The ridiculous Texas lawsuit seeking to nullify the election results in Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Pennsylvania has been rejected by the Supreme Court in an unsigned order, and for the expected reason: lack of standing. Here’s the terse decision:
I’m not sure what Alito and Thomas are on about, but the lawyers in the crowd can explain it to us.
He has no recourse, at least any that I can see.
Tweeted a few hours ago (he hasn’t reacted to the new decision, but that should be fun):
If the Supreme Court shows great Wisdom and Courage, the American People will win perhaps the most important case in history, and our Electoral Process will be respected again!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2020
The court showed adherence to the law.
Hallelujah
Yay! The pundits had predicted this outcome, but it’s great to have it confirmed.
Trump is half right, hopefully the “Electoral Process will be respected again” (with or without his erratic use of capital letters).
The Guardian noted that GOP candidates elected on the same ballot signed up to support Texas’s challenge:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/11/house-republicans-texas-election-lawsuit-supreme-court
There is a difference in how House members are elected and how presidents are elected. The lawsuit challenged the way these four states chose their presidential electors. House members aren’t picked by electors, so there is a distinction with the process.
The most obvious distinction is that the WH promoted lawsuits only for the results they didn’t like.
There is a distinction– House members are elected directly by the people, while the president is elected indirectly, via electors. But the Texas lawsuit sought to discredit the direct voting so as invalidate the selection of the electors. Had the argument prevailed, the direct election of the House members would also have been called into question. So yes, these House members were arguing for the invalidity of their own elections.
Texas argued that the Constitution allows state legislatures to select the electors when the direct voting of the people is invalid– it’s not at all clear that this is true. For House members the likely remedy would have been to hold new elections; this was done in one district in North Carolina after the 2018 election had been invalidated by electoral fraud.
GCM
So, if 75% of Trump supporters believe that US elections can’t be trusted, does that mean they just won’t show up to vote anymore? This doesn’t seem like a winning strategy for the GOP.
Remember, Republicans don’t use logic or reason.
Weren’t the Trumpsters trying to organise a GOP boycott of the Senate run off elections in Georgia? I’d love to see the look on Moscow Mitch’s face if they succeeded.
Some of Trump’s enablers are now being hit with lawsuits, and I hope many more come including sedition.
IANAL but, here’s my take… Article III of the Constitution talks about the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing disputes between the states. It seems that Texas does not have a “cognizable interest” in the elections of other states. This seems kind of self-evident to even a lay person: how in the world could Texas sue another state because it believes they are doing their elections wrong? It’s not a dispute between Texas and (say) Georgia, but rather a unilateral action by Texas. Over at the SCOTUSblog, some commentators were asking for the Court to deny filing the bill of complaint and render all other requests for relief as moot. But Alito and Thomas said the Court does not have standing to do this, so they allowed the filing of the bill but declared all requests for relief moot due to the lack of cognizable interest as stated above.
I’ll happily defer to actual experts if I got this wrong!
The party of States’ rights has now set state against state, with the largest state attempting to usurp the electoral powers of and disenfranchise several smaller states, because the doofus Texas AG said the outcome of the election “didn’t feel right”?! You can’t make this stuff up. They’ve all gone completely crazy.
I’ve got a tab open to Trump’s twitter feed, waiting…waiting…
Not standing, as this applies to parties, but rather discretion. The two named justices felt that the Court may not properly deny a motion to file a bill of complaint that falls within its original jurisdiction. It’s like saying “you can’t even petition us”. It doesn’t really matter. The complaint would have been filed and the case promptly thrown out as lacking merit. Good. Hopefully this is the end of it. Now he can just go and sulk in Florida.
Sulk quietly, one hopes, but I’m not holding my breath…
I had to change to my gmail acct to get emails from WEIT, thus my name twice. I’m waiting for them to add “gently down the atream.”🤓
Yes, I can hear that each time you post a comment now. 🙂
I’m not sure that word, “quietly” exists in the Trump lexicon.
