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# SCOTUS blocks mail-in voting changes.
- URL: https://www.readtangle.com/scotus-blocks-mail-in-voting-changes/
- Published: 2026-09-16T15:51:13.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-16T15:51:13.000Z
- Description: Plus, why doesn’t Congress act on ideas that poll well?
- Author: Isaac Saul
- Tags: Supreme Court, SCOTUS, Mail-in ballots, Mail-in voting, Voting laws, USPS, Polling, Donald Trump, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, 2026 midterms, Executive order, U.S. Postal Service v. California

Happy Wednesday. I’m **Isaac Saul,** heading today’s newsletter from our brand new, fully operational studio in my detached garage. Years of work and saving have at last led to a Tangle HQ space that I own, and I’m thrilled to start a new chapter of work here — including fresh recordings of *Suspension of the Rules* starting this afternoon (don’t forget to [subscribe to our YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@tanglenews?ref=readtangle.com)).

Today, we’re tacklingthe Supreme Court’s **latest mail-in ballots ruling** and the president’s reaction. Plus, our latest video **on how safe your food really is** and a reader question about **why popular policies don’t become law.** It’s a **13-minute read.** Off we go.

| Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Audrey Moorehead, Carina Pacheco, Russell Nystrom, Isaac Wood, and Bailey Saul edited or contributed to today’s newsletter. |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |

### Is our food safe?

If you’ve seen a rash of recent headlines about food recalls affecting an array of products, you’ve probably wondered what’s going on with America’s food suppliers. In his latest report, Associate Producer Aidan Gorman explores what’s behind the recalls, whether they’re happening more frequently, and what the cases reveal about food safety in the U.S. Check it out here:

### Quick hits.

1. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, taking questions from senators about his personal conduct as well as the agency’s hiring standards and investigations into journalists. ([The hearing](https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/fbi-director-kash-patel-testify-senate-panel/?ref=readtangle.com)) Separately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent testified before the House Financial Services Committee, with Democratic lawmakers questioning his management of the bond market. ([The hearing](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/15/scott-bessent-house-hearing-economy-midterms.html?ref=readtangle.com))
2. The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts board voted to close the venue shortly after a federal judge ruled that it cannot add President Donald Trump’s name to the building without congressional approval. President Trump claimed the center must be closed due to safety concerns. ([The vote](https://apnews.com/article/kennedy-center-closure-board-trump-ruling-1dfbfaac695f6817719477101b971a54?ref=readtangle.com))
3. The FBI arrested a Pennsylvania man who is accused of pledging allegiance to ISIS and plotting to carry out a terrorist attack. ([The arrest](https://www.foxnews.com/us/pennsylvania-man-accused-plotting-isis-attack-arrested-rifle-190-rounds-ammunition-doj?ref=readtangle.com))
4. Pennsylvania announced its fourth measles-related death in the past month. ([The deaths](https://www.wsj.com/us-news/fourth-measles-related-death-reported-in-pennsylvania-2ab55b17?ref=readtangle.com))
5. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink disclosed for the first time that the United States has weapons positioned in the Earth’s orbit, describing them as “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.” ([The comments](https://abcnews.com/Politics/air-force-secretary-acknowledges-us-weapons-space/story?id=136437923&ref=readtangle.com))

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### Today’s topic. 

The mail-in ballots ruling. On Monday, the Supreme Court [denied](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/09/supreme-court-denies-trump-administrations-request-to-implement-parts-of-usps-rule-on-mail-in-vo/?ref=readtangle.com) a request from the Trump administration to allow the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to carry out parts of President Donald Trump’s executive order placing new regulations on mail-in voting. The president had issued the [order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections/?ref=readtangle.com) in March to address alleged voter fraud, and the Supreme Court [overturned](https://www.readtangle.com/scotus-mail-in-ballots-august-2026/) a lower court’s block on parts of the executive order in August. The Court’s most recent decision prevents the order from taking effect before the November midterm elections.

