On Tuesday, the Dhillon Law Group, where I serve as an election law attorney, filed a lawsuit against the state of California. This lawsuit alleges that California is <a href="https://publiuslex.com/pf/nvra/">violating federal law</a> by not ensuring that only citizens are on the state&#8217;s voting rolls. Three California voters brought this lawsuit: Roxanne Hoge, Ali Mazarei, and Corrin Rankin. Both Hoge and Mazarei are legal immigrants who earned the privilege to vote by becoming citizens of the United States.
In 1993, a Democrat-controlled Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed into law the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). This law mandated that states create more options for individuals to register to vote. This law also placed restrictions on the states on how they were to maintain their voter rolls. Under the NVRA, the state has a duty to regularly maintain the voter rolls by removing those individuals who had died or moved away.
The NVRA also requires a state&#8217;s secretary of state to determine the eligibility of each applicant before placing him or her on its voter rolls. Eligibility throughout the NVRA means that there is citizenship. Thus, the NVRA requires the states to ensure that someone is a citizen prior to placing him or her on the voter rolls.
State records show that before the California secretary of state&#8217;s office places an applicant on the voter rolls, it checks with state administrative records to ensure the individual is not a felon and that the voter application is not a duplicate. The state admits that it does not review state administrative records to determine if an applicant is a citizen of the United States. If California does not even bother to check the citizenship status of voter applicants, it can continue to claim to the media that there is no evidence of non-citizens being placed on its voter rolls.
Last year, the California secretary of state admitted he had no idea how many non-citizens were on the voter rolls. Earlier this year, a state audit was released that showed non-citizens were not only registered to vote, but had voted in California elections. These two news stories made it clear that California did not use state administrative records to ensure that only citizens were being registered to vote. Rather than follow federal law and make a determination of citizenship before placing an applicant on the voter rolls, the state simply waits for a scandal to break before responding by removing a non-citizen from its voter rolls. This is improper.
The California secretary of state has claimed that there is no state administrative record that tracks citizenship of Californians. This is clearly not true, since a state audit was able to determine that non-citizens were not only on the voter rolls but had also actually voted. Contrary to what the secretary of state wants the media to believe, there are multiple state administrative records that contain the citizenship status of voters. Every applicant for a state driver&#8217;s license is required to provide proof of identity. These proof-of-identity documents include citizenship status. If an individual cannot prove that he/she is lawfully a United States citizens, a driver&#8217;s license is still doled out but that individual is supposedly not simultaneously also registered to vote.
By bringing this lawsuit, the plaintiffs desire to hold the secretary of state&#8217;s feet to the fire. It is time that California be required to follow federal law and ensure that everyone who is on the voter rolls is actually eligible to vote. This lawsuit is necessary because California has a bad habit of thumbing its nose at federal election laws and dragging its feet as long as possible. When Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002 — which required states to establish a statewide voter registration list — California was the last state to comply. It did not do so until 2016.
Earlier this year, Judicial Watch won a major victory against California requiring the state to follow federal law in removing from the voter rolls those who have died and those who have moved. California had chosen to simply not send out the required notices, and the voter rolls were thus bloated with ineligible voters.
Californians deserve the assurance that the state is following federal law and ensuring that only citizens are on the voter rolls. By its own admissions, the state is not verifying voter applicants&#8217; citizenship status. Since California has claimed that it is not doing anything wrong, this lawsuit had to be brought to force California to follow the NVRA.
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Mark Meuser is an election law attorney with the Dhillon Law Group, which is based in California. You can follow Mark Meuser on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/markmeuser">@markmeuser</a>.

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MEUSER: Legal Immigrants Sue California For Failure To Verify Voters’ Citizenship Status

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MEUSER: Legal Immigrants Sue California For Failure To Verify Voters&#039; Citizenship Status