“Quietly” is a loser word.
I think they should allow them to file the bill of complaint every day between now and January 20 and then dismiss it daily so that Trump loses each and every day.
On the U.S. PBS I heard some Texas political pooh-bah, exulting in Texas’s altruistic initiative on behalf of other states (as if Texas had been appointed their legal conservator or guardian and for which they should be eternally grateful) say, “All I can say is, ‘God Bless Texas!'” Right. As Texas likes to tell the universe, “Don’t Mess With Texas.” All Praise, Honor, and Guh-loh-ry to Texas. I genuflect in the direction of Texas.
IANAL either but the President is the president of the whole USA so, if one state or a group states uses corrupt means to get their favourite candidate into the Whitehouse, I’d say the other states have a legitimate complaint (in the general sense, not necessarily the legal sense).
The problem (for the Texas GOP) is that the constitution pretty much allows the states to allocate their electoral votes in any way they choose.
We are entering a period of great danger. The fact that Trump no longer has any judicial remedy to overthrow the results of the election does not mean that he will stop yelling that the election was stolen from him. When Trump’s supporters realize that Biden will be the next president and still believing the election was stolen, will they resort to violence? It cannot be ruled out. The danger will persist even after Biden is inaugurated. Although Trump will not explicitly call for violence, his cult may surmise that is what he wants. There are in my opinion more than enough cultists willing to die for their messiah in an orgy of violence. The chaos they would create would put but another strain on democracy. Indeed, with Trump tweeting on the sidelines means that the danger to democracy will not fade away for possibly years to come. And the great majority of Republicans will say nothing.
They don’t have to die for him, all they have to do is be their annoying non-mask wearing, virus-spreading, anti-vax, anonymous death threatening selves.
Even if when he dies, natural causes or otherwise, he will be elevated to sainthood and/or (probably both) a martyr of the Deep State® conspiracy that orchestrated the hit.
His cabal of grifter children will take up the cause. We’re screwed either way.
I don’t fear the grifter children much. They really have no brand of their own. Each will be regarded as Trump-lite at the most.
I agree. One adult son is an idiot and the other just spews nonsense he hears from Reich wing sites. The daughter is a handbag designer and not even very good at that.
I think Trump will call for violence, or at least request that his supporters “rise up” or the like. He hasn’t really finished with his shenanigans yet so it isn’t time. I suspect that he’s looking for a moment when the “stolen election” hysteria is at its peak. There is still the Electoral College vote on Monday. where he’s probably hoping for some “faithless” electors to vote his way but that seems doubtful. Then there is Congress confirming the EC’s vote which I think occurs on January 7th. That is going to be a humongous shit-show. The most obnoxious of Trump’s GOP toadies will deliver speeches on the House and Senate floors saying that there was huge amounts of voting fraud and that they need to reject the EC’s verdict. They won’t win but it will give Trump all kinds of cover for a final call to the people to throw out the election results.
I suspect that for Alito and Thomas, it was more a question of procedure than any belief in the merits of the case. Regardless, some federal officials have finally displayed sensibility.
It’s unfortunate that, due to the electorate’s indifference, the 126 US Representatives who supported this can’t be held to account for their support. “So, you are on record for having supported…” Republicans are counting on a reset that, sadly, they’ll get.
Sub
Nonetheless, it should be a cause of serious worry that the most elementary procedure of democratic government—namely election by the people—has been safeguarded not by the people, but by a small number of black-robed judicial appointees, in the top and lower courts. The US decline into a banana republic could have been halted if the Party responsible for this decline had suffered a massive, general repudiation in November, but that did not happen. Instead, half the population voted in favor of candidates of the banana Republicans, so Mitch McConnell & Co. will continue digging away at the foundations of democratic governance, with every tool they can take up.
Why is it a cause of worry? That’s what the courts are there for. It would be a cause of worry if they were doing anything other than throwing these cases out. It seems to me that this part of the US governmental system is functioning far better than many of us thought it might.