**Back up:** On March 31, President Trump [issued](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections/?ref=readtangle.com) Executive Order 14399, directing the Department of Homeland Security to maintain lists of eligible voters in each state. Separately, the order requires USPS to receive a list of eligible mail-in voters from each state before transmitting that state’s mail-in ballots. In June, following a challenge from 23 states and Washington, D.C., District Court Judge Indira Talwani [blocked](https://www.votebeat.org/national/2026/06/25/trump-election-overhaul-mail-voting-executive-order-blocked-talwani-usps-dhs/?ref=readtangle.com) part of the order’s implementation in those jurisdictions. The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which found the coalition of states challenged the order too soon and [stayed](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a305%5F4g15.pdf?ref=readtangle.com) Talwani’s injunction. 

However, the Court did not opine on the legality of the order, nor did it rule on a [second injunction](https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/6023907-judge-blocks-usps-trump-voter-order/?ref=readtangle.com) barring USPS from taking steps to implement the executive order in place, allowing states to sue once the USPS began enacting the order. States challenged the USPS’s changes, and Talwani [issued](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/postal-service-violated-mail-in-ballot-injunction-judge-finds?ref=readtangle.com) a temporary restraining order blocking the USPS’s envelope design and voter-data-portal provisions. After the restraining order converted to a preliminary injunction, the administration appealed Talwani’s decision to the Supreme Court.

On Monday, the Court issued an [unsigned opinion](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a305%5F4g15.pdf?ref=readtangle.com) finding that “the Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge.” In a one-paragraph concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the rule would be “arbitrary and capricious” because “state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.” Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, referring to the states’ challenge to the executive order as a “Hail Mary pass” and saying that some plaintiffs still lacked standing to sue.

President Trump criticized the Court for its decision, saying that the decision took too long to reach and criticizing the justices he appointed during his first term specifically. “These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves,” Trump [wrote](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117275286602582454?ref=readtangle.com) on Truth Social. 

Below, we’ll cover what the left and right are saying about the Court’s decision. Then, Executive Editor Isaac Saul gives his take.

| What the left is saying. The left supports the ruling, with many saying Trump’s order exceeded his authority.Some argue the decision shows the Court is willing to draw some lines. Others say the saga may have still damaged trust in elections. |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

**In The New Yorker, Ruth Marcus wrote** [**“this assault on mail-in voting may be dead.”**](https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/mail-in-voting-survives?ref=readtangle.com)

“The Administration’s claim that the Postal Service has authority to regulate mail-in ballots is questionable at best. The Constitution entrusts the conduct of elections to the states and Congress, if it wishes; the executive branch has no assigned role,” Marcus said. “The asserted justification for the rule — that it was necessary to prevent the ‘federal mails’ from being ‘used to perpetrate voter fraud’ — was even flimsier… Indeed, even if such fraud were rampant, it is difficult to see how the Postal Service rule would stop or expose it.”

“The President’s bid to rewrite election rules was more audacious even than his ballroom project. Once again, we have learned that some Trump measures — eliminating birthright citizenship, imposing emergency tariffs — go too far for this Court. The Court’s red lines would not be mine, but it has them nonetheless,” Marcus wrote. “Nothing will satisfy this President short of a total capitulation by the Justices. Others of us will have to comfort ourselves with a more mixed record.”

**In Vox, Ian Millhiser suggested the Court** [**“finally had it with Trump’s plan to steal the midterms.”**](http://www.vox.com/politics/502839/supreme-court-trump-mail-ballots-usps-california?ref=readtangle.com)

“Trump didn’t just lose; the Court’s brief order slips in a line indicating that Trump exceeded his authority and cannot implement such an attack on voting by mail under any circumstances. Not one member of the Court, including the dissenting justices, argues that Trump had the power to shut down voting by mail in the way he attempted to,” Millhiser wrote. “Republican lawyers and policymakers will undoubtedly make more attempts to skew the midterms in the coming weeks. 

