The Dismissed Texas Lawuit.

[MarkD]

Here is my take on the Court's decision. I would have came to the same conclusion that the SCOTUS did, but stated my reason for rejecting Texas's lawsuit quite a bit differently. I would have said that Texas alleges several executive and judicial officers in the defendent states have acted unconstitutionally because they (executive and judicial officers) have usurped their state legislators' power to "direct" the "manner" of appointing a slate of electors for the Electoral College. See Article II, Section 1, Clause II, U.S. Constitution: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, ..."
The actions alleged to have been performed by the executive and judicial officers of the defendent states, even if true, have not effectively changed the "manner" of appointing the slate of electors for their states. The alleged actions only made minor changes to the general election laws for how those states count the votes cast by the citizens. Those changes effected how all of the votes are counted for all of the elections on each states' ballot. But the states' laws that pertain SPECIFICALLY to the "manner" of appointing the slate of electors have not been changed at all -- whichever presidential candidate wins a plurality of the votes cast for President shall have all of the electoral college votes of that state assigned to them. The legislative power constitutionally delegated to the state legislatures have not been usurped by the alleged actions of the executive and judicial officers of the defendent states.

What do you think of my reasoning?

[brucejoel99]

Wait, are you saying that you would've ruled with Alito & Thomas that Texas inherently had standing to bring the case, before summarily dismissing it (on the merits) immediately?

[Del Tachi]

....that’s not very prudent.  Why rule on an actual substantive question when you can just dismiss the case for reasons of standing?  The court that rules best rules the least

[MarkD]

Wait, are you saying that you would've ruled with Alito & Thomas that Texas inherently had standing to bring the case, before summarily dismissing it (on the merits) immediately?

I'm not very familiar wth the rules of standing, nor am I familiar with the precedents surrounding the Eleventh Amendment. But I guess I am basically disagreeing with the following statement in the SCOTUS majority opinion, "Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections." That seems suspicious to me. Texas's allegation had nothing to do with how Michigan elected its U.S. Senator this year, or the members of the Michigan state legislature. Texas's alleged that Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution was violated. Maybe the Eleventh Amendment would have prohibited Texas's lawsuit, or maybe no "Sister State" has ever had standing in arguing that any other State has violated Article 2, Sec. 1, Clause 2; maybe only a resident of the state in quesion has standing to make that claim.

I do want to consider the merits of the case itself, rather than contemplate the question of who has standing.

[brucejoel99]

Wait, are you saying that you would've ruled with Alito & Thomas that Texas inherently had standing to bring the case, before summarily dismissing it (on the merits) immediately?

I'm not very familiar wth the rules of standing, nor am I familiar with the precedents surrounding the Eleventh Amendment. But I guess I am basically disagreeing with the following statement in the SCOTUS majority opinion, "Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections." That seems suspicious to me. Texas's allegation had nothing to do with how Michigan elected its U.S. Senator this year, or the members of the Michigan state legislature. Texas's alleged that Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution was violated. Maybe the Eleventh Amendment would have prohibited Texas's lawsuit, or maybe no "Sister State" has ever had standing in arguing that any other State has violated Article 2, Sec. 1, Clause 2; maybe only a resident of the state in quesion has standing to make that claim.

I do want to consider the merits of the case itself, rather than contemplate the question of who has standing.

Then the only interpretation I can see as reasonable is that Texas claimed the electors from the defendant states weren't appointed in accordance with constitutional requirements (the only actual requirement - the Electors Clause - being that the respective state legislatures decide how they're appointed) on the basis that the state judiciaries/executives usurped the legislative authority with COVID-related changes to voting procedures.

Being generous, maybe there's an argument for standing there: granting the hypothetical that if a state didn't appoint its electors in a constitutional manner, then other states maybe have standing to seek relief (on the basis that they suffered a direct & concrete harm, with illegal votes in the defendant states diluting the power of Texas' vote in the Electoral College), but establishing that the electors weren't constitutionally appointed would be a pretty tall order, & in this case, it would've required SCOTUS wading into the authority explicitly delegated to the state legislatures, so while states may have standing to seek relief, the Court arguably has no authority to grant it in this circumstance, making an already-tenuous state standing argument moot.

So, the only scenario I can see wherein the Court would have justiciability over this sort of case would be if some states sent multiple delegations of electors, & the Court had to decide which were the valid delegations. Outside of that, I don't see how a case like this could proceed past the standing argument.

Personally, I kinda agree with the purely procedural Thomas/Alito "statement" that the Court has an explicit constitutional responsibility to hear cases between states (this is perhaps one of the few times in my life in which I've agreed with Alito & Thomas when they disagreed with all of the other Justices, though I also understand the rest of the Court's overall reasoning for not hearing the case), but the only thing they could've then done with it would've been to dismiss it on justiciability grounds, making their granting of the hearing a bit of theater anyway.

[The Mikado]

The standing ruling makes sense. Texas has its 38 electors and selects them by the law it chooses. Michigan has its 16 electors and selects them in the manner it chooses. Even if MI were to pick a totally absurd elector system, like "combat between the two elector slates and whoever wins wins Michigan," that doesn't affect Texas' elector slate one bit.

Besides, does Texas REALLY want other states to start suing it because they don't like TX's election laws?