the 106 Republican House members who are still backing tRump in this crazy Texas lawsuit.
I think the most credible explanation is that they're afraid of losing the MAGA vote if they don't appear to be doing everything possible to give DJT a second term.
I doubt very many of them actually think it's going to be possible to save Trump via multiple lawsuits, 'cuz if it were that easy, some other losing candidate would have done so in a previous election. Though I could be convinced that some of them do sincerely believe that there was widespread fraud, given that there often tends to be a convergence between supposedly random delusions and the self-interest of the deluded.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
Of Trump sabotaging their political careers. Which he has the power to do by tweet.
They could of course unite. But even if they could trust one another to do that, the base might still classify them as RINOs.
It’s more prudent to go along with the BS and pass the loyalty test.
The Pennsylvania rebuttal describes the Texas appeal as 'a seditious abuse of the judicial process'. And the prime responsibility for that rests with the Texas AG. For the other States who have joined the appeal, the prime responsibility rests with their AGs. As a Shipmate I do think their behaviour is seditious.
But we’ve had this argument so many times in different forms In my opinion, generalisations which include all members of a people group in a fault because the fault is clearly there in other members of that people group spread the collective guilt too far. It happens in colloquial speech so often that we don’t see it. But in our written word based discussions I think it pays us to be more precise.
That makes it hard to discuss actions taken by collective entities, like "the state of Texas" or "the Republican party" or "Nestlé Corporation". You seem to be willing to do this yourself, describing a "Pennsylvania rebuttal" to the "Texas appeal", not a "rebuttal by Pennsylvania's Attorney General" to the "appeal by Texas' Attorney General". The way these cases are filed backs up this interpretation. The full name of the case under discussion is State of Texas, plaintiff v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, State of Georgia, State of Michigan, and State of Wisconsin, defendants (Texas v. Pennsylvania, et al. for short). You can argue that nations and governments are legal fictions, but they're fictions we all live by. The Attorneys General of the various states that have signed on to these efforts are empowered by their various state governments to take legal action on behalf of those governments. They're not entering suits as lone individuals demanding relief from other specific individuals in other states, they've filed action on behalf of their states collectively, demanding relief from other states collectively. Given this, it makes sense to refer to actions undertaken by Texas (or Pennsylvania, or whatever).
Can we maybe agree that, just as, for example, "The UK joined the invasion of Iraq" is understood as refering to the government of the UK and possibly the people who voted for that government, but not every single person in the UK, remarks about a state supporting the Texas lawsuit are meant to mean the Republican politicians and their voters, but not every single person in that state?
Can we maybe agree that, just as, for example, "The UK joined the invasion of Iraq" is understood as refering to the government of the UK and possibly the people who voted for that government, but not every single person in the UK, remarks about a state supporting the Texas lawsuit are meant to mean the Republican politicians and their voters, but not every single person in that state?
Can we maybe agree that, just as, for example, "The UK joined the invasion of Iraq" is understood as refering to the government of the UK and possibly the people who voted for that government, but not every single person in the UK, remarks about a state supporting the Texas lawsuit are meant to mean the Republican politicians and their voters, but not every single person in that state?
Everybody claims to hate Congress, but they keep reelecting their own congresscritter.
I recall (1990 midterms?) driving through Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina in rural and semi-rural areas and seeing signs everywhere "If in office, vote them out" (ignore the bad grammar), yet IIRC, it had one of the highest returns of incumbents. Go fig.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
Fair points, Croesos. I’ll think some more. Discussions do get sidetracked over issues of collective guilt and how far it goes. But it’s hard to avoid the shorthand as you point out.
And I think there are very good grounds to support the view that there is seditious behaviour going on here.
The congressional representative of the district I am in has signed on to the lawsuit. She is not representing me nor many others in the community I live in. I am going to enjoy seeing egg all over her face when SCOTUS blows it off. Note: Trump has filed an amicus (ie friend of the court) brief supporting the suit, but not technically joining the suit.
Everybody claims to hate Congress, but they keep reelecting their own congresscritter.
