Everyone in Texas has a constitutional right to vote absentee because of the coronavirus pandemic, a federal judge has ruled.
The decision by Judge Fred Biery is the latest volley in what looks to be a protracted legal battle, in both state and federal courts, over who may avoid the possibility of viral infection at a Texas polling place this year. The fight is especially important because Texas is the second most populous state, a hotbed of hot contests this fall — and also among just a handful of states that have not relaxed stringent eligibility rules for voting by mail.
The ruling was among three fresh developments Tuesday in courthouses across the country, which have become the venue for dozens of fights between voting rights groups and conservative state governments over the rules for remote voting during a public health emergency. These are the details:
Texas
The decision by Biery, which begins with the opening words of the Declaration of Independence, provides a preliminary injunction while the pandemic is ongoing — allowing anyone trying to avoid the virus to obtain an absentee ballot for the July primary runoffs and the November election. Texas is one of 16 states with laws on the books requiring a specific excuse for people to absentee ballot, but a dozen of them have implemented workarounds this spring .
In Texas, one of the available excuses is a disability. The judge said that should apply to all registered voters who "lack immunity from Covid-19 and fear infection at polling places," which is similar to the view several state governments have taken.
A state court judge ruled similarly in a separate lawsuit last month, declaring the pandemic must allow voters to qualify for absentee ballots under the disability excuse. Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed and threatened to prosecute election officials in the state's big cities who were starting to issue mail ballots without the usual excuses. And last week the state Supreme Court agreed to put a hold on expanded absentee voting until it considered the state's appeal
In another sweeping determination, Biery said another permissible excuse - being older than 65 - amounts to unconstitutional age discrimination against younger voters. Lawsuits pressing the same arguments are pending in several states where the elderly may always vote absentee but others may not.
One expert, Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, predicted the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals would overturn the ruling because its legal rationale was shaky.
Louisiana
The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Fair Elections Center, suing the state on behalf of the League of Women Voters, asked a federal judge to declare unconstitutional the requirement that people have a specified excuse before using an absentee ballot in either the July presidential primary or local elections in august..
It also argues the requirement that a witness' signature be on an absentee ballot is unconstitutional, as are current rules that don't permit voters to fix any problems with their absentee ballots, such as failing to sign or date them properly.
The suit says the effect of all the rules is to discriminate against old and minority voters. Suits are working their way through the courts challenging similar absentee ballot regulations in several other states.
Minnesota
Another challenge to witness signature requirements on absentee ballots was filed by the League of Women Voters in federal court in St. Paul. The coronavirus pandemic means that people will be unconstitutionally forced to risk their health in order to get someone to come close enough to countersign their envelopes ahead of the statewide primaries Aug. 11, the lawsuit argues.
Michelle Witte, executive director of the league, said the requirement hits seniors and minority voters particularly hard. "The current law requiring an absentee ballot witness unnecessarily exposes them to greater risk of contracting this deadly virus," she said.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.