“At the very least, the USPS decision shows that there are some limits to what this Court will tolerate,” Millhiser said. “The Court’s Republican majority is extraordinarily tolerant of Trump’s antics. They gave him the right to commit crimes. They ruled that Trump may order the Justice Department to bring ‘sham’ investigations and prosecutions against his perceived enemies… But there is apparently still a line that most of the Republican justices will not allow Trump to cross. And shutting down voting by mail a couple of months before an election crosses that line.”

**In New York Magazine, Elie Honig said Trump’s order would have caused an** [**“unholy, self-perpetuating mess.”**](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/why-the-supreme-court-rejected-trumps-mail-in-ballot-rules.html?ref=readtangle.com)

“The Court has not ruled conclusively on the substantive legality of the executive order, but the majority held that the Trump administration is ‘unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge.’ Meaning, essentially, this thing is quite likely unconstitutional,” Honig wrote. “It remains unclear exactly how Trump’s executive order would work on the ground level were it ever to be implemented. But it’s certain that it would have created mayhem around the 2026 midterms.”

“But remember: That’s the playbook,” Honig said. “As we learned from internal strategy memos and other evidence that has since come to light \[concerning the 2020 election\] — the plan was to create chaos and use the resulting uncertainty to throw the elections to state legislatures or the U.S. House of Representatives, which offered more Trump-friendly forums to determine the outcome… For now, the most pressing Trump-inflicted crisis around the 2026 midterms has been averted.”

| What the right is saying. Many on the right expect Trump to continue pursuing mail-in voting changes post-midterms. Some argue the ruling shows the Court isn’t a rubber stamp for Trump.Others say the Court ruled as prudently as it could. |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

**In Hot Air, Ed Morrissey wrote** [**“the chances for winning these reforms… remain alive.”**](https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2026/09/15/scotus-tosses-trumps-mail-in-ballot-reforms-this-time-n3818994?%5Fgl=1%2A11nlknp%2A%5Fup%2AMQ..%2A%5Fga%2AMTc5NzQ3OTgzNy4xNzg5NTAwODk3%2A%5Fga%5FVJM6PCZB0L%2AczE3ODk1MDA4OTUkbzEkZzAkdDE3ODk1MDA4OTUkajYwJGwwJGgw&ref=readtangle.com)

“In the end, practical considerations overtook the merits of Donald Trump’s reforms. The Supreme Court refused to lift a lower-court stay on new requirements from the U.S. Postal Service for mail-in ballots ordered by the White House for the midterm cycle. The late-Monday order effectively ends the effort to reform mail-in balloting for this election cycle,” Morrissey said. “However, at least three of the justices signaled that only the timing prevented it, two of whom objected even to that.” 

“The order refusing to lift the stay was unsigned, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicated that the USPS and Trump administration have a case on the merits… Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas published a dissent objecting to both the standing of the plaintiffs and their legal arguments,” Morrissey wrote. “If Congress can’t or won’t pass the SAVE America Act, there is still an opportunity to tighten up the controls on mail-in balloting before the next presidential election.”

**In USA Today, Dace Potas asked** [**“still think \[the Supreme Court is\] rigged?”**](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/09/15/trump-attacks-supreme-court-mail-in-voting/91770195007/?ref=readtangle.com)

“The Supreme Court has ruled against yet another of the president’s signature policy proposals, and yet Americans will likely still maintain a warped, partisan view of the court,” Potas wrote. “This decision gave us very little in the way of a majority opinion — just a brief, unsigned order and a one-page concurrence from Justice Brett Kavanaugh — but we do know that four of the six conservative justices voted against the Trump administration.”

“My question now is whether this will be remembered as another instance of the Supreme Court standing against the president’s signature policies, or simply brushed aside when critics want to call the court partisan… On the other side of the aisle, Republicans have an equally warped view of some of the court’s rulings,” Potas said. “The American people’s partisan view of the Supreme Court is warped by the fact that it is continuously asked to weigh in on policies that belong in Congress’ hands, not the president’s.”