I recall (1990 midterms?) driving through Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina in rural and semi-rural areas and seeing signs everywhere "If in office, vote them out" (ignore the bad grammar), yet IIRC, it had one of the highest returns of incumbents. Go fig.
Yes, it was the 1990 midterms where the media was spinning the dynamic as Everyone Hates Incumbents. I remember Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom column(which theoretically just reported on what everyone was thinking but was often interpreted as expressing a viewpoint) predicting that despite all the anti-incumbency rhetoric, the vast majority would be returned, which they were.
I also seem to recall that the anti-incumbent movement was regarded by some as an anti-Democrat movement in disguise, since the Dems controlled both the House and Senate at that time. And they continued to do so after the election.
(And this discrepancy between hating Congress but voting for your incumbent can exist because, unlike the presidency which is one office held by one person, it's possible to have a low opinion of Congress as a whole, while thinking your own man is doing a bangup job. Especially if he's tossing a lot of pork into your jurisdiction.)
Note: Trump has filed an amicus (ie friend of the court) brief supporting the suit, but not technically joining the suit.
No, as I noted above what Trump has filed is a motion to intervene—]i.e., to be made a party—not an amicus brief.
Some news sources have said it was an amicus brief, but I see CNN is reporting it is a motion to intervene. I concede.
Going by news reports on something like this, unless they’re from someone like Nina Totenberg or Dahlia Lithwick, is risky business. In my experience they often get it wrong—perhaps more often than they get it right. Too many reporters don’t understand what they’re reporting about.
That’s what I linked (twice) to the actual document filed on behalf of Trump.
Why do the other AsG and 106 (or more congresspersons) have standing in this lawsuit.
It has been pointed out that a number of the Republican Representatives who signed on to this case come from states whose election results they claim are invalid. In other words, they're implicitly arguing that they themselves have been sent to Congress by an illegitimate election.
But were all the Represenratives on that list up for election in 2020? According to wiki, the first guy, Rick Allen, was elected in 2018, so I don't he'd have been running this year.
Though I assume in all those states, at least a few Republicans were elected, so at the very least, they are arguing that some of their GOP colleagues are not legit.
So all of these guys* ran in November and may or may not have been re-elected.
Actually Doug Collins is a lame duck. He's been replaced by Andrew Clyde, another Republican, in the upcoming Congress. I haven't checked all the names, so there may be others. Collins ran for Senate, but lost to Kelly Loeffler and didn't make it to the runoffs.
But were all the Representatives on that list up for election in 2020? According to wiki, the first guy, Rick Allen, was elected in 2018, so I don't he'd have been running this year.
As @Pigwidgeonpoints out, House seats are subject to election every two years (i.e. every time there's a federal election), so those guys would all have been up for re-election this year (or retiring at the end of December, something I didn't bother to check). And yes, Rick Allen was re-elected in 2020 by a 17 percentage point margin.
Can we maybe agree that, just as, for example, "The UK joined the invasion of Iraq" is understood as refering to the government of the UK and possibly the people who voted for that government, but not every single person in the UK, remarks about a state supporting the Texas lawsuit are meant to mean the Republican politicians and their voters, but not every single person in that state?
You know damn well that my objection was to do with being tarred with the term "seditious" simply because I live in a state where one or more ghastly officials have taken this stupid and damnable step. You wrote, "brown states are seditionists who have betrayed the very idea of American democracy.." Will you make the whole state seditious because some damned paper shuffler did something he had no mandate for? And you might look at that "seditionists" which is a descriptive term applied to individuals, not to states. One refers to a collective as "seditious", but to individual traitors as "seditionists." You chose the term for individuals, which is at the least ungrammatical and at the worst betrays a belief that individual inhabitants share in the sedition.
I have no objection to the proper use of collective nouns to describe actions, as you imply (e.g. Missouri voted to do such-and-such, California struck down this or that law).
This Floridian did not and does not condone the (il)legal actions of whatever bozo in Texas.
They must be out of toilet paper and are using the Constitution for that purpose.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
The Supreme Court rejected the Texas lawsuit without dissent, on the grounds that Texas had no standing. All other submissions are moot. The EC vote will take place on Monday.
