Supreme Court Reverses En Banc Sixth Circuit in Voter Verification Case:
SCOTUSblog has the scoop. Very interesting, although to my mind not surprising. I plan to blog more on it later, but I wanted just to flag it for now.
Supreme Court Reverses En Banc Sixth Circuit in Voter Verification Case:
SCOTUSblog has the scoop. Very interesting, although to my mind not surprising. I plan to blog more on it later, but I wanted just to flag it for now.
|
Ahhh....I guess the Democratic party has a right to fraudulent elections. Secretary of State Brunner has a duty to collect the data, but no duty to share it in any usable way.
It's whether private parties have the right to demand in court that the Ohio SOC to comply with the law, not whether or not she violated it.
If the federal government brought the suit, it could be an entirely different story.
I don't like Brunner either, but the law is the law.
If only a government entity, then we have a possibility that, once the elected officials and their appointees are all one party, the only groups with standing are exactly the ones we would expect not to bother.
We are about to step into an America where one political party controls the government and that party will not be questioned by a syncopathic media elite.
Why not turn in hundreds of thousands of fraudulent voter registrations in every state? Who will be left to complain?
So long America, we hardly knew ye.
Welcome to the 2nd American Civil War.
Oh it won't happen for a few years yet. But this is frankly the first step.
Brunner's actions are far worse than prior SOS Blackwell. The paperstock dispute (he issued a ruling that voter registration cards would not be accepted unless they were printed on a type of paper specified by statute) was embarrassing (though Blackwell may have been right, when an Ohio statute specifies a requirement, state agencies do not have the discretion to change those requirements...I know...I work as an Ohio hearing officer and some of the rules we have to follow are perverse!).
Brunner is being cute and clever. She changed her office's procedures with respect to how it provided this information to the county boards of election and then she claims that it would be too much trouble to go back to the old procedure (in favor of her new procedure that has never yet been used).
If Senator Obama wins, I may get to look forward to yet another tainted presidency (ala Kennedy in 1960 and Bush in 2000). It will be fun challenging the legitimacy of a president...though some people will consider it to be a racist act.
But then, she has a habit of exaggerating matters when it suits her purpose.
Read a long, depressing thread the other day about whether it's time to "go John Galt".
If the only parties who have standing on this are the ones who are actually committing it, then we have a problem.
And Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito want him gone so badly that they're in on the fix too?
The OH GOP was claiming that Brunner violated HAVA. HAVA does not provide for private lawsuits (private rights of action) to enforce it, only suits by the Attorney General to enforce HAVA. See Judge Moore's dissent.
It's actually rather amusing watching all of this -- conservatives have been chiefly responsible for limiting private rights of action and curtailing the circumstances in which courts may find an implied private right of action. As Judge Moore's dissent noted in a footnote, the conservatives on the Sixth Circuit routinely hold that various statutes do not create private rights of action. Yet here, when implying one could benefit the Republican party, suddenly they find a private right of action exists.
That is completely ridiculous and is a massive stain on all of the judges in the majority.
.
The particular provision that the Ohio GOP sought to have enforced via court mandate was 42 USC 15483(a)(5)(B)(i).
There is no justice in stuff I don't agree with!
In 1960, it was not just Illinois but also Texas. LBJ stole (or tried to steal) every race he was ever in. I fear we may end up with a new kind of machine politics in DC with Obama as president and super-majorities for the Dems in both houses of Congress.
.
I don't know what the relevant administrative provisions are, under Ohio law.
If there is a discrepency then that is what provisional ballots are for.
If the Dems get over 60 in the Senate, this may be the end of the party.
ref: Carter's Dem Congress.]
This is not the place to debate either the 1960 or 2000 elections but there were two very strongly contested state results in 1960: Illinois and Texas. The Nixon camp claimed both were "stolen". If the electoral votes Kennedy won in those 2 states were reversed Nixon would have been elected POTUS. So yes, the election was tainted.
Where is the outcry when the OH SOS violates federal election law?
The Supremes got a lot of grief for Bush 2000, as they should have. They should have left the vote by vote exams running, and ordered the clinton delayed military votes counted, and otherwise stayed out of it.
This looks just as bad.
