After hearing more than two hours of oral arguments Sunday, a three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the U.S. Department of Justice in its request for a preliminary injunction to prevent election officials in California from processing ballots from 20,000 people on the voter rolls it believes are "likely noncitizens." The DOJ had also appealed what it termed a "constructive denial" of its Motion for Temporary Restraining Order filed in at the district court level, in the Central District of California. In a 2-1 ruling the panel, comprised of two Trump appointees (Mark J. Bennett, Patrick J. Bumatay) and one Biden appointee (Gabriel P. Sanchez), dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
[T]he United States failed to allow the district court adequate opportunity to consider its application for a Temporary Restraining Order (“TRO”). For that reason, we lack jurisdiction over this appeal. So we grant the County’s motion to dismiss this appeal and deny as moot the United States’s emergency motion for relief.
Judges Bennett and Sanchez ruled against the DOJ, and Bumatay dissented. His conclusion really crystallizes the issue, especially in light of the long-winded and tortured per curiam order authored by Bennett and the concurrence from Sanchez. He wrote:
The federal government came to us for help as it sought to enforce Congress’s law against illegal voting by aliens. It did so because California would not help. Instead, California interpreted state and federal law to stop it from doing so, while empowering it to mix legal and likely illegal ballots together. Because the State frustrates federal law by relying on that interpretation to commingle ballots, its actions are preempted. We should’ve stopped it from doing so and effectuated Congress’s will. I respectfully dissent.
That means that the case goes back to the district court level, where a hearing on the DOJ's Motion for Temporary Restraining Order is set for Tuesday at 1 PM Pacific.
Read the full 91-page opinion here.