Brown cites Supreme Court USPS ruling as key coalition win
Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown, writing in The Guardian’s opinion section on October 8, described a 24-state coalition of Democratic attorneys general working to protect the 2026 midterm elections from what he characterized as a “multi-pronged federal attack” by the Trump administration. Brown, whose state has more than 99 percent of voters casting ballots by mail, said the coalition has secured recent court victories blocking USPS mail-voting restrictions and is prepared for further legal action.
Brown wrote that the coalition, led by the attorneys general of Washington, California, Massachusetts and Nevada, sued to block what he called a Trump administration “USPS plot to interfere with voting by mail.” He said the Supreme Court last month upheld the lower court victories and blocked the administration’s effort “at least for this election.” According to Brown, the law gives states authority over mail-ballot delivery and the USPS “has never had the final say”; he added that the American Postal Workers Union said the new USPS restrictions had no precedent in the agency’s 250-year history.
Brown emphasized that mail voting is widely used across the political spectrum. He noted that more than 99 percent of Washington voters cast ballots by mail and that Colorado, Hawaii and Oregon have similarly high mail-voting rates. Brown also wrote that mail voting is common in Republican-leaning states, particularly those with large rural populations such as Nebraska and the Dakotas. According to Brown, mail voting is also “the president’s preferred way to cast his own ballot.”
Beyond the USPS case, Brown described broader Trump administration actions he characterized as undermining election security. He wrote that many federal officials who participated in 2020 election protection efforts were “sent packing upon Trump’s return to office” and that the administration pardoned individuals he called “convicted insurrectionists.” Brown wrote that the U.S. solicitor general characterized the mail-voting effort as a “modest” use of federal authority and that Trump publicly demanded supporters “cheat like hell” in midterm voting.
Brown wrote that the 2020 election was protected by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, with efforts to misuse the Justice Department thwarted and Trump having “relied on insurrectionists to do his bidding.” He contrasted that 2020 posture with the current administration’s approach, which he said abandons the federal government’s “traditional role of supporting election security and defending voting rights.” Brown said he had participated in such work “first-hand as a US attorney.”
Brown said the Democratic state attorneys general have “undertaken the largest multistate effort to protect the vote in modern American history.” He said recent rulings show “the law is on our side” and pledged swift legal action if the administration attempts to intimidate voters or obstruct vote counting and certification. According to Brown, states have decades of experience countering such threats from private actors and “they are just as illegal when attempted by the federal government.”
Brown urged eligible voters to participate, writing that “the president’s scheming benefits from public doubt and uncertainty” and that “democracy depends on the participation of its citizens.” He said voters should have the opportunity to “render a verdict on their elected representatives.”
Brown also wrote about Trump’s record, saying the president “ran on lowering costs, preserving peace, and economic stability, but instead delivered higher prices, hollowed out critical public services, engaged in unprecedented self-dealing, and began a globally destabilizing war with no end in sight.” Brown concluded his piece by writing: “Presidents don’t decide elections. State attorneys general and the millions of eligible voters we represent will exercise our constitutional powers to help keep it that way.”