Darn, it is HARD doing all this typing on a cell phone, but the State of Ohio blocks this blog. A lot more get blocked by the telecoms in response to threats from the Obama justice department.
Judge Moore was correct on the lack of a private action in HAVA; the CA6 majority was stunningly wrong. She is also correct that, even on the merits, the OH-GOP is wrong about HAVA's requirements.
If you want to trust the en banc majority, which just got breath-takingly smacked down 9-0 in a 1-page order, go ahead. The CA6 conservatives look like true fools and/or hacks today.
What in the world are you talking about? Last I checked, Mukasey was still AG and the Bushies were still in charge of DOJ...
Like it or not the en banc majority said Brunner violated HAVA. It's not a matter of them being "conservative hacks" or a matter "trust" between me and them.
There is now a decision of a federal Court of Appeals finding the state SOS in violation of federal election law.
I've disagreed with my circuit court before. Doesn't change the decision unfortunately.
I also meant to ask, how do you know that it was a 9-0 decision.
And, the short per curiam opinion certainly went out of its way to state that it was not ruling on the HAVA claim. How confident are you that a majority will reverse the 6th Circuit? If they affirm on the merits, are they just "conservative hacks?"
A decision that has been vacated because the parties did not have standing.
Where is the outcry when the OH SOS violates federal election law?
Their view in a vacated opinion is by no means conclusive evidence that Brunner violated the law.
The only way we are getting a ruling on the HAVA claim is if Mukasey (or someone else with standing) brings a brand-new action that can be litigated between now and Nov 4th.
That is the problem with typing on a cellphone. What I meant to say was, "A lot more may get blocked..." If ISPs start removing blogs and posts to blogs when complaints are filed, there may be a lot less content on the web. I've already seen some commenters stating a desire for this outcome.
And you are right, the Republicans are still in charge at USDOJ (though control of the executive suites does not mean control over the agency as a whole when the rank and file become partisan and insubordinate).
Rick_Anon, I can only hope that a proper party with standing will bring an action. Then let's see what happens. The 6th Circuit can dust off its HAVA language. Brunner will complain that she won't have time to take the corrective action...but she won't explain exactly why. Especially since her predecessor was able to do it.
Grrr....I hate typing this way!
.
Technically, only the TRO was vacated. The question of standing hasn't been closed just yet (it will be), but closing that doesn't cause the independent logic as to whether or not Ohio is in compliance with the HAVA to disappear.
.
Come on, SCOTUS, if you can find a Bivens action in 42 USC 1983, surely you can find something here.
I don't know if the Dems will fracture immediately. They have been frustrated by their inability to deliver on their promises to their friends and supporters. They will move quickly to make their webroots happy.
We can see legislation with respect to Union card checks (doing away with secret elections for union organizing) and other liberal wish list items within the first one hundred days of the Obama administration. We can also look forward to legislation for a new "Fairness Doctrine" (and kiss goodbye to conservative talk radio and maybe even Fox News). What next? Maybe a version of net neutrality that allows ISPs and telecomms to assign blogs concerning political opinions to a high, expensive tier.
What, no talk of implied rights of action?
Come on, SCOTUS, if you can find a Bivens action in 42 USC 1983, surely you can find something here."
You clearly know nothing about 1983 or Bivens, or law, in general.
Some tips:
So long as "independent logic" really means "worthless verbiage".
Fantasia, Bivens isn't found in S1983 but is 'constitutional common law'. Congress could write a law codifying some version of Bivens as they wish, including removing all monetary damages whatsoever. See Schweiker_v._Chilicky -- there is no implied right of action where Congress sets a remedy, even if the plaintiff argues the remedy is defective or insufficient.
Moreover, implied rights of action are a lot more difficult to find in a statute, where we presume Congress had a chance to write its intent, rather than in Constitutional guarantees such as the 4A.
It's really rather comical; it's like you've taken everything corrupt the Bushies have done to the DOJ and somehow attributed the blame for that to Democrats and Obama and y'all are positive he will be even worse. I don't understand it at all. We dems are outraged by the kind of politicization and surveillance state tactics of Bush. I certainly have no interest in seeing Obama replicate those tactics and merely turn them back on you clowns. I am sure the vast majority of his supporters feel similarly, and I feel pretty confident he does too.
