A 2021 Executive Order issued by President Joe Biden is headed to the Supreme Court for a constitutional challenge that some experts say is “the most important legal issue” of the upcoming November election.
Executive Order 14019, issued by Biden in March 2021 states that “executive departments and agencies should partner with State, local, Tribal, and territorial election officials to protect and promote the exercise of the right to vote, eliminate discrimination and other barriers to voting, and expand access to voter registration and accurate election information.”
According to Fox News Digital, a group of 27 Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania — members of the state Freedom Caucus — “argued that the order is essentially an executive get-out-the-vote effort targeting key demographics to benefit the president’s political party and own re-election, which they argue is unconstitutional with Congress having never enacted a law that grants such an action from the Oval Office.”
Claiming the legislators lacked standing to bring the lawsuit, a judge last month dismissed the case.
But, according to Erick Kaardal, attorney for the lawmakers, they will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
“We think it’s really important for President Biden to be held accountable,” Kaardal told Fox News Digital. “For him to violate such a big law when all the little people have to follow the laws, even little laws … it’s clear President Biden has issued an executive order without congressional enactments to get himself re-elected.”
“It’s ridiculous,” the lawyer stated.
Fox News Digital reports:
Kaardal argued in legal filings that the executive order in turn – among other things – directed the Department of Health and Human Services to facilitate voter registrations; the Department of Housing and Urban Development to instruct more than 3,000 public housing authorities to facilitate registration drives in those units; the Department of Education to push state schools to register students; and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to issue letters to state agencies that administer SNAP and WIC programs, instructing them to carry out voter-registration activities with federal funds.
The complaint also alleges that the executive order was “largely drafted by a third party, nongovernmental organization,” pointing to the left-leaning policy organization, Dēmos, which boasts of having “moved progressive issues from the movement to the mainstream.”
According to Influence Watch, Dēmos is “a nonprofit, New York City-based left-wing public policy advocacy group founded in 2000 that favors advocates a staunchly liberal agenda.”
Dēmos “has close ties to the wing of the Democratic Party associated with U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and the left-wing progressive movement, advocating a far-left agenda,” the website reports. It “receives substantial funding from labor unions and progressive foundations.”
“The executive action taken by the President nullifies the votes of the individual legislators, violates the Electors Clause, violates the Elections Clause, and deprives the legislators of their particular rights,” the lawmakers’ complaint contends.
“The Elections Clause states that the ‘times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof,’” Fox News Digital adds.
Tarren Bragdon, president and CEO of the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), said “it’s no wonder Team Biden is using their authority and resources to target welfare populations with a federally funded get-out-the-vote effort.”
The FGA filed an amicus brief in the case.
“If they are allowed to fully execute their plan, it could swing the election outcome,” Bragdon warned.
The Opportunity Solutions Project is the advocacy arm of the FGA. In a February 2023 study, the group found that Democrats on average enjoy a 30-point boost among welfare recipients.
“[D]emocrats see a massive advantage among voters enrolled in welfare programs like food stamps and Medicaid,” the study stated. “In fact, Democrats see their margins increase by more than 30 points among voters enrolled in welfare compared to low-income voters who have never been on welfare.”
“To date, all of the federal agencies FGA has identified as taking active steps to carry out EO 14019 have one thing in common: They provide government welfare benefits and other services to groups of voters the vast majority of which have historically voted Democrat,” the group’s amicus brief states.
The friend-of-the-court brief continues:
[T]hrough this sweeping Order, the President commanded every executive agency of the federal government – with the narrow exception of independent agencies – to perform voter registration and mobilization activities regardless of whether those agencies are authorized to do so under federal law, and to carry out this Order in coordination with third-party groups ‘approved’ by the current administration.
Even worse, this effort is being carried out in a secretive fashion despite loud and repeated calls for transparency from dozens of members of Congress, State Attorneys General, and Secretaries of State.
“Currently, the FGA is fighting a lawsuit against the Department of Justice over FOIA-requested documents on how the agency is implementing the executive order,” according to Fox News Digital.
“This is, by far, the most important legal issue in the country heading into November,” said Bragdon. “The outcome of this case, and similar cases, will decide how heavy the Biden administration’s thumb will push on the electoral scales.”
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Author: Melissa Fine
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