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Supreme Court partially revives Arizona voter proof-of-citizenship requirement
Washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to revive an Arizona law requiring documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote using a state-created form, but declined to allow enforcement of provisions mandating such proof in order to vote for president or by mail.
The split decision from the high court partially rejects an emergency request by the Republican National Committee and GOP state legislative leaders. And while it denied putting in force Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirements for casting ballots for president or through the mail, it granted Republicans’ bid to put on hold a federal district court’s order that blocked the rule for those registering to vote while pursuing an appeal.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have granted the Republicans’ request in full. But Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have fully denied it.
Arizona is a key battleground state that could help determine whether Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, or former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, wins the White House.
Republicans had asked the Supreme Court to issue their requested stay by Thursday, which the secretary of state said was the deadline to resolve litigation affecting what will be printed on Arizona’s ballot. They urged the justices to halt the district court’s injunction to the extent it required Arizona to accept state-provided voter registration applications without documentary proof of citizenship and allow voters who hadn’t proved U.S. citizenship to cast ballots for president or by mail.
Enacted in 2022, Arizona’s voting requirements amended an existing state law that allows residents to register to vote using either a federal form or alternative state-created form.
Under the law, known as HB 2492, people who register to vote using the federal form must provide documentary proof of citizenship if their status cannot be verified by local officials. Registrants who fail to provide such proof are not eligible to vote in presidential elections and cannot receive an early ballot by mail.
The voting measure also tightens restrictions on eligible voters who submit state-provided voter registration forms. Under the law, Arizona election officials must reject state forms that lack proof of citizenship.
Faced with lawsuits from the Biden administration and voting rights groups in 2022, election officials have not enforced the new requirements. The Justice Department and advocacy organizations have argued in part that the National Voter Registration Act overrides the proof-of-citizenship requirement for eligible voters filing the federal form. The groups also claimed that a 2018 consent decree precludes state officials from enforcing the state-form requirement.
In May, the federal district court in Arizona permanently blocked state officials from enforcing the proof-of-citizenship requirements. Republicans appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and a three-judge panel initially agreed to temporarily halt a portion of the district court’s order.
But a separate group of judges assigned to decide the merits of the case put the lower court’s entire injunction back into effect. Republicans then sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court.
In a filing with the court, the RNC and GOP state lawmakers called the district court’s injunction an “unprecedented abrogation of the Arizona legislature’s sovereign authority to determine the qualifications of voters and structure participation in its elections.”
Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement to vote for president or by mail raises questions about the state’s ability to protect its elections, the Republicans argued, and the Constitution does not grant Congress the authority to displace state rules for registering to vote in presidential elections.
“The injunction thwarts the legislature from disallowing individuals who have not proved their U.S. citizenship from participating in Arizona’s selection of its presidential electors or from using Arizona’s generous mail-in voting option,” they said.
The Biden administration urged the Supreme Court to block Arizona’s restrictions on presidential elections and voting by mail, arguing they are preempted by the federal voter registration measure, also known as the “motor voter law.”
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the court in a filing that accepting Republicans’ theory that Congress lacks the authority to regulate presidential elections threatens to invalidate not only the National Voter Registration Act, but a slew of other federal election laws that govern presidential elections.
Additionally, Arizona’s top officials, including Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, oppose a stay of the district court’s order and warned it would be “destabilizing” so close to the November election.
“A stay of the district court’s permanent injunction at this time would contravene the state’s interest in smooth administration of its laws shortly before an election,” state officials wrote.
They warned that the laws, if enforced, would raise difficult questions for state election officials registering to vote using either the federal or state form. If, for example, the Supreme Court allowed enforcement of the proof-of-citizenship requirement to vote in presidential elections, some voters who cast ballots in the primary election in March may not be able to vote for president in the general election in November.
“Bottom line: In this situation, the state’s interests are better served by denying a stay and allowing the normal appellate process to play out,” Arizona officials wrote.
The Arizona dispute is the first involving the 2024 presidential election in which the Supreme Court’s intervention was sought.
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After Tyre Nichols’ fatal beating, Memphis officer texted photo of bloodied man to ex-girlfriend, she testifies
A former Memphis police officer charged in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols sent his ex-girlfriend a photo of the badly injured man on the night he was punched, kicked and hit with a police baton following a traffic stop, according to trial testimony Wednesday.
Brittany Leake, a Memphis officer and Demetrius Haley’s former girlfriend, testified during the criminal trial that she was on the phone with Haley when officers pulled Nichols over for a traffic stop. She said she heard a “commotion,” including verbal orders for someone to give officers his hands.
The call ended, but Haley later texted the photo in a group chat comprising Haley, Leake and her godsister, she testified. Prosecutors displayed the photo for the jury. It showed Nichols with his eyes closed, on the ground with what appeared to be blood near his mouth and his hands behind his back.
Leake said that when she saw the photo, her reaction was: “Oh my God, he definitely needs to go to the Med.”
The Med is shorthand for Memphis’ trauma hospital.
The fatal beating, caught on police bodycams and street surveillance cameras, has sparked protests and calls for police reform. Officers said they pulled over Nichols for reckless driving, but Memphis’ police chief said there was no evidence to substantiate that claim.
Haley, Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith are on trial after pleading not guilty to charges that they deprived Nichols of his civil rights through excessive force and failure to intervene, and obstructed justice through witness tampering. Their trial began Sept. 9 and is expected to run three to four weeks.
George Walker IV / AP
The Memphis Police Department fired the three men, along with Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., after Nichols’ death. The beating was caught on police video, which was released publicly. The officers were later indicted on the federal charges. Martin and Mills have taken plea deals.
During her testimony Wednesday, Leake said she deleted the photo after she saw it and that sending such a photo is against police policy.
