The 9th Circuit heard oral argument in United States v. Oregon on Tuesday 19 May, the date the panel set in March. It is the first appellate test of the portable reasoning the District of Massachusetts produced on 9 April: the Department of Justice complaint did not specify which statute authorised its voter-data demand. Six district-court dismissals plus one settlement now run against 23 active cases, with Arizona added to the dismissed column on 28 April.
The DOJ has appealed the California, Oregon and Michigan dismissals together. A panel ruling for Oregon converts the Massachusetts reasoning into binding 9th Circuit precedent across nine western states and two territories, and into persuasive authority for the remaining active cases nationwide. That collapses the programme as a 2026-cycle legal tool. A reversal lets the DOJ refile with corrected complaints citing the specific statutory hook, and the dismissal wave stalls.
The panel composition has not been published. A unanimous panel carries fuller persuasive weight in sister circuits than a 2-1 split; the Justice Department's litigation strategy depends on which result obtains. the Court does not typically rule from the bench on same-day argument, so the decision is weeks to months out, on a calendar that overlaps the 8 June Florida qualifying deadline and the end-of-June Watson decision window without touching either.
The counter-view, from the Brennan Center brief filed in support of Oregon, is that the dismissals' procedural ground is rescuable on amendment; the DOJ can in principle name a statute and refile. Cato Institute counsel argues the deeper problem is that the underlying statutes do not authorise the demand at all, which would make the dismissals durable on the merits rather than the pleadings. Today's panel will not decide between those theories. It will decide whether the Massachusetts logic survives appellate review.