I get what you’re saying but I do worry as well. We’ve seen previously respected congresspeople turn into Trump sycophants. Why not judges? We are perhaps just one bad judge away from losing the country. Perhaps the odds are very low of that happening but the damage is very high. There is also the sense that if we have such a great governmental system, why do these baseless efforts to overturn a fair election go all the way to the final gate? They should have died immediately. It’s the ability to appeal practically any legal matter, coupled with the clout of the highest office in the land and a psycho holding that office. And there’s nothing to stop these conditions from arising again, especially now Trump has shown the way. As many have pointed out, some future smart Trump would be devastating.
My “it’s not a cause for worry” was on a much more limited front than you have made it. I’m merely saying that it is not a cause for worry that it is the judiciary that is safeguarding the electoral process. That’s what they are there for and they are functioning properly. I had my doubts about whether they would before the cases started getting rejected but I have been pleasantly surprised at how things are going.
There’s a difference between a judge and a congress critter. Judge’s jobs – once appointed – do not depend on being in favour with Trump. Come out against Trump as a Republican Congressperson and you might find yourself facing a Trumper in the next primary. As long as there is the perception of a Trump base that is loyal to him, it will remain so.
Anyway, there are plenty of things to worry about including insurrection by Trumpers, but the judiciary not doing their job properly doesn’t seem to be one of them.
A massive ( ¡ of course ! ) deeeep cleansing of
the White House has been ordered up. This
cleansing is .ALL. to take place — — true story — —
d u r i n g the ceremony of the 20 January y2021
inauguration of Ms Harris and Mr Biden. AT which
same time Mr and Mrs Trump are to be O U T and
G O N E. ¡ ALL G O N E !
The timing / the gargantuanism of this project
[ 55,000 square feet, 132 rooms, 16 bedrooms,
35 bathrooms ( O yeah, ¡ 35 ! ), 814 doorknobs ] has
already been scheduled down to that specific
Wednesday’s minute.
Will He & His reTHUGlican Gang somehow, now,
t r y to sabotage this critically necessary undertaking ?
Blue
The format of your post was strange and difficult to read but I hope you’re right and they disinfect every inch of the white house before the Biden administration moves in.
Blue’s posts are an acquired taste but worth the effort. A lot of the poetry is in the punctuation. I look forward to them.
Sadly, I tend to skip over them, as it’s too much of a struggle.
Will He & His reTHUGlican Gang somehow, now,
t r y to sabotage this critically necessary undertaking ?
It requires no effort on his part, and he has people for that, but sure. Fortunately, those who report to him are more likely to now be worrying about themselves, not him.
What’s another few days to insure the house has been debugged in every sense of the word?
Dr Coyne:
Do you, then, win your wager with Ecuador’s Dr Jost ?
… … in re the involvement of S C O T U S for
the finalization of this particular presidential election ?
Blue
This decision was not about the merits (there were none), but about fear of DT. The GOP is still afraid to tell the king he has no cloths. What a disgusting state of affairs for a proud nation! Perhaps time will erase the thought of all this from our minds.
The dissent from Alito and Thomas is a weird hobbyhorse they’ve been on about forever. They think the Original Jurisdiction clause REQUIRES them to hear all such suits. It’s no indication of what they think about the merits, and they explicitly denied they would give Texas relief on the merits.
It shouldn’t have come to this. We were in a situation where American democracy hung, literally and totally, on the legal judgment of nine unelected jurists. Scores of millions of votes were up for grabs. We were lucky, but luck should never have come within a million miles of the process. That was a massive bullet we all just dodged, and things need to be done to ensure that it never, ever happens again.
