And Trump apparently called the Georgia AG directly to tell him to mute his opposition to the lawsuit.
I don’t understand wht defendants named in a ridiculous suit should respond at all. Are the actually expected to?
The Ohio brief says that it is not in support of the plaintiff or the defendant. A quick read leaves me with the impression that it tilts towards the plaintiff (Texas)…
Yes, they were expected to. At minimum, Texas would have argued that failure to object meant waiver of their arguments. With rare exceptions, you always have to file some kind of an opposition to a motion.
From the Supreme Court:
Dec 08 2020 Response to the motion for leave to file a bill of complaint and to the motion for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order or, alternatively, for stay and administrative stay requested, due Thursday, December 10, by 3 pm.
To me it’s like if the Texas AG jumped into a volcano, and told Pennsylvania that they had to do something about it. Pensylvania looks down into the volcano and says: No, I don’t. I mean, I could if I wanted to, but you know, no.
I’m not a lawyer.
Check out the Justice and Freedom Fund Amici brief:
Think of it as a bank heist, one in which armed
robbers crash through the front doors and hightail it to
different sections of the building. One approaches a
teller and shoves a gun in his face. One sneaks over to
the main computer and hacks away. Another goes into
the vault and locks it behind him, so he can swap out
real bills with counterfeits when no one is looking.
That pretty much sums up what happened in the
2020 presidential election. The election was stolen out
from under the American people. And the crooks used
many means to bring their devious plan to fruition.
Evidence of fraud is there for anyone to see, but the
corporate media seem to be engaging in one of three
strategies: stating that none exists; ignoring it
altogether; or subjecting it to a “fact-checking” process.
But the evidence in this election merry-go-round is
massive. Indeed, the evidence is credible enough to
warrant overturning the results in the battleground
states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia,
Arizona, and Nevada—even before considering the
staggering amount of statistical evidence and the
mounting data involving tabulation machines and
software.
I am a big fan of the “sic” in this passage.
And Texas’s own complaint shows why the later-counted votes led to such a strong shift in favor of President-Elect Biden: “Significantly, in Defendant States, Democrat [sic] voters voted by mail at two to three times the rate of Republicans.”
That is good!
It looks like the good folks from PA were at least able to have a little subtle fun with the whole thing. Most pundits seem to think that we will hear from SCOTUS on Monday.
I wish we’d hear tomorrow, the fear of something going crazy this weekend is unnerving.
They don’t need three days to come up with a clever put down, do they?
Too fast and it will be deemed ‘pre-determined’ - too slow and it will look like actual deliberations were needeed. (assuming a short “not our monkey” response)
Given the amount of filings (so far) in this thing - I would expect SCOTUS to review it tomorrow (friday) and require the weekend to type up the response.
If we could just let the red states become their own country for a year, and let them shake themselves into insane meth-fueled opium mania as the trailer parks burn and they don’t have the blue-state taxes to prop up their shuddering incompetence…
Oh yeah. They’d nuke us, never mind.
On topic: Every single lawyer involved in this should be permanently disbarred. What is more fundamental to justice than the integrity of the government itself?
As far as I’m concerned, it’s political “lampshade hanging.” In fiction, that term refers to a technique where, rather than remove or explain something that seems absurd or doesn’t fit, you just have the characters acknowledge it and how weird it is, and otherwise do nothing about it.
The political equivalent then, I suggest, is acknowledging that a problem exists, but then don’t actually address it.
I kind of hope that they write a serious smack down. We need more of these moments where reality is enforced or reimposed on people who are trying to construct their own. Maybe eventually it will start to break through.
A note on the court’s discretionary call on whether to take the case. Back in the 70s, I think, is when the court made hearing original jurisdiction cases discretionary. They later tightened it up more.
From here: https://www.fjc.gov/history/courts/jurisdiction-original-supreme-court
So, this suit ought to not be heard, based on the “seriousness and dignity” criterion, but, it could be considered pretty important to shut this nonsense down, hard.
I think they can do both by writing on why it’s being rejected, but there are technical aspects to the procedure here that I am not familiar with, so I don’t know exactly how they can do it.
As for the earlier question about contact between Trump and one or more Justices, it would be unethical under any code of judicial conduct that I’m aware of, at least, if the suit were discussed, but ethics is a little weird for Supreme Court Justices. They basically police themselves, collectively. They are not governed by any judicial ethics code.
It is a wonderful dream, too good to ever come true, damn the gods!
I have a tangential question: On the face of it, Texas has no standing to sue because Pennsylvania’s election is Pennsylvania’s business. But does some sort of legal principle of “what my neighbor does in his land is actually affecting me” apply (not to Texas, but a hypothetical case)?
For instance, in the same way that a landowner incinerating 10 tons of cadmium and mercury can cause tremendous toxic pollution for all of his neighbors, if a swing state rigs elections (not saying Pennsylvania rigged it this year, but a hypothetical) in such a way that it affects the entire U.S. election, then many states suffer as a result of the rigging.
Just for giggles’ sake, let’s say that Texas itself were THE deciding swing state in the 2024 election. And Texas had systematically banned all non-white voters, all women, from voting. Only white men allowed to vote. Blatantly unConstitutional, but this gives the presidency to the Republican candidate.
Could a state like California then sue Texas, saying, “Your illegal vote suppression has now caused California to have to unfairly suffer the next 4 years under a Republican president when it would have had you run elections fairly?”
I am torn about what would be better, an epic smackdown or a one line “We decline to hear this”.
The Court has released a series of unanimous decisions over the last couple of days. I think that this is intentional by Roberts. He wants (releasing some unanimous decisions first) to show that the Court isn’t as fractured as some may think.
No. Congress is usually the arbiter of inter-state things like commerce, water rights, etc. Congress is the one who has the power to enforce the 14th Amendment. The U.S. itself can sue if Congress authorizes it under, say, the Voting Rights Act. Individuals in Texas can sue Texas both in state court and in federal court under state and federal law. California has zero direct interest in Texas’s appointment of electoral votes.
~Max
I think the preferred method to redress that problem is for someone with standing to sue Texas, not the State of California. And to sue in the state or federal courts in Texas.
For sure, Texas would face a million lawsuits in such a scenario. But I was just asking, Constitutionally, if a state like California would have grounds to sue because “your illegal suppression in Texas indirectly affects us.”
Because that sounds to me like the argument Texas is using in real life right now - that if Pennsylvania did indeed rig elections, that it indirectly affects Texas. At least to my non-lawyer ears, that sounds like what the claim is.