Osler's Razor

Plaintiffs’ aims in this election challenge are bold indeed: they ask this Court to declare unconstitutional several decades-old federal statutes governing the appointment of electors and the counting of electoral votes for President of the United States; to invalidate multiple state statutes regulating the certification of Presidential votes; to ignore certain Supreme Court decisions; and, the coup de grace, to enjoin the U.S. Congress from counting the electoral votes on January 6, 2021, and declaring Joseph R. Biden the next President.

In addition to being filed on behalf of Plaintiffs without standing and (at least as to the state Defendants) in the wrong court and with no effort to even serve their adversaries, the suit rests on a fundamental and obvious misreading of the Constitution. It would be risible were its target not so grave: the undermining of a democratic election for President of the United States. The Court will deny the Motion.

Even if the Court had subject-matter and personal jurisdiction, it still could not rule in Plaintiffs’ favor because their central contention is flat-out wrong. “Plaintiffs claim that Article II of the U.S. Constitution provides a voter a constitutional right to the voter’s Presidential vote being certified as part of the state legislature’s post-election certification of Presidential electors. Absence [sic] such certification, the Presidential electors’ votes from that state cannot be counted by the federal Defendants toward the election of President and Vice President.” Compl., ¶ 32 (emphasis added); see also PI Mem. at 1. More specifically, “Plaintiffs [sic] constitutional claims in this lawsuit are principally based on one sentence in Article II of the U.S. Constitution.” Compl., ¶ 54; see also PI Mem. at 1. That sentence states in relevant part that the President “shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and . . . be elected[] as follows: [¶] Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . . .” U.S. Const., art. II, § 1.

Plaintiffs somehow interpret this straightforward passage to mean that state legislatures alone must certify Presidential votes and Presidential electors after each election, and that Governors or other entities have no constitutionally permitted role. See Compl., ¶ 55. As a result, state statutes that delegate the certification to the Secretary of State or the Governor or anyone else are invalid. Id., ¶ 58. That, however, is not at all what Article II says. The above- quoted language makes manifest that a state appoints electors in “such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” So if the legislature directs that the Governor, Secretary of State, or other executive-branch entity shall make the certification, that is entirely constitutional. This is precisely what has happened: in each of the five states, the legislature has passed a statute directing how votes are to be certified and electors selected. 

Plaintiffs readily acknowledge that their position also means that the Supreme Court’s decisions in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), and Texas v. Pennsylvania, No. 155 (Orig.), 2020 WL 7296814 (U.S. Dec. 11, 2020), “are in constitutional error.” Compl., ¶ 76. They do not, however, explain how this District Court has authority to disregard Supreme Court precedent. Nor do they ever mention why they have waited until seven weeks after the election to bring this action and seek a preliminary injunction based on purportedly unconstitutional statutes that have existed for decades — since 1948 in the case of the federal ones. It is not a stretch to find a serious lack of good faith here. See Trump v. Wis. Elections Comm’n, No. 20-3414, 2020 WL 7654295, at *4 (7th Cir. Dec. 24, 2020).

Yet even that may be letting Plaintiffs off the hook too lightly. Their failure to make any effort to serve or formally notify any Defendant — even after reminder by the Court in its Minute Order — renders it difficult to believe that the suit is meant seriously. Courts are not instruments through which parties engage in such gamesmanship or symbolic political gestures. As a result, at the conclusion of this litigation, the Court will determine whether to issue an order to show cause why this matter should not be referred to its Committee on Grievances for potential discipline of Plaintiffs’ counsel.

So, huzzah Judge Boasberg!