eligibility ping
Color me not surprised. Did anyone seriously expect a different outcome?
2102 isn't a presidential election year so there is no ballot to be on. Plus Obama is constitutionally ineligible for a third term. Leave it to Larry Klayman to be defeated by a typo.
Briefly summarized: Obama was never a party to this case. It was a state-court case brought by a third-party candidate, who sued the Alabama Secretary of State (a Republican, BTW) just before the 2012 election, seeking a court order that she not put either Romney or Obama on the ballot without examining their birth certificates. (The SOS was the only defendant.)
The lower court said that the Alabama statutes say that the Secretary of State "shall" put on the presidential ballot the candidates nominated by the "national parties" (i.e., the Democrats and Republicans), so the Secretary of State had no power or duty to investigate those candidates.
Five justices of the Alabama Supreme Court (all 9 justices are republicans, BTW), affirmed the lower court without writing any opinion.
Two justices concurred with the majority. Justice Bolin said that it would be a good idea for the Secretary of State to have the power to vet candidates' eligibility, but the Alabama legislature would have to change the law to give her that power. He also said that the plaintiff in this case sued too late, because the general election ballots had already been printed before the lawsuit was filed.
Justice Bryan wrote a short concurrence agreeing that nothing in current Alabama law gives the SOS the power to vet the eligibility of national party candidates, and nothing in current Alabama law gives any state court the power to decide the eligibility of candidates for President.
Chief Justice Moore (well-known as the "10 Commandments judge") dissented. He said: this case is moot because the 2012 election already happened, so no court can now consider Obama's eligibility; only Congress can refuse to count electoral votes once they've been cast and only Congress can remove a sitting President once he's sworn in. Notwithstanding that this case is moot, the SOS should vet the eligibility of all presidential candidates in future elections.
Justice Parker also dissented. He did not go as far as Moore -- he does not think the SOS should vet the eligibility of all candidates-- but said there were questions raised about Obama that the SOS should have looked into.
Thanks fractal trader!
Pinging all y’all to this court decision!
For the record, all nine Alabama Supreme Court Justices are Republicans who must stand for election by the voters every six years (staggered terms).
What the decision said was, "Although logically the Secretary of State, being the chief elections official of the state, should be vested with such a duty, under our present constitutional and statutory framework addressing elections, including presidential elections, not only is that not the case, but the Secretary of State would be bereft of written authority for such an action and ill equipped from a practical standpoint to carry out such an important duty."
In other words the court wouldn't have a problem with the SoS verifying candidate eligibility, but the law would have to be changed to give them the authority to do so.
There should have been 50 of these lawsuits running concurrently in 50 states after the Democratic Convention. This was the way to go. Plaintiffs in it for the show, not the dough.
Shame on those that hooked their wagons to Orly Taitz’s con game.
Lets hope this is the pathetic end of Birther litigation. Although their incompetent clowning before a judge always made me smile, their failure to learn from hundreds of failures is getting to be sad.
And to think and accept that there is some heavenly sanctifying opinions by such laws and men rules for a societal order is gross sophistry..
Don’t know if you’ve been pinged to this thread yet.
All the more reason that Sherriff Joe, put on his stage makeup, and get the truth in front of the stupid people, using all his forensics and analysis of bogus documents.
Maybe, just maybe, with enough public agitation, even ABCNBCCBS will allow a few seconds of coverage to the biggest scam since the founding of the USA!!!