acting under his constitutional authority, and thus their actions, too, are unreviewable presidential actions.
“To the extent aliens vote, citizens don’t govern themselves,” said Christopher J. Hajec, deputy general counsel of FAIR. “So when President Trump gives an order designed to keep aliens from voting, he is protecting government by the people, and his authority to do that comes straight from the Guarantee Clause. We hope the court realizes that because Trump is exercising direct constitutional authority here, neither his action nor those of his subordinates can be reviewed under the Administrative Procedure Act, and throws these cases out.”
The cases are League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump, No. 1:26-cv-11549, and California v. Trump, No. 1:26-cv-11581 (D. Mass.).
