Amicus Curiae Brief — Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al., Applicants v. California, et al.

Supreme Court briefJul 29, 2026

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No. 26A124

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL., Applicants

STATE OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL., Respondents.

ON APPLICATION TO STAY THE INJUNCTION ISSUED BY THE

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

BRIEF OF COREY J. BIAZZO, ESQ. AS AMICUS CURIAE

IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENTS AND

IN OPPOSITION TO THE APPLICATION

Corey J. Biazzo, Esq.

Counsel of Record

Biazzo Law, PLLC

9801 Lakeview Lane

Parkland, FL 33076

(703) 297-5777

corey@biazzolaw.com

July 29, 2026

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES…………………………………………………………………iii

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE………………………………………………………….1

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT………………………………………………………………..1

ARGUMENT……………………………………………………………………………………3

I. Applicants Cannot Treat Implementation as Speculative for Article III and

Certain for Irreparable Harm…………………………………………………………….….3

II. The Order’s Commands, the Proposed Rule, and the Imminent Final-Rule

Deadline Make This Case Concrete.……………………………………………………..….5

III. General Postal Powers Do Not Clearly Authorize a Voter-Specific Federal

Election Regime.……………………………………………………………………………..…7

IV. The Equities Favor the Existing Election Rules, Not a Late Federal Experiment.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………...10

V. At Minimum, Any Relief Should Be Narrow and Preserve the Injunction Against

Coercive Enforcement.……………………………………………………………………….12

VI. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………....14

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

CASES

Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., 570 U.S. 1 (2013)…………………….9

Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. 477 (2023)…………………………………………………….8

Clapper v. Amnesty International USA, 568 U.S. 398 (2013)…………………………...3

Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243 (2006)……………………………………………………9

Hollingsworth v. Perry, 558 U.S. 183 (2010) (per curiam)……………………………….3

Maryland v. King, 567 U.S. 1301 (2012) (Roberts, C.J., in chambers………………..12

Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418 (2009)………………………………………………….3-4, 10

Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1 (2006) (per curiam)………………………………….2, 11

Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee, 589 U.S. 423

(2020) (per curiam)………………………………………………………………………...…11

Trump v. American Federation of Government Employees, 145 S. Ct. 2635 (2025)….6

Trump v. New York, 592 U.S. 125 (2020)………………………………………………..…6

Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, 573 U.S. 302 (2014)………………………………8

Watson v. Republican National Committee, 609 U.S. ___ (2026)….………..….…….8-9

West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697 (2022)…………………………………………………8

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952)………………………..10

CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY PROVISIONS

U.S. Const. art. I, § 4, cl. 1……………………………………………………………………8

U.S. Const. art. II, § 3………………………………………………………………………..10

iii

U.S. Const. art. III………………………………………………………..……………1, 3-4, 7

18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 241, 371, 611, 1001, 1015…………………………………………………13

39 U.S.C. §§ 401, 404………………………………………………………………...2, 7, 9-10

39 U.S.C. § 3661………………………………………………………………………………10

52 U.S.C. §§ 10307, 20511…………………………………………………………………..13

OTHER AUTHORITIES

Exec. Order No. 14,399, 91 Fed. Reg. 17,125 (Mar. 31, 2026)……………………..1, 5-7

Ballot Mail for Federal Elections, 91 Fed. Reg. 32,915 (June 2, 2026)…………6, 8, 11

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE

Corey J. Biazzo is an appellate advocate, civil litigator, author, and United States

Navy veteran. He has a professional and civic interest in the separation of powers,

federalism, and the evenhanded application of constitutional limits across

administrations. Amicus submits this brief in his individual capacity to identify a

narrow issue of emergency-relief methodology that warrants independent attention:

Applicants rely on mutually incompatible accounts of how concrete Executive Order

No. 14,399 is. That contradiction matters both to Article III and to the Government’s

claim of irreparable injury.1

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

The application rests on a premise that changes when the legal question changes.

To defeat standing and ripeness, Applicants describe implementation of the

Executive Order as uncertain, discretionary, and perhaps never forthcoming. To

establish emergency irreparable harm, they say the injunction is presently

preventing implementation steps that must occur soon if they are to affect the

November 3 election. Both accounts cannot supply the governing facts. If

implementation remains genuinely contingent, the Government has no concrete

emergency injury. If implementation is sufficiently fixed and imminent to be

No counsel for a party authored this brief in whole or in part. No party or counsel for a party made a monetary

contribution intended to fund the preparation or submission of this brief. No person other than Amicus made such a

contribution.

irreparably impaired now, the Plaintiff-Respondents’ compliance costs and disruption

are not speculative either.