**In National Review, Dan McLaughlin said** [**“Trump’s mail-in ballot order dies.”**](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trumps-mail-in-ballot-order-dies-for-2026-at-the-supreme-court/?ref=readtangle.com)

“\[Monday’s order\] explained none of its reasoning, but Kavanaugh wrote a short concurring opinion explaining his view \[of\] the effort to implement the rule at the last minute, given the chaos that this will entail for states trying to comply with new USPS standards for ballot envelopes,” McLaughlin wrote. “All told, given that the EO was originally designed to create new mailability restrictions without statutory power to do so, and given that the final rule doesn’t even try to pursue any such important goal, it seems the more prudent result for the Court to avoid the emergency step of overturning Judge Talwani’s injunction.”

“With more time to get things right, the USPS may well be able to get its rule in place for 2028,” McLaughlin said. “But once again, the collision between a recklessly overreaching Trump order and a recklessly overreaching and politically calculating rogue district judge has driven the Court into deep jurisprudential waters on the limits of its own legitimate authority that are poorly navigated on short notice.”

| My take. Isaac Saul Executive Editor ![Isaac Saul](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4a/93/4a939b47-6a19-4b38-a13c-89d5a0f0d6dd/content/images/2025/05/Isaac.jpg)                                      |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| The Court got this one right.We might be numb to President Trump’s response, but presidential criticism of the Court was once taboo.This outcome further demonstrates the Court’s independence. |
| **Reminder:** This is where we share a personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, leave a comment or reply to this email.                                                |

First, a sigh of relief.

In August, when the Supreme Court initially ruled that the states did not yet have standing to sue, I [wrote](https://www.readtangle.com/scotus-mail-in-ballots-august-2026/) that it was “very unlikely that the Supreme Court lets such a rule go into effect.” I also acknowledged that, while maintaining optimism about what the Court *could do*, we should be clear-eyed about what the president *is doing.* Six years after he refused to accept defeat in the 2020 election, he’s in the midst of a full-court press to gain any advantage he can for Republicans in the upcoming elections — he launched a gerrymandering war, tried to upend mail-in balloting, primaried members of his party who didn’t pledge support for a major election reform bill, and then promised $5,000 cash to voters if Republicans stay in power. 

Everything is getting thrown against the wall.

For now, this ruling means mail-in voting won’t be disrupted in a way that causes complete chaos in November. Again, my writing from a few weeks ago:

> The USPS is not designed to take on such work — especially not before the November elections. Nearly one third of all American voters vote by mail (including President Trump), and the majority of them are Democratic voters. USPS would need to build a mechanism to manage all those voters, put teams in place to manage the data and coordinate with states, and also ensure that states entered the required information for each eligible voter (after USPS approves envelope designs to use in these elections). Then they’d need systems set up to scan, sort and manage those ballots (about 50 million of them), and they’d have to tell voters how to receive a ballot, how to check if they’re eligible, how to challenge their eligibility, and how a post-election audit would work. All of this would have to be coordinated nationally — so rules would need to apply equally to Oregon, where nearly every voter casts a ballot by mail, and Arkansas, where just 2% do. Also, early voting begins next month. And the USPS is currently managing a fiscal crisis.

In Monday’s decision, Justice Kavanaugh [left open](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a305%5F4g15.pdf?ref=readtangle.com) the possibility the court would consider such a rule outside the electoral season, but he also concurred with the unsigned majority opinion that the administration was unlikely to succeed on the merits. That sends a strong signal that President Trump will have to find a different route to seriously reform mail-in voting. Is it alarming that Justices Alito and Thomas were willing to allow the electoral chaos to ensue? Sure. Does that mean that a future attempt might succeed? Not really.

