US judge dismisses DNC election commission lawsuit, in a victory for Trump
A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) claiming President Donald Trump's executive orders had threatened the independence of the Federal Election Committee (FEC), a significant – albeit rare – court victory for the president.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee, said the DNC failed to demonstrate "concrete and imminent injury" – or the burden needed to justify their request for a preliminary injunction. He said that the concerns raised by the party about the FEC's independence as a result of Trump's executive order were far too speculative to satisfy the court's higher bar for emergency relief.
At issue in the case was the executive order Trump signed on Feb. 18, titled, "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies."
Democrats filed the lawsuit just 10 days after the order was signed, arguing that the order threatened to encroach on the independence of the FEC and risked subjecting it to the whims of the executive branch.
The lawsuit focused largely on the claim that the FEC is an independent regulatory agency and argued that the credibility of the entire regulatory enterprise would be "fatally undermined if the party controlling the White House can unilaterally structure campaign rules and adjudicate disputes to disadvantage its electoral competitors."
Notably, Ali said Tuesday that he had not found any evidence to date that the White House or the Trump administration had taken steps to change or undermine how the FEC interprets federal election law, or target its independent role.
The "possibility that the president and attorney general would take the extraordinary step of issuing a directive to the FEC or its Commissioners purporting to bind their interpretation of FECA is not sufficiently concrete and imminent to create Article III injury," Ali said Tuesday.
Should that change, however, Ali said the DNC was welcome to submit an amended filing to the court to reconsider the case.
"This Court's doors are open to the parties if changed circumstances show concrete action or impact on the FEC's or its Commissioners' independence," Ali said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Elgin High School educator Melissa Evon named as Oklahoma's 2025 teacher of the year
An Elgin educator has been chosen as Oklahoma's 2025 teacher of the year. Melissa Evon, who teaches family and consumer sciences at Elgin High School in Comanche County, was announced as the winner of the honor on the night of Friday, June 27, at the Oklahoma State Department of Education's annual InspireOK conference, held this year in Norman. 'Melissa represents the very best Oklahoma has to offer,' said state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters. 'She has the heart of a teacher and unmatched passion for her students and we are so proud to recognize her exemplary work.' Evon has worked as an educator since 1992, according to the state agency. She is the first Elgin Public Schools teacher to receive the honor since Oklahoma named its first state teacher of the year in 1955. When the list of 10 finalists for the award was announced in March, Evon – in a social media post from the agency – discussed her love of teaching. 'Teaching is a profession where the most extraordinary moments occur in the unexpected connections, the collaborative discoveries, and the triumphs of students realizing their own potential,' she said. 'Each day, as I step into my Family and Consumer Sciences classroom, I'm grateful for the opportunity to be a part of my students' learning journeys. 'I see my role as similar to that of a silversmith, patiently refining, uncovering potential, and revealing the brilliance within each student. I believe in the lasting impact of acts of kindness and in fostering an environment where these bright young minds can thrive and discover their unique strengths.' Nate Meraz, the superintendent of Elgin Public Schools, said Evon has been named three times as that district's teacher of the year -- first as a high school history teacher, then as a middle school history teacher and now as a consumer science teacher. "Everything Melissa touches turns gold," Meraz told The Oklahoman. "She is one of the best human beings you'll ever meet. Go to your Facebook page and enter her name in the search bar right now; you'll see how many people mentioned her and have stories about how she has impacted their lives. It is truly amazing! "She seeks zero attention or praise and actually would shun the spotlight, but, our parents, school staff and our community all keep putting her in the spotlight with the amazing stories of how she impacts our students' lives on a daily basis." Each of the 10 state finalists were named as the teacher of the year at their school site, then within their school district. It's unclear who made the decision to choose the 10 finalists. The state Department of Education said in March the finalists would be evaluated by a panel of Oklahomans, but never said who would serve on that panel. According to the state Department of Education, Evon will spend the next year serving as the Oklahoma Ambassador of Teaching, sharing knowledge and resources with other educators around the state. She also will represent the state in the national teacher-of-the-year competition. The other nine finalists were Shelly Austin of Cushing High School, G. Bruce Riggs of Claremore High School, Paula Caudill of Collinsville Upper Elementary School, Jennifer Meyer of Grove Elementary School, Melissa Lytle of Bixby North Intermediate School, Chrystal Reis of L.W. Westfall Elementary School in Choctaw, Shaunda Usry of Robert E. Lee Early Childhood Center in Durant, Lauren Draper of Tuttle Middle School and Stacey Barker of Merritt Elementary School. The 2024 state teacher of the year was Rachel Keith from Ada High School. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Elgin High School educator named as 2025 Oklahoma teacher of the year
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Authors call on publishers to limit their use of AI
An open letter from authors including Lauren Groff, Lev Grossman, R.F. Kuang, Dennis Lehane, and Geoffrey Maguire calls on book publishers to pledge to limit their use of AI tools, for example by committing to only hire human audiobook narrators. The letter argues that authors' work has been 'stolen' by AI companies: 'Rather than paying writers a small percentage of the money our work makes for them, someone else will be paid for a technology built on our unpaid labor.' Among other commitments, the authors call for publishers to 'make a pledge that they will never release books that were created by machine' and 'not replace their human staff with AI tools or degrade their positions into AI monitors.' While the initial letter was signed by an already impressive list of writers, NPR reports that another 1,100 signatures were added in the 24 hours after it was initially published. Authors are also suing tech companies over using their books to train AI models, but federal judges dealt significant blows to those lawsuits earlier this week.