The text and chronology favor the latter understanding. Section 2(a) says the

Secretary of Homeland Security “shall” compile and transmit State Citizenship Lists.

Section 3 directs a Postal Service rulemaking and says that any final rule “shall be

issued” within 120 days—July 29, 2026. Section 4(c) required DHS infrastructure

within 90 days. USPS has already proposed the architecture contemplated by the

Order: standardized envelopes, unique barcodes, State submissions of voter

information, and nonacceptance of outbound ballot mail that does not comply. Those

are concrete governmental steps directed at the 2026 election, not an unformed policy

idea.

The application also understates the statutory problem. Sections 401 and 404 of

Title 39 grant broad powers to operate a nationwide postal system. They do not

clearly authorize USPS to construct voter-specific participation lists, condition a

State’s access to ordinary ballot-mail service on transfer of voter data, or make the

Postal Service an auxiliary election administrator. In an area where the Constitution

assigns primary election administration to the States subject to congressional

regulation, such a consequential transfer of authority requires a clear congressional

instruction. General operational language is not enough.

Finally, the equities favor preserving the rules under which States, voters, and

election vendors are already preparing. Denying a stay maintains the familiar postal

and election system while ordinary appellate review proceeds. Granting a stay invites

a new nationwide ballot-mail regime on the eve of a federal election. Purcell’s antidisruption principle points in the same direction. The application should be denied.

At minimum, any relief should preserve the injunction against Section 3’s ballot-mail

conditions and against treating omission from a federal list, or nonparticipation in

the proposed postal program, as a basis for coercive enforcement.

ARGUMENT

APPLICANTS

CANNOT

TREAT

IMPLEMENTATION

SPECULATIVE FOR ARTICLE III AND CERTAIN FOR IRREPARABLE

HARM.

A stay is an exercise of judicial discretion, not a matter of right. Nken v. Holder,

556 U.S. 418, 433–34 (2009). The applicant must make a strong showing that it is

likely to succeed on the merits and demonstrate that irreparable injury is likely

absent a stay. Id. at 434-35. For relief extending through proceedings in this Court,

the applicant must also demonstrate a reasonable probability that certiorari will be

granted. Hollingsworth v. Perry, 558 U.S. 183, 190 (2010) (per curiam). Those

inquiries address different legal elements, but they cannot proceed from

contradictory factual premises.

Applicants’ merits theory is that the challenged directives are not concrete

enough for adjudication. The application repeatedly characterizes agency action as

unresolved: agencies are “still deliberating”; the Order leaves “substantial

discretion”; and implementation may occur only “if at all.” Appl. 2, 11–12. On that

account, any future burden on the States depends on choices agencies have not yet

made. Applicants invoke Clapper v. Amnesty International USA, 568 U.S. 398 (2013),

and related cases to insist that the courts may not anticipate those choices.

But the asserted emergency injury depends on the opposite proposition.

Applicants say the injunction is causing irreparable harm now because ordinary

appellate review will come too late to implement the Order for the November election.

Appl. 2, 26–29. That contention presupposes an identifiable implementation project,

a present timetable, and concrete work that the injunction prevents. A merely

abstract policy preference does not become irreparably injured because an agency

might someday select a lawful means of pursuing it.

Nken makes the problem especially clear. Irreparable harm must be likely, not

merely possible. 556 U.S. at 434–35. If the agencies remain free to decide whether to

adopt material provisions, whether to issue a final postal rule, whether States must

respond to citizenship lists, and whether any program can lawfully operate in 2026,

then Applicants identify no nonconjectural injury from maintaining the injunction

during expedited appellate review. They identify only lost time to pursue a plan

whose content and legality supposedly remain unknown.

If, by contrast, implementation is developed enough that each passing day

irreparably frustrates the federal project, then the States’ injuries are equally

concrete. State election officials must design envelopes, contract with printers,

prepare voter files, train local officials, test systems, and explain procedures to voters

before ballots are mailed. The First Circuit record reflects that this work is already

underway. App. 11a–15a. A nationwide postal rule that conditions acceptance of

ballot mail on new designs, barcodes, enrollment procedures, and data transmissions

necessarily changes those tasks before Election Day.

This is not a rule that Article III standing and irreparable injury always rise or

fall together. It is a narrower point: when the same predicted agency conduct supplies

both the plaintiff’s injury and the Government’s emergency injury, a court should not

accept diametrically opposed levels of factual certainty without explanation. The

Government may contest causation, redressability, or the legality of particular

implementation choices. What it may not do is make the underlying implementation

simultaneously nonexistent and urgent.

