Replies

These summaries are written by Osler McCarthy, the Staff Attorney for Public Information for the Texas Supreme Court. No link, because they are published through an email list.

There was some discussion about these cases recently: Basically, State v. Hollins involved the new Harris County Clerk's plan to mail absentee ballot applications to all registered voters in the county, and the Texas AG sued to stop him. The trial court in Harris County and the court of appeals both ruled for the clerk, but the Supreme Court held that the Elections Code requires that voters request the application.

This is an important ruling, because while the Texas Supreme Court held earlier this year that lack of immunity to Covid is not a "disability" making a voter eligible for an absentee ballot, the absentee ballot application does not require the applicant to prove a disability or even state what the disability is.

Conversely, the Supreme Court punted in the Hotze case on jurisdictional grounds (probably correctly so).

Here is a supplement McCarthy just sent out, with a dissent from Justice Devine in a separate In re Hotze case. This is actually the In re Hotze case that was discussed earlier on Free Republic. The Supreme Court denied mandamus without an opinion, and Devine dissented.

20-0751

In re Steven Hotze, M.D., et al.

on petition for writ of mandamus

Justice Devine DISSENTING to the petition’s denial:

When the judiciary is called upon to consider whether a branch has overstepped its boundaries, it humbly considers the constitution and laws passed to determine the propriety of a particular branch’s action. This is such a case. Relators, who include a candidate for office, question the Harris County clerk’s authority to extend early voting by a week and to accept hand-delivered mail ballots before election day. Because the county clerk’s actions are inconsistent with Texas Election Code sections 86.006(a-1) and 85.001, the requested stay should be granted to consider the propriety of those actions.