The Supreme Court rejected the Texas lawsuit without dissent, on the grounds that Texas had no standing. All other submissions are moot. The EC vote will take place on Monday.
Ka-Boom
It is all over but the dust settling. The AG of Texas, the 120 Congesspersons, The 17 or is it 18 States and ahem, the Big Man, had no standing! Story here.
The Electoral College meets on Monday and it will all be over (NOT).
The Supreme Court rejected the Texas lawsuit without dissent . . . .
Sort of. Thomas and Alito have both expressed the opinion before this case that SCOTUS lacks discretion to deny a state’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint. They were consistent on that point here. Alito made a “statement,” with which Thomas joined:
In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U. S. ___ (Feb. 24, 2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.
Can we maybe agree that, just as, for example, "The UK joined the invasion of Iraq" is understood as refering to the government of the UK and possibly the people who voted for that government, but not every single person in the UK, remarks about a state supporting the Texas lawsuit are meant to mean the Republican politicians and their voters, but not every single person in that state?
You know damn well that my objection was to do with being tarred with the term "seditious" simply because I live in a state where one or more ghastly officials have taken this stupid and damnable step. You wrote, "brown states are seditionists who have betrayed the very idea of American democracy.." Will you make the whole state seditious because some damned paper shuffler did something he had no mandate for? And you might look at that "seditionists" which is a descriptive term applied to individuals, not to states. One refers to a collective as "seditious", but to individual traitors as "seditionists." You chose the term for individuals, which is at the least ungrammatical and at the worst betrays a belief that individual inhabitants share in the sedition.
I have no objection to the proper use of collective nouns to describe actions, as you imply (e.g. Missouri voted to do such-and-such, California struck down this or that law).
I'm not sure where Croeses is from, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and speculate that he lives in a state that voted for Ronald Reagan in '84.
So I wonder if he would object to a statement made in 1984 to the effect that "Republican states are reactionary racists and misogynists who have betrayed the very idea of equality."
Would he regard that as an unfair slur against himself?
Would a kind lawyer please explain why Texas even has standing to bring this suit?
Funny you should ask that. The U.S. Supreme Court was puzzled by that, too!
Even including Trump's recent appointees to the SC, notably Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett, both of whom regard themselves as "black letter lawyers". And though IANAL, most lawyers who have commented publicly reckon that the black letter is clear: each state chooses its own representatives to the EC, so other states have no say in the matter.
Would a kind lawyer please explain why Texas even has standing to bring this suit?
Funny you should ask that. The U.S. Supreme Court was puzzled by that, too!
Even including Trump's recent appointees to the SC, notably Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett, both of whom regard themselves as "black letter lawyers". And though IANAL, most lawyers who have commented publicly reckon that the black letter is clear: each state chooses its own representatives to the EC, so other states have no say in the matter.
Plus ... A double irony operates there ... (1) The GOP -- and in general, their Judicial nominees -- favor "States' Rights," so asking/expecting FEDERAL courts to tell states how to conduct their elections is ... well ... odd, to say the least ... but even as much or more so ... (2) IF Texas can intervene to tell Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania how to conduct their elections, THEN why couldn't, say, Minnesota intervene through the courts regarding systematic disenfranchisement of voters of color in places like Texas ... ??? ... "Take it from me, babe ... You can't have it both ways ... " -- "Jane," to "Jonas," in "Leap of Faith" ...
Funny, when the Republican Party was formed, they wanted a strong central government. The Democrats were for State's Rights. We have gone over this before. But I have to say that is true irony.
This Pascrell guy should just STFU. The Republicans are looking like idiots with their failed lawsuit, and demanding that the members who supported it lose their seats just comes off as doing the same thing undemocratic thing.
As moronic as the suit was, the litigants were using legal arguments to ask the court to intervene, they weren't asking the army to send in the tanks. The court said no, and now half the country is laughing at the Republicans. From the Democratic perspective, there's no need to complicate matters further.
