One of the Supreme Court’s worst ideas could save the midterms from Trump

In a recent ruling, federal district Judge Indira Talwani has temporarily blocked an attempt by the Trump administration to impose strict regulations on voting by mail, which could significantly impact the upcoming midterm elections. This move is likely to reignite a legal battle that will eventually reach the Supreme Court, where a 6-3 Republican majority could decide whether President Trump is allowed to make unilateral changes to the country's election processes.

Talwani's ruling is based on a legal concept known as the "major questions doctrine," which the Court's Republican majority invented during the Obama administration. This doctrine asserts that the executive branch cannot make sweeping or aggressive policy changes, even if a federal statute seemingly grants them the power to do so. The Court has only previously employed this doctrine against one president, Joe Biden, in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA (2014).

The Trump administration's proposed rules for voting by mail impose numerous bureaucratic layers that many states would likely struggle to comply with, potentially rendering voting by mail in several states impossible. Given that some states rely heavily on mail-in ballots, such a restriction could effectively nullify the 2026 midterms in those states.

The uncertainty lies in whether the Supreme Court will apply the major questions doctrine to Trump's latest attempt to undermine voting by mail. While three Republican justices, Chief Justice John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett, previously ruled that the doctrine prohibits many of Trump's tariffs, the other three Republican justices (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh) did not apply it to a fellow Republican.

If Roberts, Gorsuch, and Barrett uphold the doctrine's application to both Trump and Biden, a majority of the Court, consisting of the three Democrats, could strike down Trump's attempt to sabotage voting by mail.