The latest episode of Lawfare's Rational Security podcast, with Benjamin Wittes, Molly Roberts, and Molly Reynolds, examines two legal flashpoints: the Trump administration's use of pocket rescissions to cancel appropriated funds and its push to reshape election administration before the midterms.
On September 25, the White House sent Congress an $810 million rescission request, timing it so the money would expire at the end of the fiscal year on September 30—before the 45 days Congress has to review it. It is the second such maneuver after the Supreme Court allowed a roughly $4 billion foreign assistance rescission last year. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins and Democratic appropriators have called the move illegal, the Government Accountability Office agrees, and seven states have sued. Some district courts are now weighing whether to use equitable and statutory authority to suspend the expiration date of the disputed funds, a largely untested remedy that could deter future pocket rescissions.
On elections, the Supreme Court on September 25 allowed the Department of Homeland Security to resume using its revamped SAVE citizenship database to help states screen voter rolls for noncitizens. But federal courts have pushed back on other administration measures, including a proposed mail-in-ballot rule, efforts to compel states to provide voter rolls, and the withholding of counterterrorism grants from jurisdictions that do not adopt the administration's preferred election changes. The panel asks which parts of the election system remain safe 30 days out and which are still under threat.
The episode does not resolve these questions, but it highlights the administration's willingness to test the limits of executive control over federal funds and elections—and the legal system's uneven response.