9th Circuit

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the largest of the 13 US federal appellate courts, covering nine western states (California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii) with 29 active judgeships. Appointed largely by Democratic presidents, it is regarded as the most liberal-leaning of the circuit courts, and its jurisdiction covers states holding 67 of 435 House seats and two competitive Senate races.

The 9th Circuit heard oral argument in United States v. Oregon on 19 May 2026, the first appellate test of whether DOJ's NVRA-based voter-data demands survive the portable dismissal reasoning that district courts across California, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island and Massachusetts applied to throw out the suits. A three-judge panel of Clinton and Obama appointees showed scepticism toward DOJ's framing of the NVRA as conferring standing independent of a demonstrated voter-disenfranchisement injury, but set no ruling date; decisions typically follow within 60 to 90 days of argument.

By late June the first-mover timeline had flipped: the Sixth Circuit, not the 9th, became the first circuit anywhere to rule, affirming a Michigan dismissal 2-1 in United States v. Benson on 24 June under the separate Civil Rights Act of 1960 theory. As of 9 July the 9th Circuit's own Oregon ruling remains undecided, more than seven weeks after argument; the DOJ has since petitioned the Sixth Circuit for en banc rehearing of its Michigan loss, so whichever court rules next will be read as either reinforcing or splitting from the other, a split that would put the question on a faster track to the Supreme Court.