✏️ Legal Pad
Return to Sender
On Monday the Supreme Court told the Postal Service to stand down. In a one-paragraph unsigned order in United States Postal Service v. California, No. 26A305, the Court refused to lift a federal judge's injunction against new mail ballot rules, so the November 3 midterms will run on the mail voting rules we've always had. Justices Thomas and Alito dissented. One paragraph, seven weeks out, deciding how a third of the country votes.
The rules, adopted last month at the President's direction, would have required states to redesign ballot envelopes with individualized bar codes, upload every mail-eligible voter's name and address into a new federal portal, and get postal sign-off before a single ballot went out. Twenty-three states sued, Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts enjoined the rules, and the administration asked for an emergency stay.
The Court's reasoning fit in a sentence: the government is "unlikely to succeed on the merits," and the "equitable factors" don't favor emergency relief. Translation: you probably can't do this, and you certainly can't do it seven weeks out. Justice Kavanaugh was more candid: there's "at least a fair prospect" the rules are lawful, but election officials "do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement" them. Justice Alito, dissenting, said the Postal Service has "broad power to regulate the delivery of mail" and blamed the states for the timing.
The Court didn't say the word, but the idea underneath Kavanaugh's vote is the Purcell principle, from Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1 (2006): courts shouldn't change election rules on the eve of an election, because confusion disenfranchises people all by itself. Purcell usually cuts against challengers. This time it cut against the government, which was the one changing the rules. The lesson isn't political. It's the oldest one in litigation: being right doesn't help if you're late.
Closer to Home: North Carolina had already started mailing ballots when the Court ruled, which explains a lot. It has no-excuse absentee voting; you just need two witnesses or a notary and a copy of your photo ID. South Carolina still requires a reason (65 or older, out of the county, disability, work), one adult witness, and a ballot back in the county office by 7:00 p.m. on Election Day. Both states would have been reprinting envelopes and uploading voter lists to a federal portal that, by the Postal Service's own admission, didn't work yet. Our county election offices dodged a bad October.
💡 Sidebar
Football Is Back. Football Is Gone.
Saturdays in the South are back. But if you fell asleep in 2015 and woke up this September, you wouldn't recognize the sport. Lane Kiffin, who once left Tennessee after one season and started a small riot, left Ole Miss last November with his team in the playoff hunt and took the LSU job. LSU then reportedly spent north of $40 million on its roster and brought in 40 transfers. That isn't a recruiting class. That's an expansion draft.
Since the House settlement, schools pay players directly, around $20 million a year with NIL money stacked on top. The quarterback down the road has an agent, a general manager negotiating his deal, and a million-dollar house off campus. Everyone is a free agent every December, and again in the spring. You learn a kid's name in September and he's playing for your rival by New Year's. These are professionals. They just happen to have a Tuesday lab.
As a lawyer, I can't complain. The kids are finally getting paid for the billions they generate, and it all runs on contracts now, a language I speak. As a fan, I miss the version where a guy stayed four years and you hated him for the right reasons. Football is back. That football is gone.
⚖️ Closing Arguments
Don't Marry a D1 Athlete
Pat Alderson arrived in early September. Mom and baby are happy and healthy, big sister has no concept of personal space (please stop putting your hands in the baby’s mouth), and dad is tired. But, despite my near delusional level of exhaustion, I’ve arrived at an important life lesson.
Do not marry a Division I athlete. I did, and I'm here to tell you it's terrible. Ashley pitched Division I softball, which means she spent her formative years standing forty-three feet from someone swinging a metal bat at her, alone in a circle, with nowhere to hide and nobody to blame. I’ve learned that does something to a person. It builds a kind of concentration the rest of us don't have access to. She grew up staring down a full count with the bases loaded and didn’t blink. I had not, until the birth of our daughter three years ago, watched her apply that same look to a delivery room. I got a refresher course at the beginning of this month.
She treated labor like a conference championship. Got called in from the bull pen (literally, the hospital called us at lunch and said ‘come in’), executed the game plan, and was mentally prepping the discharge timeline before I'd figured out how to make the hospital couch into a bed again. No drama, no complaints, no wasted motion. Between contractions she was calm the way a sniper breathes between shots: breathe, reset, deliver. The nurses were impressed. I was in the way and avoided eye contact. I imagine that’s how her back-ups felt in college.
Then came the aftermath, which for normal people involves rest. Not here. Two weeks in, she's up before both kids, has the house running on a schedule I wasn't consulted on, and somehow looks like she didn’t just pop a human being out earlier this month. She's tracking feedings like pitch counts. Meanwhile I, a man who did none of the hard parts (although read my earlier post about that), need a nap by 10:00 a.m. and a pep talk to find my golf cart keys. I've never thrown a pitch in my life, and it shows. At least our son has her for an athletic role model.
Living with machinery like that makes the rest of us feel, well, mortal. You can't complain about being tired to someone who used to throw both games of a doubleheader in coastal South Carolina heat. You can't win an argument with someone whose entire athletic career was a series of one-on-one confrontations where she was charged with hurling a rock in someone else’s general direction. And you certainly can't keep up. So take my advice: marry someone who also needs a nap. Or marry the machine. I did, and I'm the luckiest tired guy in town.
Court is in recess- see you next Friday.