.
That we won't know unless and until it comes up again. There is sits, in a case "vacated on other grounds."
.
That provision of HAVA doesn't have much value anyway, in my opinion. If the SoS and head of DMV have an (sufficient) agreement to share, they've satisfied the law.
.
Well, Who, I guess what happened to Joe is an aberration. Right? Obama doesn't have to do things, nor instruct his minions to do things. Or not serious things, anyway. A reasonable tightening up of regs on gun dealers surely can't be all that contentious, can it?
Having reporters go after dissidents isn't his fault, is it?
What the Bush admin has done ref politicization and surveillance is mostly in your fever dreams. 'way out on the fringes of what is meant by the latest iteration of FISA versus whether foreign-sourced phone calls being switched by US equipment counts as spying on Americans. That's what's known as 3.2 beer.
We're worried about the real thing. Which you, since you know how the wind blows, can be sure won't apply to you. Yet.
You live in a fevered reality, my friend. What Bush wanted to do and did was plainly illegal; it terrified John Ashcroft and Comey, for christsakes. And let's not even talk about torture -- the man is a war criminal.
And while Joe was overinvestigated, it was by the media, not by "Obama's minions." No difference, I know, hahaha. FOX was there too. It was for ratings.]
Yeah, the MSM isn't Obama's fault. Except Joe got more attention than CAC from the MSM. Joe's liens got more attention than Obama's campaign financial director's liens.
A pile of dirt in an empty lot gets more attention than Obama's slum building failures.
And if the Fairness doctrine becomes law, one major influence keeping the MSM 5% (at most) honest goes away.
I didn't see Malkin terrorizing the Frosts. I did see a potentially wealthy family indulging themselves and trying to use the resulting cash flow issue as a way to get health care supposedly reserved for the poor. Now, their situation is part of the issue. Why should the wealthy get a free ride on the taxpayers' dime when the thing was sold as being for the poor? (ed. To buy votes, idiot.) So demonstrating that they were not poor, which is to say the whole thing was dishonest, is important.
Joe's situation is not part of the issue. Whether he's licensed or not is a distraction, deliberate, from Obama's answer. Won't work.
As for abuses by the USDOJ under Bush, I could take comfort in the knowledge that the vast majority of employees at the DC offices are (increasingly partisan) Democrats. The scandals of this Administration are nominal compared to those in past administrations (and who knows, compared to those that may come when Senator Obama and his Chicago crowd move in).
And I think it's sad how much contempt Richard Aubrey editor has for him.
[the right made this Joe-centric narrative. This is the result. I agree it's ugly and badly handled, but I blame the blind seeking of ratings, not some liberal conspiracy.]
And that all happened because Obama was the first to raise Joe in the debate and mentioned him 21 times before a national TV audience.
Oh. Never mind.
Wow! Obama's even more evil than I thought! How can he get the SCOTUS to vote with him? My theory is a hypnosis power based on his half-daemon heritage.
On this, we agree. Congress dropped the ball, not Brunner.
certainly, both the GOP and the Dems have some loony fringes. One of the main differences between the GOP and the Dems is that the loony fringe pretty much runs the actual machinery of the GOP -- see the hideous things being done by official GOP groups in CA (the Obama bucks food stamp thing) or comments by the GOP leader in NM (or AZ) about hispanics and blacks. The dems as a party are entirely middle of the road, mainstream milquetoast politicians. You have nothing to fear from people like Harry Reid or Pelosi or Obama. These people are not radicals. For christsake, Michelle Obama worked at Sidley Austin. Corporate lawyers generally do not marry bomb-throwing radicals.
A decision may be "reversed on other grounds," but a vacated decision has no precedential authority. O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 577 (U.S. 1975).
Trust you, huh? You gonna put up a billion dollar bond just in case trusting you turns out to be a bad idea?
Obama's top economics adviser, Saul Alinsky.
Sen. Kit Bond said it so it must be true!
Unfortunately, you're correct. I guess I just don't want people like Who thinking I believe them. It would be an ego hit if I thought they thought I believed them.
That's a relief.
A report comes in that Obama's campaign has asked Mukasey to investigate and, presumably, prosecute those who claim voter fraud.
