American-born Pope Leo XIV has become the first pope ever to vote in a U.S. election.
The Holy See Press Office confirmed to Fox News Digital on Friday that Leo, born Robert Francis Prevost and the first American-born pope in the Catholic Church's more than 2,000-year history, submitted a mail-in ballot in Illinois.
"Pope Leo XIV has exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen, whenever he was eligible to do so," the Holy See Press Office said. "The Holy See Press Office confirms that in keeping with this long-standing practice of civic participation, he has submitted his mail-in ballot in Chicago."
"The Holy Father has also confirmed that, during his years of residence in Peru he exercised his right to vote whenever he was eligible to do so," the press office added. "The Holy Father expresses his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes."
The Will County clerk’s office told the Chicago Sun-Times on Thursday that Leo requested a mail-in ballot on Oct. 3, while the Vatican separately confirmed that the pontiff had submitted his ballot.
"Robert Francis Prevost is on the list of individuals who requested a vote by mail ballot for the upcoming election," Kim Fladhammer, Will County clerk’s office chief of staff, told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Among the races on Illinois' ballot is the contest for governor, where incumbent Democrat J.B. Pritzker is seeking a third term against Republican Darren Bailey and independent candidate Collin Corbett.
The Will County clerk’s office and Pritzker's campaign each did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's requests for comment.
"There is no such thing as an absentee ballot in Illinois law anymore. So anyone can vote by mail if they so choose. There is also a law called UOCAVA, The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act that is mostly for the military, but it’s also for U.S. citizens who are overseas," Illinois State Board of Elections spokesman Matt Dietrich told the Chicago Sun-Times. "... Any Illinois registered voter can vote by mail."
"Until 2010, it was considered absentee, and you had to have an excuse," Dietrich added. "But that’s all gone away. So that’s obviously what he’s doing."
Pope Leo XIV may not only be the first American to lead the Catholic Church, but he may also be the first American to lead the Catholic Church who votes in an American election.
Texas National Guard members in Illinois (Brian Cassella/TNS/Newscom)
On October 23, in the case of Newsom v. Trump, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Donald Trump's June 2025 federalization of the National Guard in Los Angeles was likely illegal. This decision has little immediate effect, because the National Guard deployment ended months ago, after the Supreme Court ruled against Trump in a related Illinois case. But it has important implications for judicial review of executive invocation of emergency powers to use the military domestically. Among other things, it emphasizes that such actions are reviewable, and the president should get only limited deference. It also adopts a properly restrictive definition of "rebellion" (which is one of the conditions that might justify federalization of the National Guard).
Trump federalized the Guard in response to anti-ICE protests. The district court ruled his action was illegal and issued an injunction blocking it. But the Ninth Circuit lifted the preliminary injunction, in a decision I criticized at the time.
The relevant statute 10 U.S.C. Section 12406, can only be used to federalize state forces in one of the following situations:
1) the United States, or any of the Commonwealths or possessions, is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation;
(2) there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States; or
(3) the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States
Last year, the Ninth Circuit ruled (incorrectly, I think) that Trump's action might have been permissible under Subsection 3: a situation where "the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States." As the Ninth Circuit acknowledges in their most recent decision, this basis for Trump's actions was undermined by the Supreme Court's December ruling in the related case of Trump v. Illinois, which held that Subsection 3 can only be invoked when the president is authorized to use regular federal military forces to enforce the law, and those forces are inadequate. These circumstances do not apply to the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles and Chicago.
No one claims that the situation in Los Angeles amounted to an "invasion" by a "foreign nation." Thus, in its most recent decision the Ninth Circuit considered whether Trump's actions were authorized by Subsection 2, which allows federalization of the guard when "there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States."
The majority opinion by Judge Jennifer Sung holds that the determination that there is a "rebellion" is subject to judicial review and can be invalidated " if it "did not reflect a colorable assessment within a range of honest judgment." I think this is overly deferential. For reasons I outlined in an article published last year, there should be little or no deference when the executive invokes extraordinary emergency powers. Still, the Ninth Circuit standard is far from a blank check, and does allow invalidation of executive actions where the claim of rebellion is blatantly wrong - as it was here.