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tipalti's Darren Upson on the strategic use of AI-driven finance
Tipalti currently serves over 5,000 companies via AI-driven solutions to automate finance operations. These include accounts payable, employee expenses, global pay-outs, procurement, supplier management, and tax compliance. What should excite Tipalti's backers is the sheer scale of the addressable market of prospects not yet using AI-powered finance software. 'There are a huge number of companies, especially those of a more traditional nature, that have not even scratched the surface of automation and what it can do for their businesses,' says Darren is a fully automated, cloud-based platform that simplifies the most complex finance workflows, helping its clients manage end-to-end payables across multiple entities, currencies, and countries—with built-in compliance. And its seamless ERP integrations gives complete visibility and control. So, it eliminates manual work and speeds up the entire payables process, automating everything from invoice approval to global payments and reconciles data seamlessly. That summary is hardly over-techy and should be understandable to even the most basic of business leaders. The Tipalti proposition is boosted by the backing of JPMorgan Chase, which is about as good as it gets if you had the widest possible choice of potential financial backers. Back in 2023, Tipalti raised $150m in growth financing from JPMorgan and Hercules Capital. At the time, it brought total funding to more than $550m and valued the firm at over $8bn. JPMorgan is also one of the major banks Tipalti uses to route its billions of dollars' worth of supplier payments on behalf of its customers. 'We work in the fintech space as an automation platform for accounts payable and also mass payments as well. We are both a software company and a financial services business. We execute payments for our businesses and we handle the whole accounts payable process from start to finish, basically stripping out all of the manual, redundant processes associated with accounts payable. 'As that is the most time-consuming part of finance, we're trying to help organisations, especially those fast-growing businesses, to actually put their people to better use and leverage technology to really do that manual, repetitive work more efficiently, faster and to be more scalable as well.' He says that a typical client firm will be high-growth, pre-IPO outfits that have already embraced automation. They will be firms that understand how automation enables them to be more agile as an organisation. 'The big challenge that exists now is individuals' understanding the art of the possible. There's a lot of people that think that they've already automated everything they can do. But there's always more and with AI tools and the technology that exists out there, there's so many more areas across an organisation that you can automate to create more efficiency, especially when businesses are looking to try and retain and attract talent as well. It's about, how do they make sure that the people that are coming into the workforce now are doing roles that are actually fulfilling and that they enjoy.' In the run up to the UK's Labour government first budget, there was much negative press coverage forecasting doom and gloom if taxes such as capital gains tax were raised. In the end, the rate of increase was not as steep as the most pessimistic forecasts but CGT did rise from 20% to 24% for higher rate taxpayers. And given the track record over history of past Labour governments, further tax rises are more likely than any tax cuts. Upson says that the UK is still the number one destination out of North America for start-ups. 'We've got such a hotbed of talent, and we've got a large banking infrastructure in place as well. So [tax changes] do not mean that the lights are going to go out overnight. But I think that there have to be more incentives to actually attract and support individuals that are looking to build the next big thing.' "Tipalti's Darren Upson on the strategic use of AI-driven finance" was originally created and published by Retail Banker International, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
