A bipartisan group of former governors reached for an unlikely ally to take on President Donald Trump's Justice Department over uncounted ballots.
On Thursday, 28 former governors from both parties filed a brief with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals leaning on the words of former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to fight the DOJ's lawsuit seeking to stop California officials from counting thousands of ballots. The governors cited an April 2025 Wall Street Journal op-ed in which McConnell wrote that elections "may have national consequences but the power to conduct them rests in state capitols."
They also quoted his line that the "delegation of authority over election administration is crystal clear."
The brief, filed in support of California and a group of immigrant rights advocates who joined the case, calls the lawsuit "a brazenly unlawful and dangerous effort by the federal executive to usurp states' authority to administer elections."
Signers include former California Govs. Jerry Brown and Gray Davis, along with Republican former governors Bill Weld of Massachusetts, Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and Marc Racicot of Montana. Four signers once served as secretaries of state.
According to the brief, the federal government wants local officials to set aside ballots from registered voters based on "its own unspecified, speculative evidence of non-citizen voting." The governors argued Congress already settled the issue through the National Voter Registration Act and Help America Vote Act, which require voters to attest to their citizenship under penalty of perjury.
"Congress, in its considered judgment, declined to give the federal executive the authority it seeks to assert in this lawsuit," the brief states.
The governors also noted that California law requires anyone challenging a mail ballot to meet a standard of "extraordinary proof," with any doubt "resolved in favor of the challenged voter."
They knocked the timing, too, writing that the government "has sought to override existing state and federal laws just days before Election Day, while voters are in the midst of casting mail ballots."
"Amici submit that this lawsuit constitutes a direct assault on our democracy and our constitutional order, and this Court should deny the requested relief," the governors wrote.