Polite hostly note. Given the understandably high temperature of things around this thread, this is a special plea to try and avoid language which can too easily be transferred from corporate actors to individuals who may in fact oppose such action. Equally, because posters may already be feeling bruised and vulnerable, please try and avoid being easily offended, as well as easily offending. And, finally, if it appears that offence has been caused, please do not use this thread to discuss whether or not it is legitimately perceived or intended.
Seems on a par with the already dismissed case, though with better logic and spelling on the whole.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
The madness continues. The authority of the Supreme Court has now also been attacked by Donald Trump. More appeals have been submitted. So destructive.
Funny, when the Republican Party was formed, they wanted a strong central government. The Democrats were for State's Rights. We have gone over this before. But I have to say that is true irony.
This is a bit of Lost Cause mythology that completely reverses and re-writes history. Yes, the initial Republican party was for a strong central government, but that took the form of being favorable to internal improvements funded by the federal government (what we today would refer to as "infrastructure"). The Democratic party of the 1850s was, despite later propaganda, actually against state's rights. More specifically one of their biggest grievances was that the free states weren't living up to their obligations under the Constitution's fugitive slave clause and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Though I suppose a "state's rights for me but not for thee" approach is consistent with the modern Republican party.
This Pascrell guy should just STFU. The Republicans are looking like idiots with their failed lawsuit, and demanding that the members who supported it lose their seats just comes off as doing the same thing undemocratic thing.
For those who are interested Pascrell's letter can be found here. Whether or not it makes tactical sense it is Constitutionally valid. There is even precedent for using section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to refuse to seat a Congressman who wasn't "asking the army to send in the tanks".
The problem here is that using frivolous and groundless lawsuits to get the judiciary to overthrow the duly elected government (let's not mince words about what's being asked here) is something that these people will keep doing on the hope that they get lucky (and for the propaganda benefit of labeling Democrat who defeats a Republican electorally as illegitimate) unless there's some kind of penalty for them doing so beyond being made to look foolish to a certain segment of the population (and looking like "fighters" to another segment of the population). It may be politically unfeasible to refuse to seat the 126 members of the House of Representatives who signed their names to an act of sedition (though I'd argue it would be philosophically justified) but some sort of penalty should be levied. Loss of committee chairmanships? Or even committee seating?
How would that punishment be enacted - by a party-line House vote? I don't see how that would discourage these people from further mischief. Would they then be expected to renounce their support for Trump's craziness to get those positions back? Why wouldn't they just go on to the next crazier step - because at that point, what's the difference?
How would that punishment be enacted - by a party-line House vote? I don't see how that would discourage these people from further mischief. Would they then be expected to renounce their support for Trump's craziness to get those positions back? Why wouldn't they just go on to the next crazier step - because at that point, what's the difference?
That's pretty much how we got to the point of elected officials trying to subvert American democracy; the assumption by those officials that they could just go on to the next crazier step and not suffer any penalty for it.
They kept on going because they weren't punished by their (Republican) constituents. Democratic House leadership withholding committee assignments is nothing compared to that. I don't think there's any effective penalty within the power of Democrats to levy.
Here is an idea: every attorney, be they an AG or a congressperson, should be disbarred by the ABA. The reason being is they took an oath to uphold the constitution and they also knew that the Texas lawsuit was frivolous. Moreover, if the AsG used state resources to get involved with the case, they should face whatever sanctions the state has in place for misuse of public funds. If I had my way, they should also be subject to recall. I know they will not be, but their actions can be used against them when they come up for re-election.
But written and verbal rebukes by judges dismissing these groundless complaints, and the one-sentence rejection by the US Supreme Court of the first such case to reach it, are not enough. The courts must formally sanction the attorneys involved in flooding courts with these baseless claims, and state legal disciplinary boards must hold them accountable for the role they are playing in undermining American’s faith in democracy.
Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, and Powell — the last of whom recently ended her official role on the legal team but who is still pressing the cases on her own — have violated their oath-sworn duties as officers of the court to protect the judicial system.