Boy, I'm glad I didn't trust Who. Really wish I'd had a piece of that bond, though.
A secret report or can you fill the rest of us in?
also, you should really understand the basic difference between registration fraud/errors and voter fraud.
Virtually every state REQUIRES people/groups registering voters to turn in ALL forms, even crazy ones. That way I can't go out to a mall and "register" voters, making people think they've succeeded in registering, when I'm really just submitting registrations of people I suspected were Democrats and shredding the likely-GOP registrants' papers (or vice versa). ACORN is thus simply following state law; further, they frequently put all the clearly crazy ones in a pile, so the election authorities can do their job and take those out. It's how the system works.
Here's the rub, and the difference between registration fraud and voter fraud. Some clown gets paid by ACORN to register people; he sits in his living room fills out 500 forms with baseball players' names. He turns them to ACORN, his employer, who are *required* typically by state law to turn those over to the election boards. That is registration fraud, and it harms primarily ACORN (who paid some idiot who defrauded them) and election authorities, who have to weed out his idiotic forms. But NO voter fraud will likely occur, because all the baseball players that the clown registered are unaware of their new Ohio registrations, so they won't be voting there illegally. And do you really think that clown is then going to go out and repeatedly try voting as Mickey Mouse or Manny Ramirez, Josh Beckett, etc etc in Ohio? I'm not too worried about that, nor should any sane person be.
It's the height of irresponsibility for McCain and Palin to act like the few clowns who are defrauding ACORN are threatening the fabric of our democracy. And for the FBI to be leaking its BS investigations frankly does border on the criminal. You just have to listen to former Republican US Attorney David Iglesias.
link
That's from a former top DOJ voting rights official, who once worked with McCain in defending his campaign-finance reform bill
Really, conservatives pick the strangest things to throw fits over. Instead of throwing hissy-fits about groups like ACORN, who are complying with state laws that require them to submit *every* registration form they receive, maybe we should just make easier for people to be registered, so big registration drives and groups like ACORN are unnecessary?
I assume he's talking about this:
Spoiler.
Don't you have any sense of timing?
Yeah, Who. I know all about how ACORN has been doing the same thing for years and can't figure out how to stop doing it. There was an article about two groups in Harris County, TX. League of Women Voters was one and I forget the other. It'll be around someplace. Their errors were in the single digits. Not single digit percentage. Single digits.
It's much easier to vote fraudulently if you've already registered fraudulently.
If ACORN wanted to stop making these terrible errors, they'd ask the groups which don't make these terrible errors.
I don't see how tough registering is. I guess you have to make it seem like some kind of obstacle course so that the lazy and incompetent--the dems' prime demographic--can be said to be too lazy or incompetent to manage a process simpler than getting a drivers license. After all, you don't have to know anything but your own name to register to vote. Apparently, various organizers will even help you with that.
I would be more reassured by your comment if I were unaware that Bernadine Dohrn also worked at Sidley Austin at the same time that Michelle Obama was there.
You are aware.
Oops. There goes that meme.
Think he didn't know?
I saw a series of news reports concerning a comment by Nancy Pelosi that she would support a return of the fairness doctrine. And good old Dennis Kucinich wants it back.
As far as being a little bit unhinged, it happens to all of us from time to time. Maybe, instead of being sarcastic, you should use friendliness to talk us down when we start getting carried away.
WHO knows this stuff. He hopes that by snarking we'll be too embarrassed to keep talking about it.
He's under no illusions about the fairness doctrine. He simply wants us to be calm and unworried until it's too late.
The fact that Dohrn worked there only tends to underline the fact that Ayers and Dohrn are now mainstream. Here are some facts about Sidley Austin:
Not the kind of outfit that is likely to pal around with terrorists.
So the big law firm is...what...claiming to have rehabilitated these terrorists? Or did the law firm simply allow them to move into decent society where such things are simply not done. Therefore, the things were not done.
I believe the woman on the lam for a murder during a bank robbery and the attempted murder of cops had risen to decent society and they, despite the heinous nature of her crimes, defended her. Was it Soliah? Have to look up the name in case somebody who already knows all about it challenges me as a way of insinuating it never actually happened.