Thanks to Fractal Trader, and Seizethecarp.
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Posted on 03/21/2014 10:25:55 AM PDT by Fractal Trader
Today the Alabama Supreme Court issued its 7-2 decision in the case of McInnish v. Chapman, and the decision goes against plaintiffs Hugh Chapman and Virgil Goode, who were trying to force the Alabama Secretary of State to verify Obama’s eligibility to be on the 2102 Alabama presidential ballot. Larry Klayman was the attorney for the Appellants.
The Court’s Majority issued no written opinion, only affirming the lower court decision dismissing the case.
Majority decision to affirm, no opinion (Stuart, Murdock, Shaw, Main, Wise) Concurring opinion (Bolin) Concurring opinion (Bryan) Dissenting Opinion (Moore) Dissenting Opinion (Parker) Chief Justice Roy Moore issued the major dissenting opinion, and Justice Bolin issued a concurring opinion specifically addressed to Moore’s dissent. Chief Justice Moore states that under Alabama Law, Secretary of State Chapman has an affirmative duty to verify candidate eligibility. Justice Bolin agrees that candidate eligibility is an important public interest, but that Alabama statutes do not place a duty on the Secretary of State to verify it. Further Justice Bolin points out that Secretary of State Chapman is a nonjudicial officer with no subpoena power or investigative authority. Justice Bolin concludes:
Under our current structure, however, the burden of investigating a presidential candidate’s qualifications is best left – unfortunately or not – to the candidate’s political party….
As I understand his position, Justice Bolin is saying that a state statute requiring verification of eligibility for candidates for president is a desirable thing, given his belief that the federal courts are prohibited from adjudicating eligibility because of the Political Question Doctrine.
Justice Bryan also issued a concurring opinion, briefly stating his belief that legislation could be passed to allow verification of candidate eligibility.
Chief Justice Moore’s dissenting opinion goes to the details of the Alabama statutes involved and at a brief reading has no particular high points. It is an analysis on the merits.
Chief Justice Parker also dissents from the majority opinion, supporting the analysis of Chief Justice Moore, but disagreeing on the Secretary of State’s affirmative duty to investigate candidate eligibility.
A text search of all of the opinions affirms my opinion that the Affidavit of Mike Zullo is irrelevant, being cited not onc
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.
Eligibility ping.
The typo was in the post, not in the case. The case involved the 2012 election. Chief Justice Moore discussed the mootness issue. (He said this case is moot, but the Secretary of State should investigate all future presidential candidates.)
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.
and I don't use sarc tags.
If I’m reading the decision right, it’s worth noticing that two of the concurring justices opined in writing that as Alabama state law stands currently (and by implication that of practically every other state in the union), the citizens interest in having only legally qualified candidates on ballots is not adequately supported given that specific mechanisms, powers or resources are not granted for the Secretary of State to investigate and ensure that qualifications are met.
In other words, of the nine justices, perhaps at least four feel that Alabama voters were and continue to be exposed to regrettable risks of what roughly amounts to disenfranchisement, given that unqualified candidates could be and may have been named on official ballots. Two of the four (including the Chief Justice) felt that the Secy. of State already has implicit responsibility to protect the integrity of the ballot, the other two pointed out shortcomings they feel need to be remedied in State law in order to explicitly engage the secy. of state in affirmatively verifying candidate qualifications.
I think the Alabama legislature ought to be moved to action. They should write a law that both assigns affirmative verification (and needed resources) to the Secretary of State, AND they should direct investigative resources and subpoena power toward prior questioned elections to determine whether in the recent past the citizens of that state have already been disenfranchised through the vaunting of an unqualified candidate by his or her political party.
The argument that it’s “too late now” and therefore moot, should no more be applied here than in the case of a murder. If the citizens of Alabama have been defrauded and cheated out of a right to vote by means of a clean ballot then why should that not now be discovered? Should the state not bring suit and seek recourse and censure against a political party who has sponsored the corrupting of a past ballot? Should the matter not at least be settled so far as informing the citizens as to whether or not their vote was subjected to a corrupt ballot and, if so, by whose doing?
Potentially robbing citizens of the right to a ballot with only legally qualified candidates is too great a crime for state governments to blithely look the other way. Alabama has admitted that it, like most states, has for all practical purposes a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy guiding its election practices. That must change!
Sorry if I missed them, then. :-)
FRegards,
L.L.
Nobody wants to bell the hell cat.
All four of those justices agree that this case is moot because, once a Presidential election has been held, only Congress can investigate the qualifications of the winner. (Chief Justice Moore's dissent has a long discussion of this.) The issue was whether the SOS should investigate future candidates before they are placed on the ballot.
Thanks for the ping.
This case was a very, very long shot given the standing issue and mootness issue, IMO. Also HI is constitutionally entitled to full faith and credit for the representations of its (likely corrupt) officials regarding vital records.
If AL or any state expects HI to honor its vital record attestations, then they must respect HI...until and unless someone can make a successful case of criminal forgery and/or collusion in HI state.
Maybe that is what Arpaio will do...soon?
The only record supplied by Hawaii are verification letters. The verification letters are fraudulent on their face.
This is the fraud:
Onaka and Obama colluded in fraud.
Thanks to Fractal Trader, and Seizethecarp.
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Sec of State of AL can put Pootie Putin on the state ballot where there isn’t a dang thang that the citizens of Alabama could do about it.
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