Following the district court, the Ninth Circuit defined "rebellion" as "a violent, armed, organized, open and avowed uprising against the government as a whole." This differentiates "rebellion" from smaller-scale violence or other violations of law. I think that definition is largely correct. The court summarizes a wide range of historical evidence supporting it.
The Ninth Circuit also concluded that events in Los Angeles did not even come close to meeting that standard. There were some violations of law by protestors, and some small-scale violence. But no systematic effort to overthrow the government or anything close to it. If anything, both this issue and the definition of "rebellion" are easier calls than the court suggests.
Judge Sung, author of the majority opinion, is a liberal Biden appointee. But her opinion was joined by Judge Eric Miller, a conservative Trump appointee and onetime clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. This suggests the issue here cuts across ideological and jurisprudential lines. Judge Mark Bennett, another Trump appointee, dissented, but mostly on procedural grounds.
Judge Bennett did also take issue with the majority's conclusion that if Trump's federalization of the National Guard exceeded his statutory authority, it also violated the Tenth Amendment, which reserves to the states or to "the people," those "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution." He argues that the power to call forth the National Guard is delegated to Congress by the Calling Forth Clause of the Constitution, which gives Congress power "[t]o provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions." This is true enough. But in situations where Congress has not exercised that authority, states retain total control over their militia (of which the National Guard is the principal modern example), and that control is protected by the Tenth Amendment. Indeed, such control over state military forces is a central element of state sovereignty. Overriding it without proper constitutional authority qualifies as unconstitutional "commandeering" of state government forces. As the majority explains:
The federal government—whether the President or Congress—violates the Tenth Amendment by commandeering state personnel to enforce or administer federal law. Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 925 (1997) (Under the Tenth Amendment, "the Federal Government may not compel the States to implement, by legislation or executive action, federal regulatory programs."). If, for example, the President commandeered state police to help federal officers enforce federal immigration laws, that would violate the Tenth Amendment….
California National Guard members are state personnel, unless properly federalized… The President purported to convert the Guard into federal personnel by issuing federalization orders. If those federalization orders had been valid, then the President would have deployed federal officers in Los Angeles, and no commandeering of state personnel would have occurred. But because the President lacked authority to federalize the California National Guard, the federalization orders were invalid, and the deployed Guard members remained state personnel….
In other words, because the deployed members of the California National Guard were not properly federalized, they remained the legal equivalent (for Tenth Amendment purposes) of the state police. And because the challenged executive orders compelled those state officers to help federal officers enforce federal law, the orders violated the Tenth Amendment….
The Tenth Amendment protects States against overreach by the "Federal Government," whether "by legislation or executive action." Printz, 521 U.S. at 925, 935. The President cannot command state officials to enforce federal law even if a federal statute would authorize him, under some other circumstances, to call those officials into federal service. If the statute did not authorize the President to federalize the California Guard members here…, then the federalization orders were invalid, the Guard members remained state personnel, and Defendants violated the Tenth Amendment by commandeering those state personnel to administer federal immigration laws.
Exactly so. The majority and dissent consider a number of procedural issues, which I will not try to address. The majority also parses a variety of relevant precedents in detail. I may have more to say about some of them in future writings.
For the moment, this decision has little immediate effect. But it sets an important precedent in favor of judicial review of executive invocation of emergency powers, and on the meaning of "rebellion."
Marci Webber was institutionalized after being acquitted by reason of insanity for killing her 4-year-old daughter. For years she has said she is cured and should be freed.
On December 2, the Supreme Court will consider constitutional challenges to "assault weapon" bans in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, that cover widely owned rifles, including the AR-15. As the plaintiffs in those consolidated cases see it, such laws plainly violate the Second Amendment because they prohibit arms in common use for lawful purposes. In briefs filed on Wednesday, Connecticut and Cook County urge the justices to reject that test, saying a weapon's popularity is not dispositive. The relevant question, they say, is whether their rifle restrictions fit a historical tradition of banning "unusually dangerous weapons."
Cook County and Connecticut have the burden of showing that their laws are "consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation," the test established by the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. On the face of it, that is a daunting challenge.
In the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court said the Second Amendment protects the right to own "bearable arms" that are "in common use" for "lawful purposes like self-defense." That description indisputably encompasses "AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles," the firearms at issue in these cases. But Heller also recognized "the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of 'dangerous and unusual weapons.'" Cook County and Connecticut argue that the rifles they have deemed intolerable fall into that category.