“I wasn’t offended, but it was difficult to look at,” she said.
Leake said Haley had sent her photos before of drugs, and of a person who had been injured in a car accident.
Earlier Wednesday, Martin was on the witness stand for a third day. Defense attorneys tried to show inconsistencies between Martin’s statements to investigators and his court testimony. Martin acknowledged lying about what happened to Memphis Police Department internal investigators, to try to cover up and “justify what I did.”
But Martin said he told the truth to FBI investigators after he pleaded guilty in August, including statements about feeling pressure on his duty belt where his gun was located during the traffic stop, but not being able to see if Nichols was trying to get his gun. Martin has testified that he said “let go of my gun” during the traffic stop.
Martin Zummach, the attorney for Justin Smith, asked Martin if he knew of any reasons why Nichols did not simply say, “I give up.”
“He’s out of it,” Martin said. “Disoriented.”
Martin testified that the situation escalated quickly when Haley pulled his gun and violently yanked Nichols from his car, using expletives and failing to tell Nichols why he had been pulled over and removed from the vehicle.
“He never got a chance to comply,” Martin said.
Nichols, who was Black, was pepper sprayed and hit with a stun gun during the traffic stop, but ran away, police video shows. The five officers, who also are Black, then beat him about a block from his home, as he called out for his mother.
Video shows the officers milling about and talking as Nichols struggled with his injuries. Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating.
An autopsy report shows Nichols – the father of a boy who is now 7 – died from blows to the head. The report describes brain injuries, and cuts and bruises on his head and elsewhere on his body.
Jesse Guy testified that he was working as a paramedic for the Memphis Fire Department the night of the beating. He arrived at the location after two emergency medical technicians, Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge.
Guy said he was not told about the medical problems Nichols had experienced before he arrived, and that Nichols was injured, seated on the ground and unresponsive.
Nichols had no pulse and was not breathing, and it “felt like he was lifeless,” Guy said.
In the ambulance, Guy performed CPR and provided mechanical ventilation, and Nichols had a pulse by the time he arrived at the hospital, the paramedic said.
Guy said Long and Sandridge did not say if they had checked Nichols’ pulse and heart rate, and they did not report if they had given him oxygen. When asked by one of Bean’s lawyers whether that information would have been helpful in treating Nichols, Guy said yes.
Long and Sandridge were fired for violating fire department policies after Nichols died. They have not been criminally charged.
The five officers also have been charged with second-degree murder in state court, where they pleaded not guilty. Mills and Martin are expected to change their pleas.
Federal prosecutors have previously recommended a 40-year sentence for Martin. A date has not been set in state court yet.
Nichols worked for FedEx, and he enjoyed skateboarding and photography. The city of Sacramento, where Nichols grew up, named a skatepark in his honor. “Tyre fell in love with skateboarding at a young age and it wasn’t long before it became a part of his lifestyle,” states the resolution approved by the city council. He had a tattoo of his mother’s name.
“Tyre Nichols’ family have been praying for justice and accountability from the very beginning of this tragedy,” Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, the civil rights attorneys representing Nichols’ family, said in a statement when the trial began.
Boeing’s CEO said Wednesday that the company will begin furloughing “a large number” of employees to conserve cash during the strike by union machinists that began last week.
Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg said the people who would be required to take time off without pay starting in coming days include executives, managers and other employees based in the U.S.
“While this is a tough decision that impacts everybody, it is in an effort to preserve our long-term future and help us navigate through this very difficult time,” Ortberg said in a company-wide message to staff.
Boeing didn’t say how many people will face rolling furloughs, but the number is expected to run into the tens of thousands. The aerospace giant had 171,000 employees at the start of the year.
About 33,000 Boeing factory workers in the Pacific Northwest began a strike Friday after rejecting a proposal to raise pay by 25% over four years. They want raises of at least 40%, the return of a traditional pension plan and other improvements in the contract offer they voted down.
Scott Brauer / Bloomberg via Getty Images
The strike is halting production of several airplane models including Boeing’s best-selling plane, the 737 Max. The company gets more than half of the purchase price when new planes are delivered to buyers, so the strike will quickly hurt Boeing’s cash flow.
Ortberg said selected employees will be furloughed for one week every four weeks while retaining their benefits. The CEO and other senior executives will take pay cuts during the duration of the strike, he said, without stating how deep the cuts will be.
All work related to safety, quality, customer support and certification of new planes will continue during the furloughs, he said, including production of 787 Dreamliner jets, which are built by nonunion workers in South Carolina.
Ortberg said in a memo to employees that the company is talking to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers about a new contract agreement that could be ratified.
“However, with production paused across many key programs in the Pacific Northwest, our business faces substantial challenges and it is important that we take difficult steps to preserve cash and ensure that Boeing is able to successfully recover,” he said.
Boeing’s chief financial officer warned employees earlier this week that temporary layoffs were possible.
The company, which is based in Arlington, Virginia, but has most of its commercial-airplanes business located in the Pacific Northwest, is also cutting spending on suppliers, freezing hiring and eliminating most travel.
Despite two full days of talks assisted by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the union said Wednesday that no resolution had been reached and no additional negotiations were scheduled, according to CBS Seattle affiliate KIRO-TV.
Striking workers are picketing at several locations in the Seattle area, Oregon and California. The union, which recommended the offer that members later rejected by a 96% vote, is surveying the workers to learn what they want in a new contract. The union’s last strike at Boeing, in 2008, lasted about two months.
If the walkout doesn’t end soon, Boeing’s credit rating could be downgraded to non-investment or junk status, which would make borrowing more expensive. Shortly after the walkout began Friday, Moody’s put Boeing on review for a possible downgrade, and Fitch said a strike longer than two weeks would make a downgrade more likely.
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