“Lawyers are gatekeepers to filter out what gets presented to a court to ensure that the filings are not garbage,” said Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor and expert on ethical rules governing lawyers and judges. “If bad claims come to courts, there is less time for other things, and so judges should — and I would hope they would — get appropriately incensed if Trump’s lawyers or any lawyers force them to spend time on rejected claims that never should have been filed in the first place.”
Even worse, these lawyers’ public claims of election fraud, without any credible evidence to back them up, only serve to sabotage Americans’ confidence in the democratic system.
The editorial also gets into some of the details of what this would involve.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia have ethical rules prohibiting the filing of baseless lawsuits. The rules are derived from the American Bar Association’s model code, which states: “A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law.”
In addition, Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows courts to impose disciplinary sanctions against attorneys who file federal claims that are not “warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument” or without “evidentiary support.” Most state courts have similar provisions, and sanctions range from striking the offending pleadings to imposing monetary sanctions.
Unfortunately:
And though judges cannot issue disbarment orders on their own, court-ordered sanctions can provide a basis for state disciplinary boards to take action that could include suspension, censure, or disbarment, Gillers said.
“Disciplinary committees are not really equipped to review the merits of litigation in various courts, and they have enough to do with their limited budgets chasing down lawyers who are crooks,” Gillers said. “So they won’t go after this unless a judge were to make a finding that a filing was frivolous.”
As I argued elsewhere, no one has a "right" to file groundless and frivolous lawsuits. In fact, the strictures listed in the Boston Globe editorial are designed to provide a deterrent to filing such suits.
Here is an idea: every attorney, be they an AG or a congressperson, should be disbarred by the ABA.
The ABA is a voluntary association that lacks the authority to disbar anyone.
Point taken. But the State Bar Associations can disbar such people.
Depends on the state. In just under half the states (including mine), a state bar association is a voluntary organization that licensed attorney can choose to join or not, much like the ABA. There’s a separate, governmental regulatory entity such as a “State Bar” or the state supreme court that has the authority to disbar attorneys. Just over half the states (including yours, I think) have what’s called an integrated or unified bar, where the regulatory agency and the voluntary association are essentially merged into one entity that lawyers are required to belong to.
Here is an idea: every attorney, be they an AG or a congressperson, should be disbarred by the ABA.
The ABA is a voluntary association that lacks the authority to disbar anyone.
Point taken. But the State Bar Associations can disbar such people.
Depends on the state. In just under half the states (including mine), a state bar association is a voluntary organization that licensed attorney can choose to join or not, much like the ABA. There’s a separate, governmental regulatory entity such as a “State Bar” or the state supreme court that has the authority to disbar attorneys. Just over half the states (including yours, I think) have what’s called an integrated or unified bar, where the regulatory agency and the voluntary association are essentially merged into one entity that lawyers are required to belong to.
/tangent
Damn, I had originally said the state court could disbar an attorney, then I rechecked the facts and I still got it wrong.
---
Separate from the conversation Nick and I are having. Here is another columnist who is saying the congresspersons who signed the Texas lawsuit should be tried for sedition.
Comments
I think the most credible explanation is that they're afraid of losing the MAGA vote if they don't appear to be doing everything possible to give DJT a second term.
I doubt very many of them actually think it's going to be possible to save Trump via multiple lawsuits, 'cuz if it were that easy, some other losing candidate would have done so in a previous election. Though I could be convinced that some of them do sincerely believe that there was widespread fraud, given that there often tends to be a convergence between supposedly random delusions and the self-interest of the deluded.
They could of course unite. But even if they could trust one another to do that, the base might still classify them as RINOs.
It’s more prudent to go along with the BS and pass the loyalty test.