The president is not taking the news well. It may feel like ancient history, but President Obama sparked a weeks-long news cycle by criticizing the Supreme Court’s *Citizens United v. FEC* ruling in his State of the Union address *in 2010*. He [said](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-state-union-address?ref=readtangle.com#:~:text=With%20all%20due,of%20these%20problems.) that decision would “open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.” Justice Samuel Alito was seen on camera shaking his head and saying “not true.” Media outlets [devoted](https://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/28/alito.obama.sotu/index.html?ref=readtangle.com) days of coverage to the episode, with some slamming Obama for breaching decorum, sparking a debate about whether he’d crossed a line. Chief Justice John Roberts [suggested](https://abcnews.com/Politics/justice-john-roberts-scene-state-union-troubling/story?id=10055377&ref=readtangle.com) after the fact that maybe justices shouldn’t even attend these events at all.

16 years later and this was President Trump’s full response to the Court’s decision, which he [posted on Truth Social](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117275286602582454?ref=readtangle.com) Tuesday morning:

> Republicans just got another bad decision from the United States Supreme Court, one that the Court System took forever to give, and then blamed it, in part, on no time left to implement a solution to our totally CORRUPT and out of control Mail-In voting “disaster,” which is a laughing stock all over the World, and where we are the only country that has to endure such a Nation Destroying SCAM. Justices Alito and Thomas, legends both, strongly disagreed with this horrible, highly political, ruling. It is a big loss for Republicans, and America itself, and makes cheating by the Radical Left “Dumocrats,” on Mail-In Ballots, a much easier thing to do - And now they have an open field to do so! The Supreme Court has really let our Country down! Certain Justices are petrified of these crazed and depraved Democrats, and are totally unable to show the courage necessary to save our America. Their horrible decision on Tariffs will be costing the U.S.A., for many years to come, Trillions and Trillions of Dollars. They didn’t even state, “money paid does not have to be paid back,” much to the benefit of entities that truly hate our Country, and have been RIPPING IT OFF FOR YEARS, unnecessarily costing us, immediately, Billions of Dollars. Likewise, the Supreme Court’s Decision on Birthright Citizenship is a complete and total disaster for America, and has already led to massive corruption with respect to “citizenship” in our Country. The damage done to America is incalculable, and they know this, just as everyone else does - It is an irreparable and unrecoverable harm! The Court’s inability and unwillingness to do the right thing for our Country will go down, in a very negative way, in the annals of History. This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years. These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves, a Court that is costing the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad rulings that are of such magnitude that it won’t be easily possible for our Country to recover or heal. It is a Court that will go down as having rendered some of the most destructive, hurtful, and damaging decisions in our Country’s history. It is not easy for me to write this criticism of the United States Supreme Court - it will likely cost me dearly for years to come - but I feel it my obligation and duty, as President, to do so for the America we love! Thank you for your attention to this very important matter. God bless the U.S.A. President DONALD J. TRUMP

Of course, in today’s distorted news cycle, this objectively more antagonistic diatribe will barely register. What’s more, Trump has been dealt a hand most presidents would dream of. He is a Republican president with a 6–3 majority of Republican-appointed justices, which means several of those justices have jurisprudence that is friendly to his goals; that three of them are justices the presidentpicked *himself* is a remarkable boon. That his party *also* controls both chambers of Congress confers a historic advantage Republicans haven’t had since the Hoover administration. But the president so regularly operates without Congress and steps from “legal” to “illegal” territory so often that he’s now become infuriated with the Court — which is the most remarkable of all. Yet, still, President Trump is raging at his circumstances. 

