Supreme Court rejects GOP push to block 41K Arizona voters, but partly OKs proof of citizenship law

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Supreme Court rejects GOP push to block 41K Arizona voters, but partly OKs proof of citizenship law

2024-08-23 10:17 Last Updated At：10:20

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a Republican push that could have blocked more than 41,000 Arizona voters from casting ballots for president in the closely contested swing state, but allowed some parts of a law requiring proof of citizenship to be enforced.

The 5-4 order came after emergency appeal filed by state and national Republicans. It sought to give full effect to voting measures that were enacted after President Joe Biden won the state over Republican Donald Trump with less than 11,000 votes. The measures have drawn fierce opposition from voting rights advocates.

The case could be one of multiple election disputes to come before the high court with the November election less than 90 days away.

Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have allowed the law to be fully enforced. But Justice Amy Coney Barrett would have joined with the court’s three liberals in fully rejecting the push, the order states.

The justices did not detail their reasoning in a brief order, as is typical in emergency appeals.

Trump applauded the high court’s decision, saying the high court has “great courage in doing what they’re doing.”

The high court's order allows the enforcement of restrictions that bar people from voting in state and local elections if they don’t provide proof of citizenship when they register while the legal fight continues in lower courts.

State voter registration forms submitted without “documentary proof of citizenship” will now be rejected by Arizona counties, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said. People can still register to vote in presidential and congressional elections with a different federal form that requires people to swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, but does not require proof.

“My concern is that changes to the process should not occur this close to an election, it creates confusion for voters,” Fontes said in a statement. “We respect the Court’s decision and will implement these changes while continuing to protect voter access and make a voting simple process.”

Rick Hasen, an election law expert and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote in a blog post that proof of citizenship laws “matter a lot. They stand to literally disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters for no good reason.”

Proponents say the measure is about eliminating opportunities for fraud. National and state Republicans had asked the Supreme Court to get involved in a legal fight over voter registration restrictions that Republicans enacted in Arizona in 2022 following Biden’s narrow victory in the state in 2020.

The court’s action came after a lower court had blocked a requirement that called for state voter registration forms to be rejected if they are not accompanied by documents proving U.S. citizenship. A second measure would have prohibited voting in presidential elections or by mail if registrants don’t prove they are U.S. citizens.

An appellate panel of three Trump appointees initially blocked the lower court ruling in part and allowed enforcement of a provision dealing with state voter registration forms. But another appellate panel voted 2-1 to keep both provisions on hold, with two Bill Clinton appointees allowing the voter registrations to go forward over the dissent of a Trump appointee.

The measures were passed on party-line votes and signed into law by then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, amid a wave of proposals that Republicans introduced around the country after Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump, including in Arizona.

For state and local elections, voters must provide proof of citizenship when they register or have it on file with the state. Since that isn’t a requirement for federal elections for Congress or president, tens of thousands of voters who haven’t provided proof of citizenship are registered only for federal elections.

There were 41,352 of those voters registered as of August 9 in Arizona, Fontes, a Democrat, said.

The GOP push to block those voters would most impact military service members, students and Native Americans, Fontes said. About 27% of those voters are registered Democrats and 15% are Republicans. More than half, 54%, are registered independents, according to state data.

Voting rights groups and the Biden administration had sued over the Arizona laws.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach led Republican attorneys general in 24 states in supporting the restrictions.

Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, who along with Senate President Warren Petersen had asked the court to take up the issue, said in a statement that Thursday's order was “a step in the right direction to require proof of citizenship in all our elections.” Toma and Petersen are both Republicans.

Federal-only voters have been a subject of political wrangling since the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that Arizona cannot require documentary proof of citizenship for people to vote in national elections. The state responded by creating two classes of voters: those who can vote in all races and those who can vote only in federal elections.

There is no evidence that the existence of federal-only voters has allowed noncitizens to illegally vote, but Republican skeptics have nonetheless worked aggressively to crack down on federal-only voting.

One of the new laws sought to further divide voters, allowing votes in congressional elections without proof of citizenship, but denying the vote in presidential contests.

The Legislature’s own lawyers had said much of the measure was unconstitutional, directly contradicted the earlier Supreme Court decision and was likely to be thrown out in court.

Meanwhile, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled on a handful of other election-related cases Thursday, clearing the way for ballot measures that were facing legal challenges to now appear before voters. Arizona voters will have a chance to decide on whether they want to establish open primary elections in which all candidates compete regardless of their party affiliation — changing the state’s primaries from closed to open.

The justices bucked two of opponents’ multiple arguments. The measure faces one pending challenge, but if it is not ruled on by early Friday morning, the measure will officially be kept on the ballot.

Voters in other states, including Idaho, South Dakota and Nevada, will also decide on similar ballot measures concerning open primary elections this November.

The high court also ruled the title of a measure to decrease workers’ wages up to 25% per hour if they are tipped was not misleading, placing it on the November ballot.