"There is a robust historical tradition of regulating unusually dangerous weapons that
compromise public safety," Cook County says. "Such regulations, which long
predate the founding, have included outright bans and other restrictions on exceptionally dangerous weapons like launcegays, trap guns, Bowie knives, and slung shots."
Cook County argues that its ordinance is "relevantly similar" to those historical restrictions because it targets "exceptionally lethal weapons that are disproportionate to the end of self-defense." AR-15s are "offensive weapons of war designed for maximum lethality and are not customarily used for self-defense," the brief says. "The purpose and operation of the ban is consistent with our Nation's historical tradition and accounts for the exceptional dangerousness of these technologically advanced weapons."
The ban is "an appropriate contemporary restriction implemented by the legislature in response to dramatic technological change and unprecedented societal concern," the brief says. "It is tailored to respond to the particular dangers presented in areas with mass casualty exposure and acute public safety risk."
Connecticut offers a similar argument. One problem with this defense is the premise that "assault weapon" bans focus on "exceptionally lethal weapons." As critics of such laws have been pointing out for decades, the features they target, such as folding stocks, pistol grips, and barrel shrouds, do not affect a rifle's basic operation. With or without them, a rifle fires the same ammunition at the same rate with the same muzzle velocity. And because AR-15s use intermediate-caliber ammunition, they are arguably less lethal than shotguns and many hunting rifles that are not classified as "assault weapons."
Cook County's emphasis on technological developments is also questionable. Constitutional guarantees establish principles that courts routinely apply to technologies that did not exist at the founding. Although the Framers did not have radio, television, or the internet, for example, the First Amendment nevertheless constrains government regulation of those media.
More specifically, Heller rejected the idea that modern weapons are not covered by the Second Amendment by recognizing a constitutional right to own semiautomatic pistols. The Supreme Court said "the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding." The Court confirmed that point in the 2016 case Caetano v. Massachusetts, which involved a state ban on stun guns.
Cook County also asserts that AR-15s are not suitable for self-defense, a claim that would be hotly contested by many owners of such rifles, who commonly report using them for that purpose. "Plaintiffs have shown that AR-15s are well-adapted for self-defense," U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan wrote in 2024, when he reluctantly concluded that New Jersey's AR-15 ban was inconsistent with Heller while expressing his dismay at that result. "Evidence has been presented to the Court that the build of the AR-15 makes it well-suited to self-defense because it is 'light weight, [has] very mild recoil, and [has] good ergonomics'; it is a weapon which is 'well suited to younger shooters, female shooters, and other shooters of smaller stature.'"
Sheridan added that "the AR-15's design features—including the effectiveness of its cartridge for self-defense use and its better continuity of fire when used with available magazines—make the AR-15 a good choice for self-defense." And he noted that "the AR-15 has been used recently in several, relatively high-profile self-defense events in Florida, Illinois, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma."
Cook County and Connecticut are also wrong in suggesting that self-defense is the only "lawful purpose" that matters. While Heller emphasized the use of handguns "in defense of hearth and home," it did not say that was the full extent of the Second Amendment right. To the contrary, the phrase "lawful purposes like self-defense" implies that the right extends to other uses, such as hunting, pest control, and target shooting. The decision explicitly mentioned hunting as a "reason Americans valued the ancient right."
The briefs are misleading in another way that may prove decisive. They conflate "dangerous and unusual" with "unusually dangerous," which is not the same thing.
During the 19th century, state legislators restricted (and sometimes banned) weapons such as Bowie knives, spears, sword canes, slungshots, and brass knuckles. But the historical evidence suggests those weapons were not targeted simply because they were "unusually dangerous." Legislators were also concerned about how the weapons were typically used.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who filed a brief supporting the challenges to the AR-15 bans, notes that the 19th-century laws targeted weapons associated with "duels, brawls, and other criminal activities." And in reviewing those laws, state courts distinguished between arms favored by criminals and arms commonly used for lawful purposes.
In 1871, for example, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that legislators could ban weapons that were "not usual" but could not ban "the usual arms of the citizen." The top courts of Texas, Arkansas, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Michigan concurred that the right to arms encompassed weapons commonly owned by law-abiding people, including rifles.