The Court can therefore deny a stay without resolving every issue in the merits

appeal. If implementation is truly unsettled, Applicants have not carried their burden

on irreparable harm. If it is imminent and sufficiently specified to create emergency

harm, the application’s threshold premise—that this litigation concerns only

hypothetical future conduct—loses its force. Either way, the extraordinary relief

requested is unwarranted.

II.

THE ORDER’S COMMANDS, THE PROPOSED RULE, AND THE

IMMINENT FINAL-RULE DEADLINE MAKE THIS CASE CONCRETE.

The Executive Order’s operative language is not merely aspirational. Section 2(a)

provides that, to the extent feasible and lawful, DHS “shall take appropriate action

to compile and transmit” a citizenship list to each State, drawn from enumerated

federal databases. It directs transmission no fewer than 60 days before each regularly

scheduled federal election. Section 4(c) likewise says DHS “shall” establish the

necessary infrastructure within 90 days and that SSA “shall provide all necessary

citizenship and identity data.” Exec. Order No. 14,399 §§ 2(a), 4(c), 91 Fed. Reg.

17,125, 17,127 (Mar. 31, 2026). The lawfulness provisos limit the means available;

they do not convert the commanded project into a suggestion.

Section 3 is even more specific. It directed USPS to initiate a rulemaking within

60 days and prescribed what the proposal must include “at minimum.” Those required

subjects included standardized ballot envelopes; unique Intelligent Mail barcodes;

advance notice by States; State transmission of voter lists; enrollment on a USPS

participation list; and a provision that USPS “shall not transmit” ballots from

individuals outside that list. Id. § 3(b). Section 3(d) adds that any final rule pursuant

to that section “shall be issued no later than 120 days” after the Order—July 29, 2026.

USPS complied with the first deadline. Its June 2 proposal did not merely

announce that it would study ballot mail. It proposed a Federal Ballot Mail Program

incorporating envelope reviews, designated markings, unique barcodes, voter-level

information, and a rule that noncompliant outbound ballot mail would not be

accepted. Ballot Mail for Federal Elections, 91 Fed. Reg. 32,915, 32,916–18 (June 2,

2026). The comment period closed July 2. Id. at 32,915. Section 3(d) sets July 29,

2026, as the deadline for any final rule issued pursuant to that section. Applicants

emphasize that the phrase “any final rule” does not necessarily compel USPS to issue

one. But that qualification does not erase the concrete steps already taken: the Order

prescribed the proposal’s minimum contents, USPS issued the contemplated

proposal, the comment period closed, and the specified deadline is imminent.

That record distinguishes Trump v. New York, 592 U.S. 125 (2020), where no

final policy had been selected and the challenged memorandum left open whether and

how the Secretary would transmit information to the President. Id. at 131–33. It also

distinguishes the brief order in Trump v. American Federation of Government

Employees, 145 S. Ct. 2635, 2635 (2025), which stayed an injunction directed at an

executive order while expressly declining to address agency plans that were “not

before this Court.” Here, by contrast, the States challenge specified list and postal

mechanisms; USPS has proposed those mechanisms; and the calendar is doing the

work Applicants say ordinary review cannot do.

The application’s position also creates an unstable remedial cycle. Before a final

rule, the Government says review is premature. After a final rule, it may say election

preparations are too advanced for meaningful relief or that courts should not alter

election rules near Election Day. Article III does not require States to wait until

federal and state deadlines collide, especially when the Government seeks emergency

relief precisely because implementation must occur now.

The Court need not decide that every clause of the Order is equally concrete.

Section 2(a)’s transmission of a federal citizenship list may present a narrower injury

if it imposes no obligation on a State to use the list. But Section 3 is different in kind.

A postal rule refusing to accept outbound ballot mail unless a State satisfies federal

prerequisites acts directly on the service the State must use. That practical

compulsion is present even if the Order labels a State’s advance notice or submission

of information a “choice.”

III.

GENERAL POSTAL POWERS DO NOT CLEARLY AUTHORIZE A

VOTER-SPECIFIC FEDERAL ELECTION REGIME.

The Order identifies 39 U.S.C. § 401 and “other applicable authority” as the basis

for the postal rulemaking. Exec. Order No. 14,399 § 3(b). Section 401 grants USPS

operational powers: to sue and be sued, acquire property, enter contracts, determine

internal organization, and adopt regulations necessary to execute Title 39. Section

404 authorizes postal services, facilities, rates, and related operational decisions.

