On Christmas Eve — the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals subtly jabbed — our cowardly US Supreme Court

© 2020 Peter Free

 

26 December 2020

 

 

US Supreme Court's cowardice has just been gloriously exposed . . .

 

. . . by a subordinate appellate division.

 

 

Background — election 2020 — recall Texas versus 4 states?

 

Two weeks ago, I pointed out that the US Supreme Court should not exist, given its repeated evasions of its self-imposed Constitutional duties.

 

At that time, what raised my legal ire was the Court's strikingly cowardly, essentially two-sentenced refusal to deal with:

 

 

Motion for Leave to File Bill of Complaint, State of Texas v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, State of Georgia, State of Michigan, and State of Wisconsin — in the Supreme Court of the United States, number 220155 (filed 07 December 2020, docketed 08 December 2020)

 

 

 

The Court rejected the Texas lawsuit against the four named states on the basis that Texas lacked legal standing to file it.

 

The entirety of the Court's terminating order consisted of the below — unsupported and legally irrational — reasoning:

 

 

The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution.  Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. 

 

 

To the Court's statement of Flaming Bogosity, I retorted that — given the circumstances described in Texas's motion — of course Texas had standing.

 

See here.

 

 

On Christmas Eve, 2020 — enter the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals

 

In a case virtually identical to Texas's — and acting with considerably more professional honor than our Court of Supreme Yellow-Bellies — the Seventh Circuit found that President Trump did have standing to sue.

 

See:

 

 

Trump v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 20-3414 (Seventh Circuit, 24 December 2020)

 

 

The Seventh Circuit said that . . .

 

. . . (my comments enclosed inside indented brackets):

 

 

But the fact that a judicial order cannot provide the full extent or exact type of relief a plaintiff might desire does not render the entire case nonjusticiable.

 

We also conclude that the President’s complaint presents a federal question, despite its anchoring in alleged violations of state law.

 

The Eleventh Amendment and principles of federalism bar federal courts from directing state officials to follow state law. But we can decide whether their interpretation of state law violated a provision of the federal Constitution, here the Electors Clause.

 

This distinction alleviates any federalism concerns that might otherwise preclude our consideration of the President’s claims.

 

 

[These statements are legally obvious. And they explicitly contradict the Supreme Court's irrationally unspoken evasion of responsibility in the Texas suit.]

 

 

On the merits, the district court was right to enter judgment for the defendants.

 

We reach this conclusion in no small part because of the President’s delay in bringing the challenges to Wisconsin law that provide the foundation for the alleged constitutional violation.

 

Even apart from the delay, the claims fail under the Electors Clause.

 

In his concurring opinion in Bush v. Gore, Chief Justice Rehnquist suggested that the proper inquiry under the Electors Clause is to ask whether a state conducted the election in a manner substantially consistent with the “legislative scheme” for appointing electors.

 

[W]hatever actions the Commission took here, it took under color of authority expressly granted to it by the Legislature. And that authority is not diminished by allegations that the Commission erred in its exercise.

 

We confine our conclusions to applications of the Electors Clause. We are not the ultimate authority on Wisconsin law. That responsibility rests with the State’s Supreme Court.

 

Put another way, the errors that the President alleges occurred in the Commission’s exercise of its authority are in the main matters of state law. They belong, then, in the state courts, where the President had an opportunity to raise his concerns.

 

Indeed, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected his claims regarding the guidance on indefinitely confined voters, see Trump v. Biden, 2020 WI 91 ¶ 8 (Dec. 14, 2020), and declined to

reach the rest of his arguments on grounds of laches.

 

 

[These arguments are legally defensible, although I do not agree with the Seventh Circuit's (or the Wisconsin Court's) application of laches to a problem that only became damagingly evident during the election.

 

I also question whether the Electors Clause goes so far as to support the clearly questionable looseness of Constitutional intent that the Seventh Circuit appears to assume that it does.

 

In other words, one arguably should not permit states to do whatever they want, so as to ultimately bias national Electoral College outcomes, based simply upon what one state thinks is legitimate.

 

Thus, the federal Constitution's Electors Clause should have logical limits that the Seventh Circuit appears to overlook.

 

If it does, those limits would not be a problem that a federal appellate court could evasively foist onto the very states — and their state courts — that (arguably) have violated them.

 

See, for instance, the hypothetical example of state-sponsored election corruption that I raised in illustrating the crux of Texas's motion, here.]

 

 

Trump v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 20-3414 (Seventh Circuit, 24 December 2020) (at pages 6-8 and 10)

 

 

The moral? — SCOTUS' unreasoning cowardice has been thrashed . . .

 

. . . by a lower court's demonstration of spine and much more rationally defensible legal acumen.

 

How embarrassing.

 

Perhaps we should dress the Supreme Court's justices in yellow robes.