Good morning, all. There's a little bit of news out of Michigan already this morning - it looks like Judge Parker wanted to start the work week this week with unnecessary and stupid distractions cleared away.

So she dismissed the MI Kraken tentacle sometime after midnight.

It a 36-page opinion.

And it starts out strong.
ACK - my bad -

Sorry. I'm tweeting without caffeine and it shows. The order rejects the injunction, but it doesn't dismiss the case (yet). Skimming ahead, that appears a foregone conclusion, but technically the case isn't dismissed.
Seriously, though - this is yet another judge who is responding to these request to overturn the election with the judicial version of "you want me to *what*? Hard pass."
The judge is being kind to the plaintiffs here and doesn't mention the epiceyeburningdisasterthatwastheoriginalcomplaint. But you'll note that the judge also doesn't mention what claims were in that complaint or whether they are the same as the ones in the 1st Amended Complaint.
(I'm jumping past some material that's not all that noteworthy or important - busy day today on many levels, so not a lot of time.)
This is stated mildly, but it's a bit of a benchslap. It's very much "you really didn't do anything right and I had to remind you about things you should have done days earlier."
For the nonlawyers:
"Benchslap" is an official term of art, and is defined in Black's Law Dictionary. See below.
And noting that the rapid pace of these proceedings is the result of plaintiff's requests, so Sidney is getting what she asked for here.
It looks like this is - no real surprise - going to be another one of those "you lose for all of the reasons" opinions.
I didn't look too closely at the sovereign immunity issues in this case, but I did see they were briefed by MI. It appears that they were briefed very well.
The exception that allows prospective injunctive relief to end a continuing violation is, as the court points out, narrow.

On this court's reading, all the Kraken suits should be done and dismissed on these grounds, I think.
This passage also goes to why the SCOTUS petition in the Pennsylvania case is on very shaky ground, to put it mildly. That case is trying to disguise a request that SCOTUS instruct a state court on how to conform to state law as a constitutional claim. It's not well-disguised.
As the court points out, the defense is arguing that all the federal claims that Sidney raised are really just state law claims in a cheap disguise.
Not only does the court agree, it somewhat gratuitously quotes a bit of the Defense's snark about the insane nature of these claims when it does it.
Footnote 2 is interesting. No reason is given, but I don't think one is really necessary.
This makes it clear that dismissal is inevitable. That will be handled separately, but if the claims are barred by the 11th Amendment, they must be dismissed.
The first paragraph of the mootness section is succinct.
The court points out that plaintiffs failed to use the MI law procedures for challenging an election, which locks them out of most of the relief they wanted, and that there's no point to letting them look at machines if they have no case.
And, quoting both the 11th Circuit in Wood v Raffensperger and Justice Wecht's concurrence in the PA Supreme Court's ruling in Kelly, finds that there's no basis in law for a court to undo an election by telling the legislature to appoint electors. So the case is also moot.
But wait! There's more!

Let's talk about laches, because laches is another reason Sidney loses.
You'll notice that one of the things the court points to is Sidney's lengthy delay in bothering to serve the defendants. That kind of thing really does matter. (Of course, all the other delays didn't help either.)
Nice use of scare quotes here.
The court finds that there was unreasonable delay - based in part on the Plaintiffs' own concessions.

And that there is prejudice to the defendants. So the plaintiffs also lose on laches.
For the nonlawyers:
Abstention is a doctrine where federal courts decline to rule in a case even if they otherwise could to give the state courts a chance to weigh in on the matter. There are a few variants. It's technical; I'm going to skip past most of it.
But the court finds that abstention is warranted.
And we're still not done! We haven't talked about standing yet. So let's talk about standing.

There's no standing for the equal protection claim. There's also no standing for the Elections Clause and Electors Clause claims.
(I skipped a bunch of material there.)

So - for those keeping score:
The defendants lose because: 11th Amendment, mootness, laches, abstention, and standing.

With that out of the way, it's time to look at the merits of the request for injunctive relief.
The court goes on to find that even if none of those reasons to lose the whole case applied, the plaintiffs would still lose the Elections & Electors Clause claims.
And it looks like the Court read the affidavits carefully enough to see that they didn't actually allege anything real.
So there's no likelihood of success on the merits for Equal Protection either.

And, as most of the lawyers weighing in on these cases have pointed out, federal courts Do Not Like theories that would make every violation of the law a federal matter.
And even the court was done at this point - it's just "oh, and none of the other factors for injunctive relief work for you either."
Oh, and it looks like Judge Parker was very aware of the real purpose of the lawsuit, and wasn't a fan. At all.
Summary:
Seriously, that was brutal. It won't deter Sidney, of course, because Sidney is all the nuts. But it should.

