Texas - WTF is this even - a very short reassurance thread:

1: The Texas "lawusit" against four other "battleground" states in the United States Supreme Court is legally stupid.* It is so legally stupid that I was reluctant to believe that even Ken Paxton would file it.

*My patience level is not ginormous today. Please don't try to explain to me why you think it isn't stupid for whatever other reasons because I'll be making liberal use of the airlock. Thx.
2: Yes, one state can sue another at the US Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court gets to decide whether to take the case. One factor that they will **undoubtedly** look at is the factor of "injury."
Texas is claiming two things. First, that the states have a special interest in who becomes Vice President because of the tiebreaker. Second, that their electors are injured if their votes are "diluted" by electors from states that, in Texas's view, didn't obey their own law.
There is very little argument presented for "injury." Even less - barely a paragraph - was presented for how the defendant states caused that injury.

For lawyers, this is a signal that this is a performance of politics by "litigation" and not a serious effort.
Nonlawyers - who are the audience for this drek - may be impressed by the arguments about how other states violated their own laws.

Lawyers - at least competent ones - will zero in on the alleged injury and the evidence that the injury was caused by the defendant states.
Why? Simple.

Courts care about how the person bringing the complaint was allegedly harmed by the person being sued. If there's not a harm you can sue over and/or you can't show how the person you are suing caused that harm, You Have No Case.
This applies to states, too.

The motion for leave to file doesn't seem to allege an actual injury that courts address, and doesn't really allege how the state in question caused that injury.
Simply put, @JohnFetterman has a better ability to bring a court case against @DanPatrick to recover 2 million dollars in Sheetz gift cards for showing proof of election fraud than the state of Texas has to bring a case against Pennsylvania over the election.
This lawsuit is Texas taking a dump on the rest of the Republic and I'm angry as all hell that those- those people have chosen to do this.

I am not worried in the least about the case.
PS - Akiva looks to be at least as pissed off as I am, and he's being pissed off in more detail.

https://t.co/QRIBlW6qf6
And it's being picked apart here in even more exquisite detail.

I'll let them take it. I looked at the injury section and then deleted the download.

https://t.co/ipbla8ose4
Seriously:
The Republican Party, as a whole, is a clear and present danger to the viability of the Republic.

More from Mike Dunford

Yes, I have seen the thing about Texas suing other states over the election. Yes, the US Supreme Court has original and exclusive jurisdiction over cases between states.

No, this is not a thing that will change the election. At all.

If this is real - and I do emphasize the if - it is posturing by the elected Republican "leadership" of Texas in an attempt to pander to a base that has degraded from merely deplorable to utterly despicable.

Apparently, it is real. For a given definition of real, anyway. As Steve notes, the Texas Solicitor General - that's the lawyer who is supposed to represent the state in cases like this - has noped out and the AG is counsel of


Although - again - I'm curious as to the source. I'm seeing no press release on the Texas AG's site; I'm wondering if this might not be a document released by whoever the "special counsel" to the AG is - strange situation.

Doesn't matter. The Supreme Court is Supremely Unlikely to take this case - their jurisdiction is exclusive, but it's also discretionary.

Meaning, for nonlawyers:
SCOTUS is the only place where one state can sue another, but SCOTUS can and often does decline to take the case.
I've been trying to think that through - not just legally, but judicially.

The more thinking I do the less serious - and more ludicrous - the entire thing looks. And the more obvious it becomes that this is the proposal of deeply unwell individuals who are not thinking clearly.


On the legal side, I read through the list of emergency powers - the whole list - that was assembled by the Brennan Center. Nothing on that list fits. Nothing comes even

It seems extraordinarily unlikely that any executive order along the lines of what has been discussed would be legal. In this case, it can be taken as a given that one or more targeted jurisdictions would dash right off to the courthouse.

Standing would not, it should go without saying, be likely to be an issue. I doubt redressability would either. I think it's very likely that restraining orders and injunctions would be swiftly issued.

That's the legal side, to the extent it's possible to speculate on that at all at this point. Basically, there's no readily apparent legal basis for such a thing, so it probably wouldn't be legal.

That's the easy part. Now for the nuttier side - the logistics.

More from Court

Zojuist procesverbaal zittingen in deze verkrachtingszaak gekregen. Zeg, @HofDenBosch, jullie LIEGEN echt alles bij elkaar in deze zaak en hebben ook doelbewust uit stukken gelaten dat ik de Nederlandse overheid verantwoordelijk hield voor het ontstaan van deze tweede zaak! 1/ https://t.co/M5KfflDkFJ


Wat ik onder anderen gezegd heb ter zitting?

"Deze tweede zaak kon ALLEEN gebeuren omdat in de eerste zaak geweigerd werd getuigen te horen. Vervolgens is deze getuige mij gaan bedreigen en chanteren. Meerdere politiemeldingen, politie deed NIETS" 2/

@HofDenBosch


"Uiteindelijk kon door het FALEN van de Nederlandse overheid deze getuige mij van mijn vrijheid beroven en heeft hij mij verkracht"

Dat laten jullie natuurlijk weer uit het procesverbaal @HofDenBosch!

Er is ook met geen woord gerept over een 'klacht over politieoptreden' betreffende deze tweede zaak, tijdens de zitting! De AG haalde de verkrachtingszaak uit het niets aan, niet een klacht over politieoptreden betreffende de tweede zaak!


Er was op dat moment nog niet eens aangifte gedaan in de tweede zaak, maar om de een of andere reden wist de AG al dat ik een intake gesprek had gehad! Ik heb de @politie gesproken (opgenomen gesprek), die begrepen OOK niet hoe de AG dat kon weten!

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