Minnesota's limit on the amount of help one person may give to others in casting their ballots violates federal law and the state's constitution, the latest Democratic voting rights lawsuit alleges.
The litigation was announced Thursday by the party's House and Senate campaign committees. They filed it last week against the state's top elections official, Secretary of State Steve Simon, a fellow Democrat.
The suit joins more than a dozen others already filed in the early stages of the 2020 campaign by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, part of an eight-figure attack on state laws they view as attempts to suppress turnout by black people and other minorities or to give Republicans some other political advantage.
Almost all the cases have been brought in places that are presidential tossups or have several hot congressional races In November.
While the Democratic nominee has carried Minnesota in every White House contest since 1976, President Trump came within 2 points (45,000 votes) of winning there last time and has vowed to contest it harder this fall.
The new suit is the second the Democrats have brought in the state. Last fall they sued in federal court challenging a Minnesota law that dictates the order of candidates on the ballot be the reverse of the results of the previous election. That means candidates of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (as its uniquely known in the state) will be listed last this November, which the party argues puts it at a disadvantage.
The Minnesota law challenged by the newest suit states that a person may help no more than three voters complete in-person or absentee ballots. The intent of the law is to prevent efforts to manipulate the votes of elderly, disabled and non-English-speaking voters.
But the lawsuit says the statute directly violates the federal Voting Rights Act requiring that any voter needing assistance has the right to choose whomever they want as a helper. The Democrats also maintain the law presents a burden on the right to vote under the Minnesota Constitution.
Last year, Simon conceded at a state legislative hearing that the limit on helpers may not survive a legal challenge.
The suit argues the law places a particular burden on the large communities of Somalis and Hmong people from Southeast Asia who have settled in Minnesota.
"We should be working to increase access to the ballot, not restrict it," said Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois, the DCCC chairwoman.
Her group and its Senate counterpart, which recruit and help finance congressional candidates, have pledged to spend more than $10 million on their lawsuit strategy, which has so far been pressed in eight states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. They have already scored a handful of wins, most recently when South Carolina officials agreed this week to drop a requirement that complete Social Security numbers be provided on voter registration forms.
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.