On March 9, 2010, U.S. District Court Judge John C. Coughenour issued a 10-page procedural order, generally letting the Washington Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian Parties amend their complaints, in the ongoing case against the “top-two” system that Washington has been using since 2008. Judge Coughenour did delete one part of the Republican Party’s complaint, which deals with whether top-two violates the state Constitution.
The order says, “Many of the new paragraphs at least obliquely bolster a claim for voter confusion – the substance of the as-applied challenge currently before the Court.”
Also important is footnote 2, which says that even though this Judge had ruled against the Libertarian Party’s ballot access and trademark arguments in his order of August 20, 2009, that “because of the parties’ continued ability to appeal those claims at least once, the Court would not under any circumstances require deletion of those claims from pleadings.”
The Democratic and Republican parties had left in all the deadwood claims that had already been dismissed by the courts. The State had asked that the court strike all this now irrelevant material so that the parties and the court could concentrate on the few remaining live issues.
Judge Coughenour has now given the State the assurance that they would not be expected to defend again on the settled issues, simply because they remained in the political parties’ complaints.
The judge makes it pretty clear that the political parties were veering off course, but it was not the courts responsibility to ensure that political parties arguments were not poorly expressed.
“at least obliquely” means “not entirely tangential”
Footnote 2 really says that even if he were to strike all the irrelevant material (about 50 paragraphs), he would not strike the couple of paragraphs relating to the ballot access and trademark arguments, since they may be appealed. This doesn’t mean that there is any substance to those claims, but merely that the political parties have a legal right of appeal.
Whatever a lowly U.S.A. District Court judge says about anything is almost USELESS.
The Ct Apps and especially the Supremes control the show in ALL things *political*.
One of the major fictions in the LAW is that ALL adults supposedly are aware of ALL laws and ALL court cases about everything.
Thus — as part of such fiction – the added fiction — there can be no such thing as *voter confusion* about anything.
On to the Ct Apps and Supremes whatever the Dist Ct judge does.
# 4 — The fiction is of course —
Ignorance of the LAW is NO excuse [for a violation of such LAW].
See the classic line in the Judge’s order about lots of trees dying for the paperwork of the party hacks.
Hopefully the line will be copied by the Supremes.
Allegations of facts and law in a complaint — along with a request for relief (i.e. judgment).
SOOOOOOO difficult in these New Age days of growing stupidity — with complaints becoming a history of the earth from Adam and Eve — for poor suffering clerks to hack through for a judge — who then blows away most of the junk in a complaint (at great cost to taxpayers and trees).