As it continues to demonstrate, and as many writers on the right observed, the Court is a constitutionally faithful, independent branch (not tangentially: The Trump administration is [now 0–24](https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/trump-doj-keeps-appealing-its-voter-roll-cases/?ref=readtangle.com) in cases where it has tried to compel states to hand over voter files and information). I probably have more trust in the Supreme Court than any operating U.S. institution; that trust [has wavered](https://www.readtangle.com/court-grants-trump-partial-immunity/#:~:text=this%20nation%E2%80%99s%20history.%E2%80%9D-,My%20take.,-Reminder%3A%20%22My%20take) at [times](https://www.readtangle.com/supreme-court-asylum-tps-rulings/#:~:text=Alito%E2%80%99s%20suggestion%20that,etc.%20But%E2%80%A6%20c%E2%80%99mon), but that’s probably more about my own skeptical streak than the Court’s actions.

For all the hubbub about a corrupt, captured court — and all the obituaries pre-written for our country’s rule of law — this Supreme Court has now struck down Trump’s mail-in voting rules, birthright citizenship executive order, deployment of the National Guard in Chicago, attempt to bar counting ballots after election day, Federal Reserve governor firing, and most importantly the tariff tool. Also, it has rejected a Missouri voting map that would have given Republicans an extra House seat, left the E. Jean Carroll ruling in place, halted the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans, compelled the administration to pay $2 billion owed for completed foreign aid work, and forced the Department of Justice to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home. 

It may seem like a low bar to clear given our historic standards, but we still demonstrably have a fully functioning, independent judiciary and an executive branch that abides by its rulings. Amid the blaring headlines we all endure daily, that’s something worth pausing to appreciate. 

**Take the survey:** What do you think of the Court’s decision? [Let us know](https://interrobang.vercel.app/survey/29c333e1-815b-49c3-897d-76eb9dfb5a37?ref=readtangle.com). 

*Disagree? That*’*s okay. Our opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we’ll consider publishing your feedback.*

### Your questions, answered.

**I often see statistics like “70% of Americans want universal healthcare” and “85% of Americans want term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court.” The claim is that the people are no longer being represented and are artificially divided. How true are these claims?**

**— Zachary from Barton, VT**

**Associate Editor Russell Nystrom:** Despite the ever popular maxim, in politics, numbers *can* lie. And they do. 

To get to the bottom of this, let’s peek under the hood of the first example you gave: “70% of Americans want universal healthcare.” 

Real polls have found this, or a result extremely close to this, to be [true](https://www.harrisx.com/posts/july-harvard-caps-harrisx-poll?ref=readtangle.com#:~:text=69%25%20of%20voters%20support%20Medicare%20for%20All%2C%20including%20a%20majority%20across%20political%20parties.) — in a vacuum, voters tend to strongly support Medicare for All. But that support starts to splinter once they’re asked to consider raising taxes or removing private health insurance. 

In June, a YouGov poll asked voters if they would “support or oppose a national health plan in which all Americans get their health insurance from the federal government and private health insurance companies are eliminated.” Phrased that way, only [52%](https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/55078-half-americans-support-eliminating-health-insurance-companies-several-other-socialist-policy-proposals-june-26-29-2026-economist-yougov-poll?ref=readtangle.com) approved. Separately, a Democratic political-research firm asked Americans for their opinion on a very specific description of Medicare for All: “Would you support or oppose the U.S. creating a single, federally administered health insurance program covering all Americans that would replace private health insurance, including employer-sponsored plans? All Americans would receive comprehensive insurance with no premiums, deductibles, or copayments, and the program would be funded through significantly increased federal taxes.” They found that [just 40% said yes](https://www.searchlightinstitute.org/research/an-honest-assessment-of-voter-attitudes-toward-government-run-health-insurance/?ref=readtangle.com).

Support for other policies, like term limits, isn’t as variable between polls. In this case, term limits [consistently poll in the 80% range](https://www.newsweek.com/term-limits-congress-popular-whats-stopping-them-11925287?ref=readtangle.com#:~:text=It%20surveyed%201%2C322%20adults%20from%20April%2027%2D30%2C%20with%20a%20margin%20of%20error%20of%20plus%20or%20minus%203.1%20percentage%20points.), instituting them would come at no direct financial cost to the citizenry, and specifying details like the number of years a lawmaker could serve had a [negligible](https://publicconsultation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Campaign-Finance-Quaire-0518-Updated-042820.pdf?ref=readtangle.com) effect on support. So why doesn’t this policy pass? 