This was a "you lose for all the reasons" ruling. The case may technically not be buried, but it's a zombie at this point - all that's left is to finish it off.
So that's one tentacle down. Several to go.

/fin
PS - but if you want more, it looks like Akiva is just getting started with his take.
https://t.co/gMyu2IyODj

More from Mike Dunford

This is an excellent question, and it's something that I've thought about some over the last couple of months.

Honestly, I think the answer is that the rationales for these rulings are not likely to unreasonably harm meritorious progressive OR conservative challenges.


The first thing to keep in mind is that, by design, challenges to the outcomes of elections are supposed to be heard by state courts, through the process set out in state law.

That happened this year, and the majority of those challenges were heard on the merits.

The couple of cases where laches determined the outcome of state election challenges were ones where it was pretty clear that the challenges were brought in bad faith - where ballots cast in good faith in reliance on laws that had been in force for some time were challenged.

The PA challenge to Act 77 is one example. The challengers, some of whom had voted for passage of the bill, didn't make use of the initial, direct-to-PA-SCt challenge built into the law or sue pre-election; they waited until post-election.

The WI case is another. That one had a challenge to ballots cast using a form that had been in use for a literal decade.

Those are cases where laches is clear - particularly the prejudice element.
Election Litigation Update: DC - the "let's sue the Electoral College" case.

This is a bit surprising, given that as of last time I checked nobody had been served and no appearance had been entered. I suspect it's an effort to make sure the case isn't "pending" on the 6th.


And, sure enough, still no proof of service on ANY defendant, still no appearance from defense counsel. And this is denying the motion for preliminary injunction but does NOT dismiss the case - which is potentially ominous for plaintiff's counsel.


This isn't a "happy judge" kind of first paragraph. Not even a little bit. Nope.


Y'all, this isn't even directed within a few hundred miles of my direction and I sill just instinctively checked to make sure that there's room for me to hide under my desk if I have to - this is a very not happy, very federal, very judge tone.


Also - the judge just outright said there's a bunch of reasons for dismissal. And not in "might be" terms. In definite fact ones. But the case isn't dismissed yet.

If I was plaintiffs counsel, I'd definitely be clearing under my desk right now, and possibly also my underwear.

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प्राचीन काल में गाधि नामक एक राजा थे।उनकी सत्यवती नाम की एक पुत्री थी।राजा गाधि ने अपनी पुत्री का विवाह महर्षि भृगु के पुत्र से करवा दिया।महर्षि भृगु इस विवाह से बहुत प्रसन्न हुए और उन्होने अपनी पुत्रवधु को आशीर्वाद देकर उसे कोई भी वर मांगने को कहा।


सत्यवती ने महर्षि भृगु से अपने तथा अपनी माता के लिए पुत्र का वरदान मांगा।ये जानकर महर्षि भृगु ने यज्ञ किया और तत्पश्चात सत्यवती और उसकी माता को अलग-अलग प्रकार के दो चरू (यज्ञ के लिए पकाया हुआ अन्न) दिए और कहा कि ऋतु स्नान के बाद तुम्हारी माता पुत्र की इच्छा लेकर पीपल का आलिंगन...

...करें और तुम भी पुत्र की इच्छा लेकर गूलर वृक्ष का आलिंगन करना। आलिंगन करने के बाद चरू का सेवन करना, इससे तुम दोनो को पुत्र प्राप्ति होगी।परंतु मां बेटी के चरू आपस में बदल जाते हैं और ये महर्षि भृगु अपनी दिव्य दृष्टि से देख लेते हैं।

भृगु ऋषि सत्यवती से कहते हैं,"पुत्री तुम्हारा और तुम्हारी माता ने एक दुसरे के चरू खा लिए हैं।इस कारण तुम्हारा पुत्र ब्राह्मण होते हुए भी क्षत्रिय सा आचरण करेगा और तुम्हारी माता का पुत्र क्षत्रिय होकर भी ब्राह्मण सा आचरण करेगा।"
इस पर सत्यवती ने भृगु ऋषि से बड़ी विनती की।


सत्यवती ने कहा,"मुझे आशीर्वाद दें कि मेरा पुत्र ब्राह्मण सा ही आचरण करे।"तब महर्षि ने उसे ये आशीर्वाद दे दिया कि उसका पुत्र ब्राह्मण सा ही आचरण करेगा किन्तु उसका पौत्र क्षत्रियों सा व्यवहार करेगा। सत्यवती का एक पुत्र हुआ जिसका नाम जम्दाग्नि था जो सप्त ऋषियों में से एक हैं।