California just gave America a front row seat to what happens when one activist judge tries to put herself above federal election law. And for once, the law fought back fast.
In the final days before the November 3 midterm, the Department of Justice moved to enforce the most basic rule in American elections: only American citizens vote. Judge Trina Thompson, a Biden appointee in the Northern District of California, tried to shut that enforcement down cold. She got her order, she got her headlines, and then she got reversed. Twice.
This was not a close call. This was a judge rushing to block law enforcement, and a higher court locking her order down.
What The DOJ Was Actually Doing
The DOJ was not inventing new law. It was enforcing federal prohibitions on noncitizen voting. The department had sued California officials on October 15 and pushed election officials in California and Washington to set aside ballots associated with people federal officials suspect are noncitizens until their citizenship can be verified.
That is textbook enforcement. Flag the questionable ballots, segregate them, verify them, count only the legal ones. No legal voter loses a vote. No illegal vote gets counted in secret.
The DOJ had also sent letters, delivered with uniformed DHS officers, to county officials across California listing purported noncitizen registrants. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli warned that officials who knowingly process a noncitizen ballot are opening themselves to legal jeopardy. That warning is the entire point of having a federal election fraud law in the first place.
California officials did not want to cooperate. Labor unions and civil rights groups, including the NAACP, filed suit on Oct. 29 to stop the DOJ from even asking.
They found their judge in Thompson.
Thompson Jumps In And Shuts Enforcement Down
On Friday, October 30, Thompson issued a temporary restraining order barring the DOJ from threatening to prosecute state and local election officials who do not follow the department's directives for handling ballots.
Her order restricted federal demands to remove registered voters, withhold ballots, or segregate or refuse to count ballots solely because federal officials alleged voter ineligibility. It also restricted related prosecution threats.
In plain English, she told federal law enforcement: stop enforcing federal law in California three days before an election.
Thompson, whom former President Joe Biden nominated, ordered the DOJ not to threaten, intimidate or coerce state or local elections officials or workers to demand that they halt processing the ballots that the federal government suspects may have been cast by noncitizens.
That was not a neutral ruling. That was a shield for California's broken voter rolls, handed down just in time to make sure the DOJ could not act before votes were processed and counted.
The Rush Job That Gave The Game Away
Here is the part that should outrage every voter, no matter their party.
Thompson issued that temporary restraining order on an ex parte basis, without first giving the government an opportunity to respond. She concluded that the approaching election created a risk of immediate and irreparable harm before the government could be heard in opposition.
Think about that. The federal government, the DOJ, the DHS, did not even get to make its case before a California judge blocked its enforcement operation nationwide. Thompson's order appears to apply nationwide, even though she is based in Northern California.
The DOJ appealed Thompson's order to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Saturday.
A judge who was confident in her law would have waited to hear both sides. Thompson did not wait. She was in such a rush to enjoin that she did so ex parte, a fact even commentators on the DOJ side flagged immediately.
That rush was not judicial restraint. That was judicial activism on a deadline.
The 9th Circuit Slams The Brakes
On Monday, November 2, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit paused Thompson's restraining order.
The panel, in a 2-1 decision, stayed Thompson's order. Circuit Judges Carlos Bea and Consuelo Callahan concluded that the challenged requests and enforcement activities fell within executive authority and did not unlawfully displace state election procedures.
Translation: the DOJ was doing its job. Asking states to verify citizenship, preserve ballots, and follow federal law is not coercion. It is core executive function.
For a few hours, the law was back in charge.
Then came the whiplash. The court voted to rehear the case en banc and vacated the panel ruling, putting Thompson's order temporarily back in force as voters headed to the polls.
That is how the California machine works. Lose on the law, call for a do-over, hope the clock runs out before the ballots are counted.
It did not work this time.
The Law Locks Thompson Down For Good
On Tuesday, an expanded panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Thompson's order restricting the Trump administration's demands that election officials segregate ballots from suspected noncitizens and its related warnings of criminal prosecution, handing the Justice Department a decisive victory on Election Day.
The en banc panel's decision suspended restrictions imposed by U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson, marking another quick reversal in the fast-moving case.
Tuesday afternoon's decision returned the advantage to the DOJ, lifting Thompson's restrictions while the underlying litigation continues.
Although the court's Monday night vote for rehearing erased the initial panel ruling favoring the DOJ, Tuesday's en banc decision again suspended Thompson's order.
Read that twice. Thompson tried to block enforcement. The full court blocked her block.
Her order was not just paused. It was suspended. The DOJ was free again to make its demands and to warn officials that breaking federal election law carries criminal consequences. The win for the government is limited and does not force California to segregate any mail ballots, but it removes the gag Thompson tried to put on federal prosecutors.
That is what getting locked by the law looks like.
Why This Fight Matters Far Beyond California
This was never just about 20,000 flagged ballots in California. This was about who runs American elections: the voters and the law, or activist judges who think they can veto federal enforcement whenever it gets politically inconvenient.
Thompson tried to use a temporary restraining order as a political weapon. She tried to protect a system that lets questionable ballots flow through without verification. She tried to intimidate federal prosecutors out of doing their jobs by labeling prosecution warnings as intimidation.
The 9th Circuit said no.
If a judge can block the DOJ from even asking a county to segregate a suspect ballot, then there is no federal election law left. Any state could ignore any federal fraud investigation by running to a friendly judge on a Friday night before an election.
That is exactly what California tried. And for one brief, shining moment on Election Day, the higher court refused to let it stand.
Thompson's order is now suspended. The DOJ enforcement is back on. And California's attempt to make election fraud enforcement illegal in its own backyard just got locked down by the very law Thompson tried to rewrite.
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