Trump’s Justice Department is fighting in court with Michigan over access to sensitive voter data

The U.S. Justice Department suggested to a federal appeals court on Wednesday that upholding a lower court decision blocking the Trump administration’s access to sensitive voter data would weaken its ability to investigate racial discrimination in elections.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on whether to overturn a district judge’s opinion that Michigan did not have to provide the Justice Department with its unredacted voter list, complete with birth dates, driver’s license and incomplete Social Security numbers.

At the core of the case This is how federal courts should interpret the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which grants the U.S. Attorney General broad access to documents and records that come “into the possession” of election officials. Congress passed the law to allow investigations into voting discrimination against black citizens.

A lawyer for the Trump administration tried Wednesday to discredit the logic behind the district judge’s decision. He said the decision would have hampered investigations into 1960s-era discrimination against black voters if it had been in effect at that time. A Michigan deputy attorney general called this a solemn misinterpretation of the law.

The judges did not provide any meaningful information about which argument they found convincing.

The Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia about her refusal pass on the data. At least 15 conservative states have volunteered the information that the Trump administration plans to feed into a Department of Homeland Security computer program to identify potential noncitizen voters.

Democrats and voting rights activists have raised privacy concerns about the Trump administration’s data plans. They also say Homeland Security has mistakenly flagged voters as potential non-citizens and that the administration is trying to create one national voter list.

Wednesday’s Justice Department court hearing came against the backdrop of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision two weeks ago to significantly weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was intended to abolish discriminatory voting laws in the South. Trump has cheered the administration and Republican lawmakers in southern states are rushing to draw up fresh congressional plans that could oust black Democrats.

Debate over civil rights law

U.S. District Court Judge Hala Jarbou, a President Donald Trump appointee, ruled in February that the Justice Department was not entitled to voter data. Michigan’s voter registration database is a record created by state officials, not a document that came into their possession, she argued.

On Wednesday, Justice Department attorney David Goldman told a panel of three appeals judges that Jarbou had created a “carveout” in the Civil Rights Act that was not enshrined in law.

“It tears a hole in the attorney general’s investigative powers so gaping that the most blatant civil rights violations of the 1960s could have passed through,” Goldman said.

Michigan Assistant Attorney General Heather Meingast, representing Democratic Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, told the justices that the Justice Department’s request was unprecedented and unsupported by federal law.

The state’s voter registration database contains voter information but is not a document under the Civil Rights Act, Meingast argued. The database is vigorous, she said, constantly changing as voters are added and removed.

“It doesn’t seem to meet the test of what the (Civil Rights Act) was talking about in the ’60s,” Meingast said. “And the purpose was for voters to turn in their documents, their applications and their poll taxes.”

Judges don’t tip

The case is being heard by Senior Judge R. Guy Cole Jr., a Clinton appointee; Judge Andre B. Mathis, a Biden appointee; and Judge John B. Nalbandian, a Trump appointee.

Many of the justices’ questions centered on what it means for records to come into the “possession” of election officials. The judges asked both sides skeptical questions, leaving it unclear who would prevail.

A judge likened the voter database to baking a cake, an image used in a brief filed by voters and civic groups in the case. Anyone who bakes a cake would not say that they have “come into possession of a cake,” the judge said.

“What about common sense?” said the judge.

The 6th District, based in Cincinnati, provided an audio-only event Live stream of the arguments and the judges did not identify themselves during their speech. Court Intelligence Service reported The judge who made this remark was Nalbandian.

The oral hearing lasted approximately 40 minutes. The three-judge panel did not set a deadline for issuing an opinion.

Other cases

Six district judges have ruled against the Trump administration in the Justice Department’s voter data lawsuits – in addition to Michigan, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Oregon and Rhode Island. The Michigan case is the first to be heard in an appeals court. Oral arguments are scheduled for next week in the appeals of the DOJ’s losses in California and Oregon.

The appeals mark the next phase of the Justice Department’s years-long campaign over state voter data. DOJ lawyers have urged appeals courts move quicklyon the grounds that the security of the November midterm elections is at stake.

On Tuesday, the Justice Department published a statement from its Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal advice to law enforcement agencies and supports the DOJ’s efforts to obtain state voter data. Justice Department attorneys immediately filed the brief in the Michigan appeals case as a last-minute bolstering of their case before the hearing.

“It’s commemorative advice that was given in early to mid-September,” Goldman said — at the same time that the Justice Department began suing states for refusing to release voter data.

Aria Branch, an attorney with Elias Law Group who is representing voters and a citizens group in the case, noted that six courts have already ruled against the Justice Department.

“The DOJ’s attempt to exploit the Civil Rights Act for its current dragnet is simply akin to trying to put a square peg in a round hole,” Branch told the justices. “It just doesn’t work.”