I was amazed when I first read that CFP article. But then I got to thinking... the AZ attorneys are no doubt a bright bunch. Surely they know about the parts of the law cited in that article. I wonder why they didn’t use that in their defense? I suspect there’s a very good reason and I’d like to know why.
Did you read the information at the link?
It appears that the SCOTUS has ‘original authority’ over any case brought against a State.
Which, if I read it correctly, the lower courts have no jurisdiction over any state and therefore cannot hold hearings or trials when the State is a named plaintiff.
“Article III, Sec. 2, clause 2 says:
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction…
“Original” jurisdiction means the power to conduct the “trial” of the case (as opposed to hearing an appeal from the judgment of a lower court).”
“In Federalist No. 81 (13th para), Alexander Hamilton commented on this exact provision of Art. III, Sec. 2, clause 2:
...Let us now examine in what manner the judicial authority is to be distributed between the supreme and the inferior courts of the Union. The Supreme Court is to be invested with original jurisdiction, only “in cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, and those in which A STATE shall be a party.” Public ministers of every class are the immediate representatives of their sovereigns. All questions in which they are concerned are so directly connected with the public peace, that, as well for the preservation of this, as out of respect to the sovereignties they represent, it is both expedient and proper that such questions should be submitted in the first instance to the highest judicatory of the nation. Though consuls have not in strictness a diplomatic character, yet as they are the public agents of the nations to which they belong, the same observation is in a great measure applicable to them. In cases in which a State might happen to be a party, it would ill suit its dignity to be turned over to an inferior tribunal….[boldface added, caps in original]’’