Mi Familia en Acción

So it doesn't affect the 2026 elections directly, as I will explain, but could play a, a-- be really important for the 2028 elections.

It's a case out of Arizona called the Republican National Committee versus Mi Familia Vota.

Um, I'm gonna take you back to 2013, a case called Arizona versus Inter Tribal Council.

And in that case, the Supreme Court held that a 1993 federal law called the National Voter Registration Act required Arizona to accept and use the federal voter registration form, which does not require proof of citizenship.

That committee did not find any evidence of voter fraud.

But in 2022, Arizona passed two new laws that required proof of citizenship for applicants who used the state voter registration form, and then set up new procedures to cancel voter registration for non-citizens.

Um, this case, Mi Familia Vota, was originally brought by the Biden administration, um, several nonprofits, um, three tribes, and the Democratic National Committee.

And there are two issues that come, uh, before the court now.

It's not a bar- a partisan idea anywhere in this country except Washington, DC.

On December 8th, the Supreme Court will h- hear the Arizona case, the Republican National Committee versus Mi Familia Vota.

The justices are being asked two things: can a state require proof of citizenship when you register to vote, and can a state remove confirmed non-citizens from the voter rolls in the last 90 days before an election? Tea Party Patriot Citizens...

Well, I'm sorry, not our Citizens Fund.

The state says that schools must abide by the state's non-discrimination rules to receive the funds, while attorneys for St. Mary's say that singling out Catholic schools to not receive generally available education funds is a violation of religious freedom.

Other big cases include Republican National Committee versus Mi Familia Vota, which will decide whether Arizona can impose rules on voters on top of the National Voter Registration Act, such as requiring proof of US citizenship, and Illinois and Connecticut both have cases pending on their laws restricting certain semi-automatic firearms and whether they violate the Second Amendment.

One American and two German scientists won a Nobel Prize on Monday for their work in optogenetics, or the use of light to control nerve cells in the brain.

It's a relatively new field of study and was formally designated in 2006.

And that could work its way to the Supreme Court.

And then the Supreme Court would have to kind of give a sneak preview of the answer it's going to give in that December Mi Familia Vota case as to how it's likely to read the NVRA.

When the appeals court...

ruled against states using the SAVE database.

that 90-day law.

And that 90-day law itself is subject to a different Supreme Court case being heard not on an emergency basis in December called RNC versus Mi Familia Vota.

You say at the Election Law Blog that although states can still use the database for individualized determinations, you say a few bold states might try mass purges of purported non-citizens.

Texas comes to mind as one possibility where the Attorney General Ken Paxton is having a hard time running for Senate.

And a court would probably enjoin the state from doing that.

And that could work its way to the Supreme Court.

And then the Supreme Court would have to kind of give a sneak preview of the answer it's going to give in that December Mi Familia Vota case as to how it's likely to read the NVRA.

When the appeals court...

Um, I mean, I think there have been declarations filed in some of these cases.

You know, there, there's another lawsuit actually that is before the Supreme Court on the merits, um, about exactly how the safe harbor provision's supposed to work, the Mi Familia Vota case, which is scheduled for oral argument in December.

But, you know, I think one of the real unfortunate but urgent lessons of twenty twenty-six is that voters need to be vigilant, and vigilant about, you know, checking your registration status, vigilant about confirming your status before you go to the polls or before you vote in whatever way you're gonna vote because whether it's, you know, clerical errors or mischief, um, you know, now more than ever, I think it's, it-- there's reason to be worried that representations people make aren't necessarily gonna be true when you show up to vote on Election Day.

Yeah.