League of Women Voters Education Fund v. Trump (now LULAC v. Executive Office of the President)

Executive orders are an instrument by which the President of the United States may exercise authority lawfully granted to him by Article II of the United States Constitution and Congress. To quote Justice Robert Jackson, prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, 

When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate. . . . When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. 

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 635–38 (1952) 

On March 25, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order claiming to protect the integrity of American elections (“Order”). The Order purported to make several changes to federal elections. Among these were:  

1. Ordering the Election Assistance Commission(EAC), an independent, bipartisan agency, to revise the federal voter registration form all states are required to offer to citizens under the National Voter Registration Act. The order would mandate presentation of photo ID, which was limited to a United States passport, REAL ID showing the applicant is a citizen, a military ID card showing the applicant was a US citizen, or some other valid federal or state photo ID showing the applicant is a US citizen or with undefined accompanying proof of United States citizenship, to register using the form. Under the NVRA, and current US Supreme Court precedent, documentary proof of citizenship is not required to register for federal elections. Illegal non-citizen voting in elections is extremely rare.
2. Directing the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Administrator of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to, “review each State’s publicly available voter registration list and available records concerning voter list maintenance activities as required by 52 U.S.C. 20507, alongside Federal immigration databases and State records requested, including through subpoena where necessary and authorized by law, for consistency with Federal requirements.”
3. Ordering the US Attorney General to enforce an interpretation of the statute setting the federal election day to require all mail ballots to be received by election officials by Election Day to be counted. The EAC was also ordered to condition grants on states requiring mail ballots to be received by Election Day to be counted.  

On March 27, 2025, the League of Women Voters of the United States (LWVUS), the Brennan Center for Justice, ACLU, Legal Defense Fund, and NAACP sent a letter to the EAC outlining the illegal actions in the Order and asking them to take no action to implement it. 

On April 1, 2025, the League of Women Voters Education Fund, LWVUS, LWV of Arizona, NAACP, Hispanic Federation, OCA—Asian Pacific American Advocates, and Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote filed a federal lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, asserting the Order violated the constitutional separation of powers and federal law. 

On April 3, 2025, the League's case was consolidated with two other challenges to the Order. The consolidated case is titled LULAC v. Executive Office of the President.

The League was represented in this matter by the ACLU, Brennan Center for Justice, Legal Defense Fund, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC.