Is yours in response to the 1st or 2nd sentence you quoted?
If the 2nd, you appear to imagine that anyone would pretend a random anagram can be meaningful. If so, you really are as stupid as you’re beginning to look.
I quoted the anagram just because it amused me as appropriate for someone who (once) appeared intelligent but is happy to ally himself with the Party of Birthers, racists, gun-nuts and hypocrites.
I’ve no doubt whatsoever that you are precisely the sort who would anwer “I don’t know” to the question “Where was the President born?” because legalistically, you’d deem such slander to be literally “true” if you hadn’t personally done forensics on the birth certificate. (Don’t bother pointing to a thread where you’ve denied being a Birther – it would only prove that you know that at SDMB you’re dealing with people more intelligent than your usual fans.)
Then I guess we disagree on that point. I feel as long as the law didn’t mandate a specific wording - like an oath of office - then all that is legally required is a statement from the candidate in which he conveys the message. And I feel that “I am withdrawing pursuant to KSA 25-306b(b)” does this. The reference to the law makes it a declaration.
So – despite the fact that I have repeatedly derided the Birther nonsense as being nonsense, despite the fact that I have consistently and repeatedly affirmed that I am confident that Obama is a natural-born citizen and constitutionally eligible to be President, and despite the fact that I have never posted a single statement contrary to those sentiments, you still get to imply I’m a Birther?
Aww, c’mon! Just because he uses the word “feel” in place of “think”, that permits you to treat the point as if it were nothing more than an emotional whim? Have a little dignity. Actually, you have far more than is healthy, let others have a bit as well, there’s a good fellow.
As far as I’m aware there is no legal framework in play here. I’ve quoted the law and the text of that law could be interpreted several different ways. As far as legal rulings, none have been presented. None may exist - this is a fairly recent law on a relatively uncommon subject. So at this point all we have are people offering their opinions. And I, for one, try to differentiate between my opinions and the facts. I like to think my opinions are based on the facts but I realize that my opinions are not facts.
With regard to legal rulings, that’s not entirely correct. The Secretary of State has made a legal ruling. The Secretary of State is the administrative official who is properly tasked with interpreting that law.
And what is the legal framework for judicial deference to administrative interpretations of law?
Answer: in Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council, a unanimous Supreme Court said:
In other words, the general rule is that a court won’t independently discern the answer. It will ask if the agency official’s answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute, even if that construction is not one the court would have reached independently.
What that means is:
If you were the Secretary of State, and you accepted a letter that just referred to the statute number, and someone sued, saying the notice was infirm, you would almost certainly win. The courts might not agree with you that your view was the correct one, but they’d almost certainly say it was a permissible construction.
But by the same token, if you were the SoS and refused a letter on the grounds that Kobach did, the courts would almost certainly side with you, too.
Reading through the law of KS I find it strange that the ONLY way you can resign from candidacies of this nature is to declare yourself incapable of serving. And yes, reading through Mr. Taylor’s letter of withdraw, he does not put in those magical words which allegedly would make him compliant with the law.
But I would argue (seriously, if I were Mr. Taylor’s attorney) that simply writing a letter withdrawing from the race is, de facto, an admission that you are incapable of serving. It couldn’t be anything but that.
You can argue anything you like, but the legal determination has been made already. There are two ways to challenge it. One is to appeal to the board of elections, but it is very unlikely to succeed. The other is to sue. I am not sure if Taylor has the standing to sue.
Most likely Taylor will not challenge the decision. He hasn’t so far, and the deadlines are tight. Once the ballots go out on Sept. 18th, that’s it.
So, this guy Kobloch will win his point on a semantic and technical legalistic gotcha. Knowing full well that Taylor made a good faith effort to comply, and even directly referenced the statute in question, it is nonetheless within his legal purview to stick his thumb in the other team’s eye. So, robed with the full dignity and respect accorded to the law, he will do exactly that. Because he can. Legal, and Constitutional!
Your kind of guy, eh, Bricker?
Taylor tried to “stick his thumb in the other team’s eye”, filing literally in the last minute possible, and didn’t want to pay the humiliating price of saying, explicitly, that he is incapable of filling the office of senator.
That’s hardly absolute. The Chevron decision has been modified by later opinions to say that it’s only applicable to formal agency decisions which have the force of law. Less formal decisions which are held to be opinions may not receive this deference.
Which to me looks like another case of the current court trying to have it both ways. They’ve established two nebulous standards - one for formal decisions and one for less formal decisions - which receive different judgments. This allows the court to pick which standard it will apply on a case-by-case basis in order to reach the conclusions it likes.
Taylor did not make a good faith effort to comply. He made an effort to weasel out of complying. If I gave the text of that law to 20 people on the street and asked them to write a letter withdrawing that complied with the statute, every single one would get it right.
Why? What possible motivation might he have. He wanted drop out of the race, point of the whole exercise. So why would he want to “weasel out” of complying? And if he did want to “weasel out”, what would have happened if they had simply shrugged and accepted his letter? What purpose would any of this serve?
And this testimonial to boundless optimism:
Get real. About half of those people gonna be liberals, you know…
According to Taylor, he discussed what needed to be included in the letter with the government official in charge of elections. He showed the official what he planned to write and the official approved it. That, to any reasonable person, would represent a good faith effort at compliance.
I realize that Kobach is now saying this conversation didn’t happen. But that only indicates that somebody is lying. It might be Taylor or Kobach.
Is yours in response to the 1st or 2nd sentence you quoted?