President Joe Biden’s federal interference in state and local election administration is unconstitutional, a lawsuit filed Thursday alleges.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, the lawsuit contests Executive Order 14019, a directive signed by Biden in March 2021 that instructed hundreds of federal agencies to interfere in state election administration by using taxpayer money to engage in voter registration and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) activities. The order required departments to craft “strategic plan[s]” detailing how they intended to comply with the edict and collaborate with so-called “nonpartisan third-party organizations” on voter registration efforts.
“Missouri has a robust and effective election system in place, and it is the responsibility of the states, not the federal government, to manage voter registration and election procedures,” Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, R-Mo., said in a statement. “This legal action is not about partisan politics; it is about maintaining the balance of power between the states and the federal government as intended by our Founding Fathers.”
Ashcroft, Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston, R-Ark., and two local Missouri election officials are plaintiffs in the case.
The plaintiffs argue Biden’s directive is “unconstitutional and contrary to federal law.” Specifically, they claim the edict violates the Constitution’s establishment of separation of powers and “imposes burdens and costs upon state and local government to respond to this federally mandated election scheme in violation of constitutional principles of federalism.” They further contend it violates the Constitution’s elections clause and unlawfully “directs federal executive branch employees to violate the Hatch Act … and engage in forbidden partisan political activity.”
“President Biden unlawfully seeks to use federal government resources to aid Democrat campaigns by enlisting the immense federal bureaucracy in a get-out-the-vote and ballot harvesting campaign,” the lawsuit alleges.
While often celebrated by America’s regime-approved media as a win for “democracy,” a closer look at the Biden-Harris administration’s directive reveals a concentrated effort to weaponize taxpayer resources to boost Democrat voter registration and GOTV efforts. In the years since its implementation, independent media and good government groups have discovered that most of the “nonpartisan third-party organizations” colluding with the administration on voter registration are extremely left-wing.
These operations have largely targeted Democrat-favorable demographics, such as Native Americans, felons, college students, and newly naturalized citizens.
[EXCLUSIVE: House Committee Gives Cabinet Secretaries 5 Days To Release ‘Bidenbucks’ Docs]
A separate legal challenge contesting “Bidenbucks” was brought by Pennsylvania lawmakers earlier this year. The U.S. Supreme Court announced in June it will decide whether to hear arguments in the case on Sept. 30. However, as The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman previously noted, the high court’s decision to punt on the matter effectively permits the order to achieve its intended purpose of registering likely-Democrat voters before the 2024 election.
The America First Policy Institute also sued the Biden-Harris administration over the directive last month.
Missouri and Arkansas election officials have asked the court to declare Executive Order 14019 unconstitutional and in violation of federal law and enjoin the federal government from “taking any action to implement EO 14019 or spending any funds or making federal employees or facilities available to implement EO 14019.”
Missouri, Arkansas Lawsuit Against “Bidenbucks” Order by The Federalist on Scribd
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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