This whole horrific experience put me in mind of an editorial in the New Yorker (back in the days when it was a worthwhile publication) reflecting on the lessons of Watergate, and the ‘rescue operation from the eighteenth century’ that ‘saved us all’:
‘Today, Americans are saying, almost unanimously, that the uncovering of Watergate was a triumph of our Constitutional system, and it was. Still, it was not our triumph. When we congratulate ourselves on our success, or congratulate the men of the press or the men of Congress or the men of the judiciary, or congratulate the public, we spread the credit too wide. Any credit to contemporaries goes not to the press as a whole but mostly to the Washington Post; not to Congress but mostly to Senator Sam J. Ervin. Jr. ; not to the judiciary but mostly to Judge John J. Sirica. Only these few, and a handful of others, properly used, and thereby saved, our system. The rest of us still have our medals to earn in the battle of the Constitution. In the decades of Presidential power, the members of the rival institutions learned servile habits, and now that they have been released from intimidation, the question is whether they will be able to stand on their own feet or whether the long years of subservience have bent them permanently into a crawling position. This time, the country was saved without them. And, great as the contribution of the intrepid few among us was, the few were given the strength of thousands by the long arm of the Founding Fathers reaching down across two centuries to save us all. We were all reaping benefits from a system that too many of us had failed, in recent years, to understand or support. It was a rescue operation from the eighteenth century, and our own contribution was minimal.’
‘In a sense, we didn’t save the system—it saved us.’
I’m left wondering what will happen next. They’ve not thrown in the towel. They vow to fight on. Fight how? Nothing would surprise me at this point. Texas wants to secede and Democrats are calling for treacherous reps to not be seated. I think we’re witnessing the end of the American experiment. In a small way, Don is right. The SCOTUS showed a lack of courage by not hearing and then denouncing the case and its plaintiffs. Only strong words from the highest court can begin to persuade those who are brainwashed. My fear is that two or three of the justices don’t have strong words.
“The SCOTUS showed a lack of courage by not hearing and then denouncing the case and its plaintiffs.”
That would have been satisfying but I understand completely why they wouldn’t. The majority thought that the plaintiffs didn’t have standing to bring the suit. To actually hear it under those circumstances would really put SCOTUS in a bad position. I’m no lawyer but I believe it would set precedent that such suits would be considered legal in the future. They certainly wouldn’t want that to happen. More generally, it would be a political statement of their own taken outside of normal court mechanisms and, in a way, they would be guilty of the same offense as the plaintiffs.
It must gall tRump that his three appointees denied the motion. No doubt he thinks they owe him. Why, when you have life tenure on the highest court in the land, would you destroy your credibility by supporting this ludicrous suit?
At some point in the very near future (for the Presidential attention span is too short for it to be in the medium future), the Tangerine Shitgibbon is going to complain about “these corrupt judges”. When he does (not “if”), he’ll be using the definition of corrupt as “accepts a bribe but then does not stay brought”.
What-her-name the spouse-submitting judge wasn’t one of the dissenting judges, so I infer that the Shitgibbon will also be complaining about him not keeping his chattel on the straight and narrow.
Isn’t the Shitgibbon-in-chief the infallible haad of the evangelical churches of America, whose tenure extends beyond life itself?
There was no dissent. Just a statement on a procedural matter of no import to this case.
What doesn’t gall him these days? It’s as if Rodney Dangerfield were president and believed his own act.
When I read the title I expected a rendition of “Stop! In the name of love.”
Except of course that the to-be-exed-president is pinin’ for the hate.
Its not love
I am even more P.O.ed about the Republican elected officials who are pushing this stupid and dangerous thing forward. Cowards at the least. Arguable they are traitors.
Am I being over the top?
From the Guardian blog last night, just after SCOTUS gave its ruling:
Is calling for secession regarded as treason?
News flash: If you secede from the Union, you’ve left the constitution behind. Anyone can substitute their own interpretation of the constitution and claim to abide by that. The Supreme Court is the ultimate authority. Secede and bring a copy of the constitution, but then it won’t be the Constitution of the United States, obviously.
Certainly that is how the Spanish government are considering the actions of the Catalan government and it’s various elected members scattered throughout Europe, who extraditions back to Madrid to face trial they are demanding.
