In the cold light of morning, I'm still completely amazed by the legal belly flop that @ThomasMoreSoc filed in the DC District Court. It's the legal equivalent of watching the butt fumble, live

EVERYTHING you could possibly get wrong in a complaint, they managed

Start with the plaintiffs. The ONLY claims in the lawsuit are that the Constitution gives state legislatures the right to set the manner of elections, which they have allegedly (we'll get to this insanity) failed to do.
There's oodles of caselaw saying "since that's a right of the state legislature, only state legislatures, as a body, can bring such a claim"

Are the plaintiffs state legislatures?
https://t.co/KJGEvm8Owp
OK, what about the Defendants? They've sued Defendants from, IIRC, five states (GA, PA, WI, MI, AZ) based on claims that the State Legislatures there didn't pass election rules that the plaintiffs insist the Constitution requires (I promise, we'll get there).
OK, so the State Legislatures weren't plaintiffs. They were Defendants, right? 'Cause, you know, the claim is that the legislatures didn't do what they were required to do?

Again
Let's gloss over the fact that they've joined a whole bunch of independent defendants, sued for independent wrongs, in a single case ....
For those who don't know, you ... uh ... can't do that. If I steal your car, and someone in Wisconsin empties your bank account, you can't sue us both in one case just because we both stole from you; unless it's a conspiracy & we're working together, you need separate suits
But sweet glory, they ALSO named the Electoral College as a Defendant, an "entity" that, with apologies to @scottlynch78, is entirely fictional.
That's like filing a lawsuit against "chemotherapy" or "the foreign policy establishment". As I said last night, pity the poor process server who was handed a summons and told "ok, go serve this on the Electoral College"
On the plus side, they DID make up a physical address for "Defendant Electoral College" - it's the US Capitol Building, where (unless I'm wrong and the DC electors use it) exactly NONE of the temporary members of the Electoral College even meet to vote
They also sued a raft of individual defendants from the various states "in their official capacity" - except Brian Kemp, who was sued in his "original" capacity - meaning that they all have 11th Amendment immunity from being sued
Or, well, they would, if the case ever got to the point where immunity is relevant, which it won't because ...
They sued these defendants in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, where basically none of the defendants reside or do business (except for Mike Pence and Congress, who, OF COURSE, were also named as defendants because when you're this crazy, why not?)
This is a slight problem due to the little-discussed topic of personal jurisdiction, which only a hundred thousand or so cases have addressed, which basically says "no, asshole, you can't sue Ginny Welch of Minnetonka in a court in New York. We have no power over her"
There are exceptions to that rule, of course - we're lawyers, after all, and bright-line, easily followed rules without exceptions would put us out of business - but none of them apply here, and the plaintiffs don't even bother arguing that they do.

More from Akiva Cohen

The judge in this case has now issued an absolutely brutal smackdown that you'll enjoy reading. It comes complete with a well-earned threat of sanctions.


Here's the decision. Some highlights follow

Pretty sure I said this, using slightly different words!


Hey, @questauthority, it sounds like Judge Boasberg was about as pleased about the long "none of this matters but we want to say it anyway" section as we expected him to be


You CANNOT run into court claiming there's an emergency and you need an expedited schedule so you can be heard before 1/6 and then just not bother serving anyone for 12 days
OK, #Squidigation fans, I think we need to talk about the new Wisconsin suit Donald Trump filed - personally - in Federal Court last night. The suit is (as usual) meritless. But it's meritless in new and disturbing ways. This thread will be


Not, I hope, Seth Abramson long. But will see.

I apologize in advance to my wife, who would very much prefer I be billing time (today's a light day, though) and to my assistant, to whom I owe some administrative stuff this will likely keep me from 😃

First, some background. Trump's suit essentially tries to Federalize the Wisconsin Supreme Court complaint his campaign filed, which we discussed here.


If you haven't already, go read that thread. I'm not going to be re-doing the same analysis, and I'm not going to be cross-linking to that discussion as we go. (Sorry, I like you guys, and I see this as public service, but there are limits)

Also, @5DollarFeminist has a good stand-alone thread analyzing the new Federal complaint - it's worth reading as well, though some of the analysis will overlap.

More from Law

One of the judges this story mentions is William Cassidy, who was promoted from an Atlanta IJ position to a BIA member position in 2019 by the Trump DOJ. Cassidy has an awful history that has been well-documented, but I'm still enraged reading this reporting.


The story notes that the EOIR Director served as an ICE attorney in Atlanta and practiced before Cassidy for years. And it points to FOIA records unearthed by Bryan Johnson showing they remain friendly.

A trove of complaints against Cassidy was published by AILA in 2019 after FOIA litigation. They generally show misconduct, substantiated in the record, followed by "written counseling" etc.

One way Cassidy could avoid discipline is by turning off the recording device during the hearing. If he made a lewd or offensive comment off the record, all the EOIR would do is listen to the recording. If it's not there, the complaint is "unsubstantiated" https://t.co/wUeBPEEbpV


In that case, Cassidy joked about a detained immigrant saying he missed his wife. The complaint was dismissed because the ACIJ found "no levity or joking" in the comment.

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