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Trump Sued by Candidates and Voters Over Post Office Funds

New York Politicians, Voters Sue Trump Over Post Office Funding

A group of voters and political candidates sued President Donald Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to ensure that the U.S. Postal Service gets enough funding to handle an expected surge in mail-in votes amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The group, which includes a Democratic congressional candidate and a retired Chicago philanthropist who cast her first ballot for Franklin Roosevelt in 1944, seeks an order blocking the Trump administration’s alleged efforts to interfere with the November election by hobbling the post office.

The plaintiffs claim Trump and DeJoy, who is to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, have “set out to ensure USPS cannot reliably deliver election mail” because the president sees it as a threat to his re-election.

Trump Sued by Candidates and Voters Over Post Office Funds

“While President Trump himself is holding up necessary funding for the Post Office, a flurry of steps taken by DeJoy all but guarantee that thousands upon thousands (if not millions) of ballots will simply not reach their destinations on time,” they said in the complaint, filed Monday in federal court in Manhattan.

Similar claims are likely to follow as state attorneys general consider bringing their own cases. New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday said she and “numerous” other AGs around the country are “swiftly examining every legal option.” A spokesperson for Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said she’s been in touch with other AGs to discuss solutions to the USPS funding issue, including possible litigation.

“Politically motivated lawsuits are not rooted in giving Americans the power of the vote. As part of recent negotiations, the president offered $10 billion for the Postal Service on top of a $10 billion dollar line of credit which was included in the CARES Act,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews said in an emailed statement. “While Democrats are spreading baseless conspiracy theories about the Trump administration’s assistance to the USPS to score political points, President Trump will continue to work to ensure the security and integrity of our elections.”

It isn’t clear what a federal court can do about the issue, which may be better suited to the work of Congress. The lawsuit appears to be “uncharted territory” for voting rights litigation because the Postal Service usually helps in elections, said Jonathan Diaz, a voting rights lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center.

“It’s been the Postal Service’s practice for many years to handle election mail expeditiously, to work with state and local election officials to make sure it’s handled securely and with the speed that is required to make sure our elections can run smoothly,” said Diaz, who isn’t involved in the suit but called the “blatant attacks on the integrity” of the mail “really alarming.”

Speaking to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday, the president sought to distinguish absentee ballots, which he uses himself, from other mailed ballots, which he has said without evidence are subject to widespread fraud.

“Absentee ballots are great,” he said, but “this universal mail-in is a very dangerous thing.” Asked if he had told DeJoy to slow down the mail, he said, “No, not at all, wouldn’t do that,” and that in fact he had encouraged the USPS to speed up the mail.

Voting by mail “is secure, and it’s a common practice in red and blue states alike,” Diaz said, adding that he expects suits to be filed against states and counties.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has suspended the House’s summer recess to take up related legislation.

Among the 16 plaintiffs in Monday’s suit are Mondaire Jones, an attorney and the Democratic nominee for New York’s 17th Congressional District, north of New York City, and Alessandra Biaggi, a New York State senator from the Bronx who is running for re-election in November. There are also voters from New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, California and Wisconsin.

One of them, 97-year-old Mary Winton Green of Chicago, is a descendant of suffragists and voted for Roosevelt, who in 1944 won a fourth and final term over Thomas Dewey, then New York’s governor.

“Mrs. Green’s doctors have told her she must stay in her house and cannot vote in person,” the plaintiffs said in the complaint. “If she cannot vote reliably by mail, she cannot vote at all.”

The suit comes as record numbers of voters prepare to vote by mail because of the pandemic, according to the lawsuit, which alleges that Trump and DeJoy’s actions violate the plaintiffs’ constitutional right to vote and to equal protection of the law. The candidates and voters are seeking an injunction requiring Trump and DeJoy to “take all steps necessary and sufficient to ensure that the USPS is adequately funded” to deliver election mail and fix the alleged harm they’ve already caused to the post office.

The plaintiffs are represented by the Queens, New York, law firm Cohen & Green PLLC. J. Remy Green, the lead lawyer on the complaint, specializes in civil rights, defamation and free speech suits including “cases that present novel or untested legal theories,” according to a firm biography.

The case is Jones v. U.S. Postal Service, 20-cv-06516, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

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