That makes it hard to discuss actions taken by collective entities, like "the state of Texas" or "the Republican party" or "Nestlé Corporation". You seem to be willing to do this yourself, describing a "Pennsylvania rebuttal" to the "Texas appeal", not a "rebuttal by Pennsylvania's Attorney General" to the "appeal by Texas' Attorney General". The way these cases are filed backs up this interpretation. The full name of the case under discussion is State of Texas, plaintiff v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, State of Georgia, State of Michigan, and State of Wisconsin, defendants (Texas v. Pennsylvania, et al. for short). You can argue that nations and governments are legal fictions, but they're fictions we all live by. The Attorneys General of the various states that have signed on to these efforts are empowered by their various state governments to take legal action on behalf of those governments. They're not entering suits as lone individuals demanding relief from other specific individuals in other states, they've filed action on behalf of their states collectively, demanding relief from other states collectively. Given this, it makes sense to refer to actions undertaken by Texas (or Pennsylvania, or whatever).
Apparently not.
Well, I sort of meant it like "From here on in, can we maybe agree...?"
I recall (1990 midterms?) driving through Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina in rural and semi-rural areas and seeing signs everywhere "If in office, vote them out" (ignore the bad grammar), yet IIRC, it had one of the highest returns of incumbents. Go fig.
And I think there are very good grounds to support the view that there is seditious behaviour going on here.
Yes, it was the 1990 midterms where the media was spinning the dynamic as Everyone Hates Incumbents. I remember Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom column(which theoretically just reported on what everyone was thinking but was often interpreted as expressing a viewpoint) predicting that despite all the anti-incumbency rhetoric, the vast majority would be returned, which they were.
I also seem to recall that the anti-incumbent movement was regarded by some as an anti-Democrat movement in disguise, since the Dems controlled both the House and Senate at that time. And they continued to do so after the election.
(And this discrepancy between hating Congress but voting for your incumbent can exist because, unlike the presidency which is one office held by one person, it's possible to have a low opinion of Congress as a whole, while thinking your own man is doing a bangup job. Especially if he's tossing a lot of pork into your jurisdiction.)
Some news sources have said it was an amicus brief, but I see CNN is reporting it is a motion to intervene. I concede.
That’s what I linked (twice) to the actual document filed on behalf of Trump.
It has been pointed out that a number of the Republican Representatives who signed on to this case come from states whose election results they claim are invalid. In other words, they're implicitly arguing that they themselves have been sent to Congress by an illegitimate election.
That's my own compiled list from the document filed [PDF] so I may have missed someone.
But were all the Represenratives on that list up for election in 2020? According to wiki, the first guy, Rick Allen, was elected in 2018, so I don't he'd have been running this year.
Though I assume in all those states, at least a few Republicans were elected, so at the very least, they are arguing that some of their GOP colleagues are not legit.
So all of these guys* ran in November and may or may not have been re-elected.
*Of the 19 names on Crœsos's list, all are apparently male.
Actually Doug Collins is a lame duck. He's been replaced by Andrew Clyde, another Republican, in the upcoming Congress. I haven't checked all the names, so there may be others. Collins ran for Senate, but lost to Kelly Loeffler and didn't make it to the runoffs.
As @Pigwidgeon points out, House seats are subject to election every two years (i.e. every time there's a federal election), so those guys would all have been up for re-election this year (or retiring at the end of December, something I didn't bother to check). And yes, Rick Allen was re-elected in 2020 by a 17 percentage point margin.
You know damn well that my objection was to do with being tarred with the term "seditious" simply because I live in a state where one or more ghastly officials have taken this stupid and damnable step. You wrote, "brown states are seditionists who have betrayed the very idea of American democracy.." Will you make the whole state seditious because some damned paper shuffler did something he had no mandate for? And you might look at that "seditionists" which is a descriptive term applied to individuals, not to states. One refers to a collective as "seditious", but to individual traitors as "seditionists." You chose the term for individuals, which is at the least ungrammatical and at the worst betrays a belief that individual inhabitants share in the sedition.
I have no objection to the proper use of collective nouns to describe actions, as you imply (e.g. Missouri voted to do such-and-such, California struck down this or that law).
They must be out of toilet paper and are using the Constitution for that purpose.
Ka-Boom
It is all over but the dust settling. The AG of Texas, the 120 Congesspersons, The 17 or is it 18 States and ahem, the Big Man, had no standing! Story here.
The Electoral College meets on Monday and it will all be over (NOT).