Billeaud reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writers Mark Sherman in Washington as well as Sejal Govindarao and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this story.

Francine weakens and moves inland after lashing Louisiana

2024-09-13 03:38 Last Updated At：03:42

MORGAN CITY, La. (AP) — Francine weakened Thursday after striking Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane that knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, sent storm surge rushing into coastal communities and raised flooding fears in New Orleans and beyond.

As the system moved inland, emergency crews began clearing roads, utility workers started restoring electricity and neighbors helped pick up the pieces. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries, Gov. Jeff Landry said.

“The human spirit is defined by its resiliency, and resiliency is what defines Louisiana,” Landry told a news conference. “Certainly there are times and situations that try us, but it is also when we in this state are at our very best.”

At the peak of the storm, 450,000 people in Louisiana were without power, based on numbers reported by the Public Service Commission. Many of the outages were linked to falling debris, not structural damage. At one point, around 500 people were in emergency shelters, state officials said.

“The amount of money invested in resilience has really made a difference, from the power outages to the number of homes saved,” said Deanne Criswell, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who attended the governor's news conference.

The storm drenched the northern Gulf Coast. Up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain was possible in parts of Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia, with up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) possible in some parts of Alabama and Florida. Flash flooding threatened cities as far away as Jackson, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Atlanta.

Francine slammed the Louisiana coast Wednesday evening with 100 mph (155 kph) winds in coastal Terrebonne Parish, battering a fragile coastal region that has not fully recovered from a series of devastating hurricanes in 2020 and 2021. The system then moved at a fast clip toward New Orleans, lashing the city with torrential rain. The city awoke to widespread power outages and debris-covered streets. Home generators roared outside some houses.

Rushing water nearly enveloped a pickup truck in a New Orleans underpass, trapping the driver inside. A 39-year-old emergency room nurse who lived nearby grabbed a hammer, waded into the waist-high water, smashed the window and pulled the driver out. It was all captured on live television by a WDSU news crew.

“It’s just second nature I guess, being a nurse, you just go in and get it done, right?” Miles Crawford told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday. “I just had to get to get him out of there.”

He said the water was up to the driver’s head and rising. Crawford told the man to move to the back of the truck’s cab, which gave him more room, and since the front end of the pickup was angled down, into deeper water.

“I wasn’t really questioning whether I should do it — it was just who is going to get it done,” he recalled, adding that he never caught the man's name.

News footage from coastal communities showed waves from lakes, rivers and Gulf waters thrashing seawalls. Water poured into city streets in blinding downpours. Oak and cypress trees leaned in the high winds, and some utility poles swayed.

By early Thursday, water was receding from flooded streets in Jefferson Parish, but canals were still high, parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng said in a social media post. Pumps that operated through the night could not keep up with the storm, causing sewer system problems, she said.

She asked residents to give the parish time to clear the streets, noting that the hazards after a storm can sometimes be more dangerous than the storm itself.

As the sun rose in Morgan City, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from where Francine made landfall, residents gathered tree branches that were strewn across their yards, where water rose almost to their doors. Pamela Miller, 54, stepped outside to survey the damage after a large tree fell on the roof of her home.

“It was a really loud noise, a jolt, and that’s when we realized the tree had come down,” she said. “Luckily it did not go through the roof.”

Jeffrey Beadle, 67, emerged from the hotel room where he sheltered for the night.

Beadle left his home in low-lying Bayou Louis, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) outside town, on Wednesday as the rain picked up. He lived there for 30 years without any major damage, but he was worried this time would be different because his home was right in the hurricane’s path. He loaded his car in preparation to check on his home.

“There’s nobody over on that end I can call,” he said, explaining that he did not know what he would find. "Hope everything’s good.”

Sheriff’s deputies helped evacuate dozens of people, including many small children, who were trapped by rising water Wednesday evening in Thibodaux. Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said deputies also rescued residents in the Kraemer community.

The National Hurricane Center downgraded Francine from a tropical storm to a tropical depression with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (56 kph) as it churned north-northeast over Mississippi. The system was expected to continue weakening and become a post-tropical cyclone later Thursday before slowing down and moving over central and northern Mississippi through early Friday.

The sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, Francine drew fuel from exceedingly warm Gulf of Mexico waters.

In addition to torrential rains, there was a lingering threat of spinoff tornadoes from the storm Thursday in Florida and Alabama.

In the Louisiana town of Ashland, 73-year-old Wilson Garner stood on the steps of a FEMA trailer he has lived in since his previous home was destroyed by Hurricane Ida in 2021. He has been trying for years to get enough money to fix up the old place. The $1,000 monthly rental stipend from FEMA is not enough for him to move, he said.

“You find a place for $1,000, man, you’re very lucky,” he said. “We just haven’t had no success. Where am I going to go? I don’t know.”

Cline reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Associated Press writers Kevin McGill in New Orleans, Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, Jeff Martin in Atlanta, and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this story.