AR-15s and similar rifles readily pass that common-use test. In January, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry's trade association, reported that Americans own more than 32 million "modern sporting rifles," its preferred term for the models covered by "assault weapon" bans. Survey data suggest that somewhere between 16 million and 25 million Americans have owned AR-15-style rifles. Last year, a unanimous Supreme Court described the AR-15 as "the most popular rifle in the country."
According to Cook County and Connecticut, however, none of that matters. "Once it is established that a regulation pursues a legitimate public safety objective in a permissible manner, raw ownership numbers cannot immunize a firearm from regulation," Cook County says. It argues that opponents of its ordinance have misconstrued the significance of the common-use test and misunderstood how it interacts with Bruen.
"When the Second Amendment's plain text covers an individual's conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct," the Supreme Court said in Bruen. "To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation's historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual's conduct falls outside the Second Amendment's 'unqualified command.'"
The common-use question, Cook County argues, figures only in the first Bruen step: "the inquiry whether the weapon at issue is one 'the Second Amendment protects.'" But even if ownership of AR-15s is covered by "the Second Amendment's plain text," it says, that does not resolve the question of whether they can be banned, which depends on the historical analysis required by the second step of the Bruen test.
"This Court's decision in Bruen confirms that the Second Amendment's step-two inquiry does not insulate popularly owned firearms from regulation," the brief says. In Bruen, it was "undisputed" that "handguns are weapons 'in common use' today for self-defense," including "outside the home." But "instead of being the end of this Court's inquiry, that observation was just the beginning." The decision also included an "extended analysis" of the historical laws that New York cited to justify its "proper cause" requirement for carry permits. "If lawful common use alone were enough to forbid regulation," Cook County argues, "there would have been no need to engage in that careful and prolonged analysis."
The question in Bruen was not whether the Second Amendment precludes "regulation." It was whether New York's specific approach, which required residents to demonstrate a "special need" before they were allowed to exercise the right to bear arms, was consistent with the historical tradition. That is why the Court considered (and rejected) the purported historical analogs that New York offered.
Cook County conflates requirements for carry permits, the issue in Bruen, with an outright ban on ownership, the policy it is defending. Connecticut likewise blurs the distinction between carry restrictions and complete prohibition.
"The Bowie knife was 'widely carried by Americans of all stripes,' including 'upstanding citizens and villains' alike," Connecticut's brief says. "The widespread use of Bowie knives and other weapons for lawful purposes did not prevent dozens of States from restricting those weapons." But those laws generally restricted or banned public carry. They rarely made it illegal to acquire or possess a Bowie knife, which is the approach that Connecticut and Cook County have taken with AR-15s.
That policy is hard to reconcile with Heller. I will quote Sheridan again, since his comments made it clear that he would have preferred to uphold New Jersey's AR-15 ban. Under Heller, he said, "a categorical ban on a class of weapons commonly used for self-defense is unlawful." Given "the Supreme Court's clear direction on this point," he concluded, New Jersey's law "is unconstitutional" as applied to "the Colt AR-15 for use for self-defense in the home."
Last July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit agreed and went further, extending that conclusion to "the full class of semi-automatic rifles" banned in New Jersey. "Together, Heller and Bruen teach that bans or broad prohibitions on possessing or carrying of a class of weapons in common use for lawful purposes fail to find support in our Nation's tradition of firearm regulation," Judge Arianna Freeman, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote in the majority opinion. "That principle resolves our inquiry here."
To beat back the challenges to their laws, Connecticut and Cook County will have to persuade the justices that the 3rd Circuit's understanding of Heller and Bruen is wrong, meaning they are free to ban firearms in common use for lawful purposes. That seems like a tall order, and Cook County's position is especially puzzling. According to its brief, the fact that a weapon is covered by the Second Amendment does not mean Americans have a right to possess it. The more you think about that claim, the less sense it makes.
Former employees of Christianity Today say new leadership has been pushing back on independent journalism. About half of its staff members have left or been laid off over 14 months.
Bonnie Kristian, Christianity Today’s deputy editor until recently, said the outlet displays “an increasingly muddled sense of its place within American evangelicalism.”
Login
