Briefing: Data Security, Infectious Disease Control + more
With mere weeks before the first midterm ballots go out, the Supreme Court is considering whether the Trump administration’s plan to restrict voting by mail should be allowed to proceed. Our Data Security team has this story and more. We also have updates on leadership confirmation and partisan contempt in Infectious Disease Control, plus the ongoing fights over Archives & History and Trans Healthcare.
Data Security
Data Security added 23 new items to our timeline, where you can learn how the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Administration for Children and Families, and ICE’s “Office of Professional Responsibility” are being weaponized in ways that run entirely counter to their missions. But today we focus on a single high-profile instance of weaponization: the administration’s attempt to use the US Postal Service to restrict voting by mail.
At issue are new USPS rules that would create a national voter list using deeply flawed federal datasets and then refuse to deliver ballots to anyone not on that list. Earlier this year, 24 states sued for help, and in June, a federal judge blocked the rule change. With less than six weeks until the first midterm ballots are mailed, the White House has now asked the Supreme Court to allow the plan to proceed. The court’s decision may hinge on a technicality: The government is arguing that because the new rules aren’t yet in effect, no harm has happened and the 24 states shouldn’t be allowed to sue. (An appeals court in DC recently agreed with this argument in a separate, similar case.) The states’ counterargument is that all of this is already interfering with election preparations, and more importantly, that implementing the new rule will produce chaos and an “intolerable risk” of mass disenfranchisement — which is the exact risk the Supreme Court’s own “Purcell principle” was designed to avoid. Voting advocates, former judges, and civil rights organizations are among those urging the court to uphold the block.
Infectious Disease Control & Prevention
The Infectious Disease Control team added 17 new entries to our timeline. As the US sets a new record for measles cases, the Government Accountability Office finds huge gaps in our infectious disease surveillance systems and pandemic preparedness. Meanwhile, Republican senators have voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress following a theatrical committee hearing designed to bait him into perjury. On Wednesday, Dr. Erica Schwartz was confirmed as the new CDC Director after a hearing in which she affirmed her support for vaccines but also avoided the question of whether she will refuse to obey orders that are unsupported by science and good public health practice. Finally, some good news: A year after freezing congressionally appropriated vaccination funds, the State Department has released $600 million in funding for Gavi, an organization that provides vaccines for low-income countries.
Archives & History
The Archives & History team added 6 new entries to our timeline. Attacks on the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History are escalating: Republicans questioned its director about the Smithsonian’s “woke ideology” in a congressional hearing, and Trump issued an executive order requiring the museum to post signs warning visitors that it tells an “inaccurate” version of American history. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, 20 of whose 24 members are Trump appointees, voted to weaken the review process for construction projects that could endanger national historic sites. The decision redefines which properties count as “historic” and drops the requirement for input from Native American tribes, historic preservation societies, and the general public. And in “if we don’t write it down, it didn’t happen” news, the Department of Education stopped collecting civil rights data on harassment, bullying, and assault of nonbinary students.
Transgender Healthcare
The Trans Healthcare team added 3 new entries to our timeline. Federal employees sued the government over its elimination of insurance coverage of hormone replacement and gender-affirming surgery for trans people under the Federal Employees and Postal Service Health Benefits Programs, but notably not for cisgender people who need the same care. A federal judge presiding over an ongoing lawsuit against the ban on transgender troops asked the administration to explain how the DOD’s plan for mandatory testosterone testing and subsequent hormone supplementation for cisgender men squared with its ban on providing the same care for trans servicemen. And another federal judge accused the DOJ of violating his order to return incarcerated transgender women to women’s prisons, after the DOD instead segregated them in a special unit under 23-hour-per-day lockdown, posing severe mental and physical harm.
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