The order is here.
Also, it is possible that a justice or two dissented, but did not ask that their dissent be noted in the order.
I'm not sure where Croeses is from, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and speculate that he lives in a state that voted for Ronald Reagan in '84.
So I wonder if he would object to a statement made in 1984 to the effect that "Republican states are reactionary racists and misogynists who have betrayed the very idea of equality."
Would he regard that as an unfair slur against himself?
Even including Trump's recent appointees to the SC, notably Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett, both of whom regard themselves as "black letter lawyers". And though IANAL, most lawyers who have commented publicly reckon that the black letter is clear: each state chooses its own representatives to the EC, so other states have no say in the matter.
Plus ... A double irony operates there ... (1) The GOP -- and in general, their Judicial nominees -- favor "States' Rights," so asking/expecting FEDERAL courts to tell states how to conduct their elections is ... well ... odd, to say the least ... but even as much or more so ... (2) IF Texas can intervene to tell Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania how to conduct their elections, THEN why couldn't, say, Minnesota intervene through the courts regarding systematic disenfranchisement of voters of color in places like Texas ... ??? ... "Take it from me, babe ... You can't have it both ways ... " -- "Jane," to "Jonas," in "Leap of Faith" ...
Supreme Court Original Jurisdiction suits are rare, and if it doesn't involve taxes, borders or water rights it usually gets dismissed.
No ...
As moronic as the suit was, the litigants were using legal arguments to ask the court to intervene, they weren't asking the army to send in the tanks. The court said no, and now half the country is laughing at the Republicans. From the Democratic perspective, there's no need to complicate matters further.
BroJames, Purgatory Host
https://twitter.com/Devilstower/status/1337520444862304261?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1337520444862304261%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fboardgamegeek.com%2Fthread%2F2374040%2Farticle%2F3649366736493667
Seems on a par with the already dismissed case, though with better logic and spelling on the whole.
This is a bit of Lost Cause mythology that completely reverses and re-writes history. Yes, the initial Republican party was for a strong central government, but that took the form of being favorable to internal improvements funded by the federal government (what we today would refer to as "infrastructure"). The Democratic party of the 1850s was, despite later propaganda, actually against state's rights. More specifically one of their biggest grievances was that the free states weren't living up to their obligations under the Constitution's fugitive slave clause and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Though I suppose a "state's rights for me but not for thee" approach is consistent with the modern Republican party.
For those who are interested Pascrell's letter can be found here. Whether or not it makes tactical sense it is Constitutionally valid. There is even precedent for using section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to refuse to seat a Congressman who wasn't "asking the army to send in the tanks".
The problem here is that using frivolous and groundless lawsuits to get the judiciary to overthrow the duly elected government (let's not mince words about what's being asked here) is something that these people will keep doing on the hope that they get lucky (and for the propaganda benefit of labeling Democrat who defeats a Republican electorally as illegitimate) unless there's some kind of penalty for them doing so beyond being made to look foolish to a certain segment of the population (and looking like "fighters" to another segment of the population). It may be politically unfeasible to refuse to seat the 126 members of the House of Representatives who signed their names to an act of sedition (though I'd argue it would be philosophically justified) but some sort of penalty should be levied. Loss of committee chairmanships? Or even committee seating?
That's pretty much how we got to the point of elected officials trying to subvert American democracy; the assumption by those officials that they could just go on to the next crazier step and not suffer any penalty for it.
Point taken. But the State Bar Associations can disbar such people.
The Boston Globe editorial board made a similar suggestion two days ago.
The editorial also gets into some of the details of what this would involve.
Unfortunately:
As I argued elsewhere, no one has a "right" to file groundless and frivolous lawsuits. In fact, the strictures listed in the Boston Globe editorial are designed to provide a deterrent to filing such suits.
/tangent
Damn, I had originally said the state court could disbar an attorney, then I rechecked the facts and I still got it wrong.
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Separate from the conversation Nick and I are having. Here is another columnist who is saying the congresspersons who signed the Texas lawsuit should be tried for sedition.