President Donald Trump’s U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday asked a Wyoming federal court to let it help defend the state’s new voter citizenship law by filing a brief.
The Equality State Policy Center, which is a coalition of other nonprofit groups, sued Secretary of State Chuck Gray on May 9 to stop the new law which, as of Tuesday, requires proof of U.S. citizenship and 30 days’ Wyoming residency to register to vote in the state.
The group said the law will heap unnecessary burdens on challenged groups like women, products of the foster-care system, transgender people, some Hispanic people and others.
The United States government, through the office of Acting U.S. Attorney for Wyoming Stephanie Sprecher, filed a motion asking permission to file an amicus brief in the case in support of Gray.
“This case presents important questions regarding enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment’s voting rights protections, in which the United States has a substantial interest,” says the filing.
This follows a Thursday motion by the Republican National Committee, which wants to intervene as a party in the case to defend the law.
The federal government’s proposed brief points to the U.S. Constitution’s grant of state authority to regulate the “times, places and manner of holding elections,” and the federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires attestation of citizenship when registering for a driver’s license.
