Judge Nichols Reverses Himself and Enjoins the USPS Mail-Ballot Rule, Holding the Postal Reorganization Act Gives USPS No Such Authority

On 2026-09-13, Judge Carl Nichols (D.D.C.) granted a preliminary injunction against the USPS mail-ballot rule in DSCC v. Trump, holding that the Postal Reorganization Act does not give the Postal Service authority to do this at all.

Two things make this more than another injunction in a crowded docket.

First, Nichols reversed himself. In May 2026 the same judge declined to enjoin the same mechanism on ripeness grounds — there was no final rule yet, so there was nothing to review. The rule became final in late August. What had been unreviewable because it was too early became unlawful once it existed. That sequence is the corpus’s rule-operative-before-review pattern running its full course inside a single docket, and it is the cleanest illustration of the pattern yet recorded: the same judge, the same mechanism, opposite outcomes, with nothing changing but finality.

Second, it reaches the question the Supreme Court expressly did not. One day later the Court denied the administration’s emergency application in USPS v. California, No. 26A305, on timing grounds — Kavanaugh’s concurrence allowed there was “at least a fair prospect” USPS holds the authority, while finding that applying the rule to an election already underway was arbitrary and capricious (2026-09-14–scotus-blocks-trump-mail-ballot-eo-7-2-kavanaugh-timing-midterms). Nichols answered the merits question SCOTUS left open, and answered it the other way. So the 2026 election is protected on a timing rationale that expires with the election, while the only ruling on whether USPS may ever do this sits in a district court and is presumptively headed up.

Status and sourcing caution. This entry is status: reported. It was established during a draft fact-check pass on 2026-09-20 from secondary reporting; the opinion has not been read by this corpus, and the case number is not established. The characterization of the holding — that it rests on the Postal Reorganization Act rather than on the APA — is the reporting’s and needs the order itself. The May ripeness denial is recorded in this corpus’s own prior coverage and in the EPA/USPS comparison drafting, but its date should be confirmed against the docket.

Why it was missing until now. The corpus captured the September 4 Talwani injunction and the September 14 Supreme Court denial but not this ruling in between, because the capture routine followed the Supreme Court thread and this was a separate suit in a different district. A fact-checker working an unrelated draft surfaced it. Two district courts moving on the same rule nine days apart in different districts is exactly the shape a single-thread sweep misses.