Blogged by Brad from the road…
In addition to Emily Levy’s coverage here on Friday night, and Winter Patriot’s coverage last Thursday (which includes actual briefs and letters filed in the case), Miriam Raftery filed a superb summation at RAW STORY today of where the Busby/Bilbray CA50 Election Contest stands as of last Friday’s hearing. She includes several details which the Guest Bloggers here hadn’t previously touched on — including details on the defendants’ attempts at a frivolous “SLAPP suit” against the plaintiffs — so we recommend giving her piece a quick read.
The Judge on the case in San Diego, Yuri Hofmann, is to decide tomorrow on the defense’s argument that the case should be tossed out on jurisdictional grounds because, they argue, the Constitution gives the U.S. Congress — not California voters or California courts — the right to ultimately adjudicate such election challenges…even before, as in this case, the election was actually certified by the county or the state. No, seriously, that’s what Brian Bilbray’s attorneys are actually arguing. Out loud.
This shows how frightened the “powers that be” are, whether they are the national figures who are trying to manipulate our country into a corporate fascism or the local mini-fascists who like their power and don’t like it when “the people” get in the way of what they are trying to do.
These people are scrambling and using every trick in the book to keep the lid on what is eventually going to be a pressure-cooker of a pot full of election fraud slime and scum. And, when it goes up, EVERYBODY INVOLVED is going to be exposed for the criminals and/or incompetents (which, when it comes to our elections, is criminal) that they are.
We’ll see how willing to risk the “wrath of Rove” this judge is.
Well, last time I read over things, congress does have the (constitutional) power to determine jurisdictions for courts. Ergo, if this is a federal matter, then the congress does, indeed control who has jurisdiction.
However, the election process isn’t really under federal jurisdiction. The only truly federal election that takes place in this country is the formality that the electors take part in after the ‘general’ election takes place in early November.
As a consequence admendments 15, 19, 23, 24, and 26 which deal with the election process in various ways have articles and clauses that explicitly grant congress the authority to legislate those aspects of the electoral process.
No, the defendants have filed an anti-SLAPP suit against the plaintiffs, which means they are hoping to convince the judge that the plaintiffs SLAPPed them frivolously. Good luck with that, un-American scum.
In California, we instituted what was known as “SLAPP Back”. When the big boys had filed a suit merely to burden the little guys so much they could not press on with their grievances, we gave the little guys this tool to fend off that kind of gaming of the Regular Joe by the wealthy wrongdoers. Now the wealthy wrongdoers are trying to turn even THAT on its ear.
Far be it from me to tell Leto how to do his job, but it seems like California code of civil procedure Section 425.17 (b) is a slam-dunk here:
425.17 (b) Section 425.16 does not apply to any action brought solely in the public interest or on behalf of the general public if all of the following conditions exist:
(1) The plaintiff does not seek any relief greater than or different from the relief sought for the general public or a class of which the plaintiff is a member. A claim for attorney’s fees, costs, or penalties does not constitute greater or different relief for purposes of this subdivision.
(2) The action, if successful, would enforce an important right affecting the public interest, and would confer a significant benefit, whether pecuniary or nonpecuniary, on the general public or a large class of persons.
(3) Private enforcement is necessary and places a disproportionate financial burden on the plaintiff in relation to the plaintiff’s stake in the matter.
Noname, are you suggesting a SLAPP Back of a SLAPP Back? A new-fangled sort of anti-SLAPP Back? An antidisestablishmentarianism sorta thing? 😛
Agent99
You need a break gal – you’re getting SLAPP Happy!
It’s true, BB2, good term. I get that way over all the layers of rules and statutes that must be applied with the passing of each day, week, month, year, to mitigate for TOTAL JERKS who are DESPERATE to ruin our lives. I was being SLAPP-happy kind of silly behind it. An easy to follow explanation of the matter at hand can be found here. If you scroll down a way, you will find out how the whole business applies in California… get a flavor of what kind of tortured and torturing legal reasoning is going into anointing Bilbray despite the voters.
“…was enacted to facilitate SLAPP victims in recovering their damages through a SLAPPback (malicious prosecution action) against the SLAPP filers and their attorneys after the underlying SLAPP has been dismissed.”
Sounds like the 3 Stooges!
LOL, BB2 😛
Thanks, I needed that!!!!!
Dispense with all the technicalities and legalities,..
to the gallows with the fascists
and their cronies now.
ITMFA,.. like yesterday,.. not tomorrow !
This would be a good one for Dredd to weigh in on, but Agent 99 is doing a good job. SLAPP is Greek to me!
Yeah, come on, Dredd!!!
Agent99, this website is cheering for the plaintiffs who are, in effect, petitioning for a recount. The defendants invoked 425.16 which is the anti-SLAPP rule that stays discovery and so on. However, 425.17 indicates that 425.16 does not apply to cases such as this one.
I’m not sure what, exactly a SLAPP-back is.
“SLAPP Back” is the colloquial term for when you can slap SLAPPers for SLAPPing you in court.
Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP) is used to quell citizens in their attempts to stop entities from doing harm to the public. Say a little environmentalist group sues to stop a company dumping toxics in their water. The company could sue the little group for tresspass or some other made-up infringement to cost the little group so much money it could not proceed with its original claim. That was the trick, the strategy, to stop people from impeding their polluting, which defeats the process of citizen participation, and not on the merits, but through trickery.
So. California went ahead and protected its people from SLAPP suits with a new law known as “SLAPP Back”, which simply meant the little guy could slap the entities slapping them with a motion (CCP 425.16) to stop that nonsense, but since this powerful tool against strategic litigating was instituted, it has been being abused — non-SLAPP suits were getting SLAPP Back motions used in them, which could at least delay the entire thing, all discovery included, until that motion had been adjudicated and appealed. So that’s where your CCP 425.17 and more come in to correct this abuse.
In this case, Voters vs. Elections Officials, when the Elections Officials are using an anti-SLAPP motion to stop the suit, it’s REALLY, REALLY REACHING, but the Elections Officials, no doubt, argue that they are representatives of the participating public, not the voter plaintiffs. It’s a nasty, stupid ploy, designed to daze and confuse and confound progress, and I hope to heck Paul Lehto smacks them so silly their heads spin for attempting to use it.
BUT SOMETHING DOES ALWAYS SEEM TO STULTIFY THE SUCCESSFUL RESOLUTION OF THESE SUITS, NOW DOESN’T IT?
They’re turning our legal system, literally, into a Three Stooges episode production company. Can we quit talking about this now? It gives me a headache, and we’re supposed to find out today how the judge is ruling on all this.