Those provisions are broad enough to support mail design standards and tracking

technology. They do not clearly assign USPS the separate role of creating voterspecific eligibility or participation infrastructure for federal elections.

That distinction matters. The proposed program does not stop at ordinary

mailability standards. It would require States wishing to use USPS for federal ballots

to provide voter-level information; would create State-specific participation lists;

would associate listed individuals with unique ballot identifiers; and would direct

USPS not to accept outbound ballots that fail the program’s prerequisites. 91 Fed.

Reg. at 32,916–18. Those features use postal operations to regulate who may receive

the instrument of voting and on what conditions a State may send it.

This Court does not lightly read general statutory language to confer

transformative regulatory authority. See West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697, 721–24

(2022); Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. 477, 502–07 (2023); Utility Air Regulatory Group

v. EPA, 573 U.S. 302, 324 (2014).

Whether or not the major-questions doctrine independently resolves this case,

those decisions reinforce a more modest proposition: general operational provisions

should not be read to transfer authority over election administration to an agency

that Congress charged with operating the mail.

Watson v. Republican National Committee, 609 U.S. ___ (2026), sharpens this

point. Watson recognized that Congress possesses ultimate authority to make or alter

regulations governing congressional elections, while explaining that, “[b]y default” . .

. responsibility for the mechanics of those elections belongs to the States. Id. at ___

(slip op., at 1). The Court also emphasized that its decision was statutory and did not

consider the scope of Congress’s constitutional authority to regulate federal elections.

Id. at ___ (slip op., at 5). Its method is nevertheless directly relevant: because the

election-day statutes said nothing about ballot receipt, the Court refused to create a

national rule, explaining that “we cannot add to the words Congress chose.” Id. at ___

(slip op., at 22).

Here, too, Congress may enact a nationwide voter-data or ballot-mail regime.

But 39 U.S.C. §§ 401 and 404 say nothing about voter eligibility, State voter files, or

participation lists that condition the transmission of ballots. Those requirements

cannot be supplied by a general postal delegation or a presidential directive. See

Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., 570 U.S. 1, 8–15 (2013). Arizona

confirms that Congress may supersede state rules governing federal elections, but

the asserted federal rule must derive from an enactment of Congress. General postal

provisions that do not address voter eligibility, state voter files, or ballot-participation

lists do not themselves supply that election-specific command.

Gonzales v. Oregon is instructive. There the Court rejected an Attorney General’s

effort to use a general registration statute to declare the medical legitimacy of a stateregulated practice. 546 U.S. 243, 267–75 (2006). An agency’s authority over one

instrumentality does not silently confer authority over the substantive regulatory

domain in which that instrumentality is used. USPS may regulate envelopes,

barcodes, processing, and delivery. It does not follow that it may condition ballot-mail

service on a federal voter-information regime.

The Postal Reorganization Act’s structure points the same way. USPS exercises

powers granted by Congress through its Board of Governors and Postmaster General;

a presidential order cannot enlarge those powers. Title 39 also contains specific

procedures for postal changes with nationwide service effects. See, e.g., 39 U.S.C. §

3661. Whether those procedures independently apply can be resolved in the merits

litigation. For present purposes, their existence confirms that §§ 401 and 404 are not

blank checks for any policy that can be implemented through the mail.

Youngstown supplies the structural baseline. Presidential power must stem from

an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself. 343 U.S. 579, 585 (1952). When

Congress has assigned operational authority to an independent postal establishment

but has not authorized voter-specific election regulation, the President cannot supply

the missing delegation by command. See id. at 637–38 (Jackson, J., concurring). The

Take Care Clause is a duty to execute law; it is not a source of power to create a new

election code.

Applicants may ultimately show that portions of the proposed rule are ordinary

postal standards severable from the voter-list and nonacceptance provisions. But that

possibility supports narrower merits adjudication, not a wholesale stay. The

provisions that convert mail operations into electoral conditions present the clearest

statutory and constitutional difficulty and the greatest immediate risk to the States.

IV.

THE EQUITIES FAVOR THE EXISTING ELECTION RULES, NOT A

LATE FEDERAL EXPERIMENT.

The remaining stay factors merge when the Government is a party, but they still

require a concrete comparison of harms. Nken, 556 U.S. at 435. Here the injunction

preserves the postal and election practices in effect before March 31. Denying a stay

does not alter ballot eligibility, cancel a postal service, or require any voter to take a

new step. It leaves the parties free to litigate the appeal without changing election

machinery midstream.

