Texas Republicans go full fash
By 
Brett Kavanaugh’s invitation earlier this week inviting hack federal judges to nullify state court interpretations of state law to try to steal the election reaches the stage of trying to get ballots legally cast under the current rules thrown out at the last minute:
Judge Hanen has already scheduled an emergency hearing for Monday morning—without even giving Harris County a chance to file a response brief. This, too, is extremely concerning. It looks like he may be rushing to throw out 100,000 disproportionately Democratic votes.— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 31, 2020
This is just straight-up Jim Crow shit now.
And, again, it is not only that the theory that if the Constitution gives a power to the state legislature in the first instance it preempts any discretionary action by the other branches — including discretion exercised under explicit delegation from the legislature! — is not currently the law, and is mind-numbingly idiotic. The Supreme Court less than two weeks ago upheld a ban on curbside voting ordered by the executive with no basis in the Alabama code. If the Texas judge throws out the ballots and is upheld by the Supreme Court, the Court will be literally saying that the executive branch can constitutionally disenfranchise voters but not make it easier to vote. You would like to think, especially since Texas isn’t a likely tipping point state, the Supreme Court would take the opportunity to show some slight daylight between itself and full Trumpism, but at this point all bets are off.
If these ballots are thrown out, and the Supreme Court upholds the action, and Dems get the trifecta anyway, there should be a bill adding four justices to the Supreme Court and twenty new judges to the Fifth Circuit waiting on Joe Biden’s desk on January 20.
….absolutely:
If Republican judges order these ballots tossed out, and there is a Democratic Congress, Democrats should ignore the court’s decision and seat whoever would have won with all ballots counted. https://t.co/Njlzc2DvvQ— Justice Samuel Alito (@imillhiser) October 31, 2020
…also worth noting here that there would be no possible defense for throwing out legally cast ballots at the last minute even if the constitutional theory was actually the established law:
Aside from the fact that the constitutional theory is idiotic, reliance interests and the strategic dilatory behavior by the plaintiffs would get this suit tossed immediately by any actual court of law. https://t.co/EMfTG9l6vg— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) October 31, 2020