Sotomayor to sit out Colorado 'faithless electors' Supreme Court case


Sotomayor to sit out Colorado 'faithless electors' Supreme Court case

Sotomayor to sit out Colorado 'faithless electors' Supreme Court case

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will not participate next month when the court hears one of two cases that could change a key element of the system America uses to elect its president — the Electoral College.
The court disclosed Tuesday that Sotomayor took herself off a case from Colorado involving a challenge to a state law directing how presidential electors must cast their votes because of a personal friendship with one of the challengers. That friend, Polly Baca, was one of three electors who argue that they ought to be able to vote for the candidate of their choice instead of the person who won the popular vote in the state — what's known as a "faithless elector."
In a letter to the lawyers in the case, the Supreme Court's clerk, Scott Harris, said Sotomayor concluded that "her impartiality might reasonably be questioned due to her friendship with respondent Polly Baca." The letter said Sotomayor and her clerks failed to catch the potential conflict when the case was first brought to the court.
Baca, a former state senator, has been Sotomayor's friend for decades. Baca's sister and brother-in-law lived for a time in Sotomayor's New York apartment, and Baca herself had a prominent spot at the justice's Senate confirmation hearing.
However, Sotomayor will participate when the court hears a similar challenge from Washington state involving the same issue. The two cases will be argued April 28 and were originally to be considered in a single one-hour argument. On Tuesday, the court separated the cases and set an hour of argument for each case.
Sotomayor's recusal is unlikely to make any practical difference. Even if the justices turned out to be divided 5-4 in the Colorado case, her absence would result in a 4-4 tie, meaning the outcome would have no legal significance; her participation in the other case would count, however, and it would be the controlling decision.
More than half the states have laws requiring electors to obey the results of the popular state vote and cast their ballots accordingly. When an elector refuses to follow the results of a state's popular vote, the state usually simply throws the ballot away.
The cases before the Supreme Court involve faithless electors during the 2016 presidential election. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated Colorado's law requiring conformance with the popular vote. But faced with a similar challenge, Washington's Supreme Court upheld that state's similar law.
The nation's highest court ruled in 1952 that states do not violate the Constitution when they require electors to pledge that they will abide by the popular vote. But the justices have never said whether it is constitutional to enforce those pledges.
The court will issue its decision by late June.


MMW

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It

Image
Here’s what Russia’s 2020 disinformation operations look like, according to two experts on social media and propaganda. By   DARREN LINVILL   &   PATRICK WARREN Internet trolls don’t troll. Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don’t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don’t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren’t  “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,”  as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren’t a threat to Western democracy. Professional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously. MORE: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/russia-troll-2020-election-interference-twitter-916482/ P...
Read more

The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term

Image
The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term   (Photo: Photos: Getty Images) Americans will almost certainly go to bed on Nov. 3 without knowing who won the presidential election. Since millions of people will vote by mail, constraints on time and resources will slow ballot counting into potentially a weeks-long process. Voting patterns suggest it’s likely that President  Donald Trump  could end Election Day in the lead in certain key states, only to be overtaken by Democratic opponent  Joe Biden  when more votes are tallied.  This could create a nightmare scenario during the three months stretching from Election Day to the Jan. 20 inauguration: a battle on the state and congressional level over who is the legitimate winner. This could include Congress reconvening on Jan. 6, presided over by Vice President  Mike Pence , with no consensus over its potential role in choosing the next president. This...
Read more

When Life Hands You Lemons

Image
 It's like this folks: sometimes your mind goes blank. Happens more than usual with me of course. Take this forum for instance. I wanted to post something today and couldn't think of a topic. At least not a non-sexual one and we know sexual ones lately have been frowned upon.  Then along comes one of our regulars and complains about something. Well, they might not say it was a complaint, just an observation, but it was a complaint. A minor one. It has something to do about being able to make something out of nothing. Sort of like me this morning, how to make a thread out of an empty head? But they (notice I am using the correct pronoun, not saying he or she), by what they said got me thinking. What I thought was: Not sure if that is the actual saying, if I remember correctly, I remember the saying going something like this: Umm, no, I don't think the saying I am thinking of goes that way either, maybe ONE of you good folks can remind me how the saying goes. Either way, when...
Read more