Granting a stay has the opposite practical effect. It would permit implementation

of a program designed to affect the November 3 election after election administrators

have begun procurement, programming, training, voter education, and mailing

preparations. The proposed rule itself calls for State notice 90 days before an election

and voter-list submissions 60 days before it. 91 Fed. Reg. at 32,917. Those dates

demonstrate that the program cannot be turned on at the last moment without

immediate state action.

Purcell v. Gonzalez cautions federal courts against changing election rules close

to an election because such changes can create voter confusion and administrative

difficulty. 549 U.S. 1, 4–5 (2006) (per curiam). That principle is not a one-way ratchet

favoring whichever sovereign requests emergency relief. The relevant status quo is

the established system under which States prepare and USPS carries election mail—

not a not-yet-final federal program announced during the election cycle.

Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee illustrates

the concern. The Court acted to prevent a lower court from changing election

procedures at the eleventh hour. 589 U.S. 423, 424–25 (2020) (per curiam). Here it is

Applicants who seek permission to introduce new nationwide requirements after the

election calendar is underway. The asserted federal interest in election integrity is

weighty. So is the States’ interest in orderly elections. The injunction does not

diminish either interest; it prevents an untested postal program from displacing

established safeguards before appellate review.

The familiar proposition that a government suffers injury when prevented from

enforcing a valid law cannot carry Applicants’ burden. See Maryland v. King, 567 U.S.

1301, 1303 (2012) (Roberts, C.J., in chambers). The premise is validity. An executive

order is not an Act of Congress, and the disputed postal conditions have not been

shown to fall within Congress’s delegation. Nor does that generalized interest

establish irreparable injury when the Government simultaneously insists it may

never adopt the measures enjoined.

The asymmetry of risk is decisive. If the stay is denied and Applicants prevail on

appeal, lawful measures can be adopted for future elections after orderly rulemaking.

If the stay is granted and the program proves unlawful, States and voters cannot

reconstruct a completed election or undo confusion, rejected mailings, exposed voter

data, or altered deadlines. There is no do-over for an election administered under

invalid rules.

AT MINIMUM, ANY RELIEF SHOULD BE NARROW AND PRESERVE

THE INJUNCTION AGAINST COERCIVE ENFORCEMENT.

The application seeks a stay of the injunction as a whole, but its own arguments

identify differences among the Order’s provisions. If the Court concludes that merely

compiling and transmitting a Section 2(a) citizenship list does not presently injure

States because they remain free to disregard it, that conclusion does not justify

allowing USPS to refuse ballot mail or allowing federal officials to convert

nonparticipation into an enforcement trigger.

Any partial relief should therefore preserve the injunction as to Section 3(b)(iii),

the proposed nontransmission or nonacceptance requirement, and as to voter-specific

participation lists that condition access to ballot-mail service. Those are the

provisions that operate directly on States’ election machinery and that lack a clear

statutory foundation. Preserving that relief would still permit USPS to study and

propose conventional envelope, barcode, tracking, and design standards within its

ordinary authority.

Any partial relief should also preserve the injunction to the extent it prevents

federal officials from treating omission from a federal citizenship or participation list,

standing alone, as an enforcement predicate. The Order identifies serious criminal

statutes, including 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 241, 371, 611, 1001, and 1015 and 52 U.S.C. §§

10307 and 20511. But those statutes contain their own elements and mens rea

requirements. An executive order cannot add a list-based presumption or create an

offense for declining to use a federal database.

That limiting principle respects both federal enforcement authority and state

election administration. Federal officials remain free to investigate actual evidence

of violations and to prosecute conduct that satisfies every statutory element. States

remain responsible for eligibility determinations under governing law. What neither

side may do is treat the incompleteness or nonuse of a newly created federal list as a

substitute for law.

Narrow relief is particularly appropriate in the emergency posture. It avoids

deciding abstract questions about every possible use of federal data, while preventing

the specific forms of practical compulsion that threaten the ongoing election. But

because Applicants have not shown a likelihood of success or irreparable harm

sufficient to justify any stay, the better course is to deny the application in full.

VI.

CONCLUSION

The application for a stay and request for an administrative stay should be

denied. In the alternative, any relief should preserve the injunction against voterspecific ballot-mail conditions, nonacceptance of ballot mail, and coercive

enforcement based solely on omission from—or nonparticipation in—a federal list.

Respectfully submitted,