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On Tuesday, the Denver-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/21/electoral-college-members-not-bound-popular-vote-c/?fbclid=IwAR2LAesCtm9AW4OL_c_gQpQQeHr6o71eIC4jpRn6dhizP_i-zepssKAoho0">ruled</a> that the Colorado secretary of state violated the Constitution when he removed an Electoral College delegate who had chosen to vote for John Kasich instead of Hillary Clinton. The secretary of state nullified the vote of the delegate and installed a new delegate who voted in accordance with the popular vote of the state of Colorado.
Michael Baca, a loyal Democratic voter, was elected as a delegate to the Electoral College in November 2016. By voting for Kasich instead of Hillary, Baca was attempting to be a part of a movement by Electoral College delegates across the country to pull away votes from both Trump and Hillary so as to send the election to the U.S. House of Representatives. The Constitution provides that if no candidate receives 50% plus one vote (270 Electoral College votes), then the top three candidates in the Electoral College are to be presented to the House of Representatives and the House is to select the next president.
Baca&#8217;s plan was dependent upon other Republican Electoral College delegates also voting for Kasich. Trump received 304 Electoral College votes and, for the plan to succeed, 35 Republican delegates would have also had to cast their votes for Kasich. While Kasich would not have received any votes in the general election, his third-place finish in the Electoral College would have made him eligible for the Republican-controlled House to elect him as president of the United States.
Needless to say, this was just the first attempt by Democrats to try to remove Trump from the White House. And this week, the 10th Circuit dealt a serious blow to the Democrats&#8217; latest scheme to try to circumvent the Electoral College. In another diagnosed case of &#8220;Trump Derangement Syndrome,&#8221; many Democratic leaders have encouraged state legislatures to enter into an agreement wherein the states in the compact <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45462/thwarting-tyranny-save-our-states-seeks-protect-josh-hammer">award all their Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote</a>. This agreement is to take effect as soon as enough states have joined so that there are at least 270 Electoral College votes guaranteed by the compact.
Many Democrats hate the Electoral College because they feel it deprived them of the White House in 2000 and in 2016. Democrats hate the fact that they can&#8217;t win the race for the White House according to the Constitution, and they have thus decided that it is in their political self-interest to change the rules so that they can try to win the presidency more often.
At this time, there are 15 states plus the District of Columbia that have entered into the agreement. To date, the compact has 196 out of the 270 Electoral College votes it needs before going into effect.
The problem with this harebrained scheme being promoted by the Democrats is that it attempts to circumvent the U.S. Constitution and the process to properly amend the Constitution. In order to amend the Constitution, three-quarters of the states must ratify a proposed constitutional amendment that has already passed by either a two-thirds vote by Congress or via a constitutional convention called for by the states.
Democrats know that they cannot get three-quarters of the states to ratify a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College. As such, rather than give up on their desire to abolish the Electoral College, they instead have decided to change the rules on how the Constitution can be amended.
The good news is that the 10th Circuit, with its ruling on Tuesday, has telegraphed the beginning of the end of the Democrats&#8217; latest scheme to end the Electoral College. If a state cannot require that its delegates vote in accordance with its own state&#8217;s popular vote, it will therefore also never be able to require that its delegates vote in accordance with the nation&#8217;s popular vote.
While the 10th Circuit decision does not directly deal with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, the reasoning of this decision will be used when lawyers argue the eventual unconstitutionality of the compact. Tuesday&#8217;s court ruling is a brick in the wall that will hinder the Democrats&#8217; unconstitutional attempts to amend the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College.
Mark Meuser is an election law attorney with the Dhillon Law Group based in California. You can follow Mark Meuser on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/markmeuser">@markmeuser</a>.

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MEUSER: Federal Court Deals Serious Blow To The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

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Judiciary

On Tuesday, the Denver-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled that the Colorado secretary of state violated the Constitution when he

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This week, Donald Trump submitted his 2018 Taxpayers First Budget. In producing the budget, Mick Mulvaney, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, announced that the Trump Administration has discovered approximately $300 billion in federal spending in programs that have expired. This unauthorized spending has a real impact on balancing the budget.
The Trump administration has not yet announced a full list of the programs that are unauthorized, but a quick review of the 2018 budget found 11 programs that Trump is terminating because Congress has not renewed the program in some time.
1. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration
The Economic Development Administration spent $251 million dollars in 2017. This agency&#8217;s authority to exist expired in 2008.
2. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Grants and Education
In 2017, NOAA spent $217 million on state, local, and/or industry interests (think special interest).
3. Department of Health and Human Services, Community Services Block Grant
The Community Services Block Grant funds approximately 1,000 non-profit and local government organizations to a tune of $714 million dollars. These funds are not tied to performance and the money has been allocated based on what a state received in 1981.
4. Department of Homeland Security, Port Security Grants and Transit Security Assistance
The 2018 Budget did not mention how much the individual Port Security Grant program spends each year but did mention it was an unauthorized program and that the Department&#8217;s budget would be reduced. Overall, the 2018 budget eliminates $218 million from Homeland Security for programs that are being eliminated.
5. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Choice Neighborhoods
The 2018 Budget proposes to eliminate the $125 million budget of Choice Neighborhoods and allow state and local governments to provide incentives to private interests to improve neighborhoods.
6. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Community Development Block Grant
The Community Development Block Grant has spent approximately $150 billion since its inception in 1974. The 2018 budget states that the grants have not demonstrated a measurable impact.
7. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Indian Community Development Block Grant
This $60 million block grant fund is being eliminated because it is duplicative and no longer authorized by Congress. This fund authorized grants to Tribes for the construction of affordable housing. There is no matrix to prove that this grant actually had any impact on affordable housing.
8. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Self-Help and Assisted Homeownership Opportunity Program Account
In addition to offering duplicative services, this program has been expired since 2001. For 16 years, this program has been giving money to non-profit organizations to assist with community development activities. This program will waste $56 Million in 2017.
9. Department of Justice, State Criminal Alien Assistance Program
This duplicative and unauthorized program reimburses states and local governments for the cost of incarcerating illegal criminal aliens. This program is poorly administered in that the local governments applying for the funds did not actually have to use the funds for detaining illegal criminal aliens. A large portion of the funds go to New York and California.
10. Department of Transportation, National Infrastructure Investments
This $499 million discretionary grant program was part of the 2009 stimulus bill. It spends federal dollars on local projects with no national or regional interests. This grant program has not been authorized by Congress for the last two years.
11. Department of Treasury, Community Development Financial Institutions Fund
This program was created in 1994 and is currently unauthorized. This program was designed to assist in the expansion of credit for &#8220;low-income and underserved people and communities.&#8221; This fund has created 1,100 Treasury-certified CDFIs. The Trump 2018 budget is eliminating the ability for this program to issue grants but is allowing the program to provide oversight for the 1,100 CDFIs that the program created in the last 23 years.

11 Unauthorized Government Spending Programs Trump Cut From His 2018 Budget

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This week, Donald Trump submitted his 2018 Taxpayers First Budget. In producing the budget, Mick Mulvaney, the Director of the Office of Management and

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MEUSER: Legal Immigrants Sue California For Failure To Verify Voters’ Citizenship Status

MEUSER: Federal Court Deals Serious Blow To The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

11 Unauthorized Government Spending Programs Trump Cut From His 2018 Budget

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