Politics - News Analysis

Texas State Bar to A.G. Paxton: Stop Telling Trump Election Lies or Lose Your Law License

About six weeks after the election, it became increasingly apparent that the courts were not going to overturn the election results, primarily because no one had any evidence that there was any fraud. Moreover, in a move that shocked the Trumpers, the Supreme Court didn’t want to hear any of the cases because they were so obviously ridiculous. When you don’t have evidence, you do not have evidence. The two or three cases that did present interesting questions regarding whether the legislature in certain states followed their own rules, the courts in those states addressed the matter and said that they did, and had latitude due to COVID.

That didn’t stop people from saying that these states ran fraudulent elections. But again, none of these cases made it to the Supreme Court, where Trump was positive that his buddies would back him up. He had Thomas (Ginni worked in his office), Alito would vote for everyone on the Right, and then the three he picked OWED him. He needed a case to go to the Supreme Court.

Paxton came up with an astonishingly stupid idea. All cases that involve a lawsuit between one state and another originate in the Supreme Court. That means that Arizona v. California (a water lawsuit over the Colorado River, at one time the longest-running lawsuit in history and may still be ongoing today), is not filed in your local court, it’s filed with the Supremes who have jurisdiction to decide the case. The SCOTUS doesn’t have a trial in front of nine judges,. Instead, they usually pick a “Special Master” – a person who functions as a judge (without the title).

Special Masters are often more qualified to be judges that many actual judges, they are highly intelligent people with powerful legal minds and years of experience. They hear the evidence apply the evidence to the law, write up their findings as a decision and in 99.9% of the cases, the SCOTUS simply adopts the Special Master’s opinion.

Paxton’s brilliant idea was to represent the state of Texas and sue Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, or whoever the hell else ending up voting for Biden and viola! The case was before the SCOTUS. The problem is that states control their own voting procedures, period. It would be akin to the state of Washington, which allows near-universal mail-in ballots to sue Texas for not allowing mail-in ballots. States control their own elections unless a federal law preempts certain portions (Like the Voting Right Acts that has been eaten away). Paxton didn’t care.

He signed the lawsuit and filed it with the Supreme Court, he was joined by many other A.G.’s from red states. The SCOTUS ruled 9-0 that the lawsuit could not possibly win, though two judges wanted to at least hear it, all joined in the decision.”

Any second year law student could have told Paxton that the lawsuit would fail. But Paxton continued to talk about Trump winning the election, continued to talk fraud, even after filing his ridiculous suit and now he’s in trouble. Here is a small bit from Salon:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, an ardent Trump supporter who was the lead plaintiff in a last-ditch Supreme Court case aimed at overturning the 2020 election, appears to be backing away from his past claims of widespread election fraud.

Facing discipline or even potential disbarment in Texas, Paxton now merely alleges that there were “irregularities” in battleground states, while still suggesting those could somehow have affected the overall result.

Paxton’s apparent retreat came earlier this month in response to an array of grievances filed by several members of the Texas bar. Paxton’s response is a clear departure from his previous rhetoric, much of which explicitly supported former President Trump’s grandiose conspiracy theories about systemic election fraud.

Just days ago, we reported that George “P” Bush got passed over for Trump’s endorsement – despite perfect MAGA credentials. Trump endorsed Paxton. We know of nothing that says Trump can’t change his mind. We do know that Paxton cannot change his mind. One cannot be “Attorney General” if one is not a licensed attorney. Laws are funny that way.

So perfect. So ridiculous. So easily foreseeable. Paxton’s case was so bad that the Supreme Court wouldn’t hear it. (You heard Trump complain,, “the president of the United States couldn’t even get a case…”  It is called a “12(b)(6) issue and all it means is you just asked the court to do something it didn’t even have the power to do, even if it wanted to, it cannot tell one state tell another how to run their election.

Paxton was very lucky to escape sanctions in front of the SCOTUS, now he has to watch the Texas Bar Association while watching Trump. He is a no-win position that he dug for himself.
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[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak

 

meet the author

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He now enjoys life as a single dad raising a ridiculously-loved young girl on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He is very much the dreamy mystic, a day without learning is a day not lived. He is passionate about his flower pots and studies philosophical science, religion, and non-mathematical principles of theoretical physics. Dogs, pizza, and love are proof that God exists. "Above all else, love one another."

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