Durbin argues the Justice Department has forfeited the presumption of regularity
At a September 16 hearing on six district-court nominations, Senator Dick Durbin argued that the Justice Department has lost the presumption of regularity. That presumption is a longstanding judicial doctrine under which courts ordinarily presume that public officers have properly discharged their official duties absent sufficient evidence to the contrary; Durbin used it here to describe the traditional trust courts extend to Justice Department lawyers’ representations about facts and process. He said that between January 2025 and March 2026 judges in at least ninety cases stated on the record that they distrusted the Department’s representations, including judges appointed by Republican presidents, and that the Department has sued thirty states for unredacted voter rolls containing partial Social Security numbers, losing twenty-three of those suits and winning none. The ninety-case figure is his own tally and the release gives no methodology, so it should be read as a claim rather than a finding. This is minority-staff material and reflects one side of the committee.