Part of the answer is probably incentives. Establishing term limits would require a constitutional amendment, a process that requires Congress to initiate it and thus pursue a reform that would greatly limit its own members (barring a never-before-used [process](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artV-3-3/ALDE%5F00013051/?ref=readtangle.com) where the states can do so). With lawmakers serving [much longer](https://www.congress.gov/crs%5Fexternal%5Fproducts/R/PDF/R41545/R41545.20.pdf?ref=readtangle.com) than they once did, members of Congress have a disincentive to vote away their ability to serve indefinitely. 

Topline polling can be misleading, but so can the assumption that the reason for gridlock is a deeply divided populace. In the end, two things can be true at once. Sometimes so-called polling majorities mask small but significant disagreements. Other times, a consensus may be real, but our institutions fail to act on it.

**Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or** [**fill out this form**](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQhqBSG%5F6%5FoBhwcTQMeS570n29XYbeQ9C9Bis7rjqI31g1tA/viewform?usp=header&ref=readtangle.com)**.** 

### Under the radar.

On Monday, a federal judge blocked a proposed Trump administration rule that would shorten the length of time that international students and noncitizen journalists could stay in the United States on visas. Under the policy, students, researchers, professors and other academics would be allowed to remain in the country for four years, while foreign journalists would be permitted residence for 240 days. Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV found that the administration’s rationale for the rule — alleged fraud by immigrants posing as students — was “exceptionally weak” and would not address purported instances of noncitizens obtaining visas through fraud. [The New York Times has the story](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/14/us/politics/foreign-students-visas-trump-ruling.html?ref=readtangle.com).

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### The extras.

- **One year ago today** we covered [Russian drones in NATO airspace](https://www.readtangle.com/russia-incursion-into-poland-romania-nato-article-4/).
- **The most clicked link in our last regular newsletter** was the Supreme Court denying the Trump administration’s [request to implement parts of the president’s mail-in ballot executive order](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/09/supreme-court-denies-trump-administrations-request-to-implement-parts-of-usps-rule-on-mail-in-vo/?ref=readtangle.com).
- **Nothing to do with politics:** Orioles slugger (and former New York Met) Pete Alonso [shares a wholesome moment with three Mets fans who caught Alonso’s 300th career home run](https://x.com/SNY%5FMets/status/2100059915507151315?ref=readtangle.com).
- **Our last survey:** 2,382 readers responded to our survey on regulating leading-edge AI companies, with 40% saying they support strict safety regulations. “We have strict regulation around the development and use of nuclear weapons. AI, especially superintelligent AI, is even more dangerous, and therefore needs correspondingly stringent controls,” one respondent said. “If the US slams on the brakes, other countries will take over leadership and the benefits likely to accrue from it,” said another.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4a/93/4a939b47-6a19-4b38-a13c-89d5a0f0d6dd/content/images/2026/09/data-src-image-5f351a13-e7e4-43dc-bc49-cf3c96dbdfcb.png)

### Have a nice day.

Trachoma is a bacterial eye infection that causes scarring on the inner eyelid. In areas with limited access to healthcare, repeated infections can lead to blindness — and trachoma is the leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide. But as of 2026, the World Health Organization certified the island nation of Timor-Leste as trachoma-free, making Timor-Leste the final Southeast Asian nation to eliminate the disease. “This achievement was made possible by sustained national commitment and the collective efforts of our health workers, communities and partners, to whom we extend our deepest gratitude,” Dr Élia A. dos Reis Amaral, SH, Minister of Health, Government of Timor-Leste, said. [Good News Network has the story](https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/following-timor-lestes-triumph-all-of-southeast-asia-has-eliminated-trachoma/?ref=readtangle.com).