So the electoral college vote on Monday will probably go without any unpleasant surprise. My understanding is that the last hurdle is Congress approving the result. That’s bound to be a fiasco.
Uh-oh. See pages 12-13 of this National Archives document. Major fiasco potential.
I take it you aren’t joking here. Am I right? Even if the Constitution’s words and intent was to have both houses merely question whether the EC’s addition was correct, Trump and the GOP will certainly take the opportunity to ignore all that and stage an outright, last-ditch protest. Interpreting the Constitution is for SCOTUS and the cucks.
Luckily, Democrats control the House and based on my quick read, if the House and Senate disagree then the Electoral College vote goes through unharmed. So the worst that can happen in this election is an ugly but utlimately ineffectual reminder of how antidemocratic the Repugs can get. Think of it as a Trump-loyalty test. It will be interesting/disgusting to see who “passes” the test.
Right. That’s what I also expect will happen. However, it is going to be interesting to see how strongly the GOP demand that the “rampant voter fraud” be investigated and, when rebuffed by a vote, demand that everyone listen to them tell of how the election is being “stolen right before you, ladies and gentleman”. Obviously, Mitch McConnell is key here. How far does he let the circus go?
“… the most important case in history.” Pure Trump!
Btw. what has happened to my image icon? If I click on one of the symbols to log in via WP or Google, it starts the time-passing symbol but never gets anywhere.
That is what happens on my iPhone (but not my laptop). That is why I need to enter my name and email every post when I use the phone.
How is this illegal Texas humbug different from Joe Biden’s road history in this state?
“It was on an interstate highway in Texas, and a bunch of Trump trucks, pickup trucks … tried to run it off the road, they stopped in front of it,” Biden said Sunday in Philadelphia. “And the “You-Know-Who” saw it, took the video that someone had taken and tweeted it back out and said, ‘I love Texas.”
Probably only the scale and the discredit to many politicians , the personal party of Mr. “You-Know-Who”.
1. I propose, a substitute for IANAL :
IANAJD
2. I noticed the post title after subbing – well played.
With respect to the title of this post, I honestly thought Diana Ross had recorded an anti Trump song.
I can report that the former Trump campaign regularly issues emails replete with terms and phrases like this :
•The fate of the nation is at stake
•”I* (see below)need to know that you are on our team and ready to FIGHT for America.” <- note the emphasis
•we need to WIN BIG
•”I'll (see below) be calling the President soon to go over a list of Patriots who stepped up when our Nation needed them most. Can I tell him you took action?”
The quoted lines are from the latest email that was signed by Ronna McDaniel, RNC Chairwoman.
We live in literally one of the most prosperous countries – if not the most prosperous – in all of human history, and people are willing to attempt shredding that to bits because they’re having a foot stomp moment that they didn’t win an election. Unbelievable. The blatant disregard for our democracy in favor of short sighted opportunism – scoring a few points with the voting base – is just unbelievable. If people get the government they deserve, I seriously worry about where we are headed.
A friend commented that Biden has now won the election so many times that he will be our 67th President.
I also found it beyond ludicrous that “New California” and “New Nevada”, two pseudo states, also signed on to the TX lawsuit. What the hell is wrong with so many multitudes in this country? Decades of Fox and hate radio is my first guess. Plus no care or understanding of what a democracy is supposed to be. 107 House Republicans sided with an Autocratic America. Whooppee!
Those behind New California have probably never heard of the Fallout series of games. LOL
I wrote a parody article about this – the departure of the tRumps and their ilk from the W.H. in January.,
(republished variously, here first)
https://themoderatevoice.com/inauguration-day-report-from-the-white-house-to-the-bbc-parody/
— On the legal thing – Texas’ (or rather its bonkers Grand Poo Bar’s) idea of standing (to sue) is certainly….. creative.
Plus… I read somewhere that the SCUS took all of 34 minutes (!) to decline to hear the earlier, similar case from those maniacs. Hilarious times, folks.
D.A., J.D.
NYC