Dan Rayfield

The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn a federal judge's order halting implementation of a new rule regulating mail ballots, filing the appeal just before North Carolina and other states begin sending out midterm ballots. The request came even as officials could not confirm to the lower court whether the computer system meant to run the program was operational.

Under President Trump's executive order, the U.S. Postal Service could refuse to deliver ballots from states that don't follow a uniform envelope style and submit voter lists to an online portal. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani had blocked the plan for the November election as too rushed, but the Supreme Court ruled that block premature since USPS regulations weren't yet published. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, representing a coalition of 23 states, D.C., and Pennsylvania's governor in an earlier lawsuit, said states—not the federal government—run elections. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on the underlying legality of Trump's order.

The U.S. Department of Justice has sued Arizona, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico over state laws granting in-state college tuition to immigrants without legal status, bringing the total number of states sued over such policies to 21. In Arizona, the challenged law is Proposition 308, a 2022 voter-approved measure allowing immigrants without legal status who attended an Arizona high school for at least two years to qualify for in-state rates. Oregon's 2013 Tuition Equity Act, which also covers veterans and lawful permanent residents, is likewise targeted, along with comparable statutes in Washington and New Mexico. The DOJ argues the policies violate a 1996 federal law by extending tuition benefits to immigrants without legal status that aren't equally available to out-of-state U.S. citizens.

The Arizona complaint cites estimates of over 3,600 immigrants without legal status potentially qualifying annually, with at least 720 already receiving in-state rates in fall 2025; in Oregon, an estimated 4,730 of 215,019 higher-education students are undocumented, with over 1,000 benefiting from the tuition program in 2023-24. The DOJ seeks court orders blocking enforcement. Federal courts have already struck down comparable laws in Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Illinois, with a dozen more states, including California and New York, facing pending litigation; a Minnesota case was dismissed and is under appeal. Oregon and Washington officials have vowed to defend their laws; Arizona has not yet responded.

Oregon has joined a multistate lawsuit against the Trump administration over federal demands for personal data on roughly 17 million commercial drivers. Led by Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, the suit accuses the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration of improperly seeking five years of records — including Social Security numbers — from the Commercial Driver's License Information System, and threatening to cut federal funding when state administrators resisted. The complaint alleges the government built its own copy of the database without public notice, proper rulemaking, or consultation with states, in violation of privacy law.

Attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, plus Pennsylvania's governor, joined the action, also naming the Department of Homeland Security and AAMVA as defendants. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy defended the data request as necessary to remove unauthorized immigrant truck drivers from the road and vowed to fight the lawsuit.

The Supreme Court voted 6-3 Monday to lift a lower-court injunction blocking President Trump's March executive order on mail-in voting, ruling that states lack standing to challenge the order because it is an "internal directive" that has not yet harmed them. The decision does not resolve whether the order itself is constitutional, and the three liberal justices dissented, warning it merely delays the legal fight. The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of eligible voters and instructs the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots only to those on the lists, with implementation details before the November midterms still unclear.

Officials in Oregon, Washington and California — all heavily reliant on vote-by-mail — vowed to keep fighting. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, Attorney General Dan Rayfield and Secretary of State Tobias Read called it a "temporary setback" and pledged to sue if USPS interferes. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state would sue again, and Washington's attorney general vowed similar action. A separate nationwide injunction from a Massachusetts federal judge still limits enforcement.