David Rogers, a Republican candidate for Texas Supreme Court, will have his ballot access case heard in the Texas State Appeals Court in Dallas. Rogers v Republican Party, 05-25-01701-cv. Candidates for Supreme Court in primaries need 50 signatures in each of the 15 state appeals court districts. On one of Rogers’ petitions the notary filled in a blank space incorrectly. The lower court first put him back on the ballot but then changed her mind.
The 5th Court of Appeals in a memorandum opinion has denied the appeal.
It is not accurate to say that Rogers would have his case “heard”. The 5th Court had over 100 appeals filed in December. They have discretion of which appeals they take, though election cases may have some priority. In the case, the court made their decision based on the “record”.
Without a further explanation, they appear to be saying that the RPT can be somewhat arbitrary in their application of Texas election law inconsistent with what would be expected by the SOS in reviewing petitions filed with them.
“Miniscule” should be spelled “minuscule.”
The distribution among the appellate districts may violate ‘Ogilvie v. Moore’. The population of the districts varies from over 6.5 million persons to just over 500 thousand.
If the required 750 signatures were distributed on a per capita basis the following number of signatures would be needed:
1/14 167
5 106
2 91
3 81
4 80
13 54
10 33
9 32
8 25
12 24
7 23
11 21
6 14
Note: 1st and 14th districts are coterminous. Currently 100 signatures are required from the two districts. Rusk, Upshur, and Wood counties are in the 6th and 12th districts. Signatures from these counties may be assigned to where they are needed. I have assigned half the population of each county to the two districts. Hunt County is in the 5th and 6th districts. I have assigned half of Hunt County’s population to each district.
The Legislature is aware of the disparity among the appellate districts. Only the more populous districts require a supplemental judicial petition. In addition, more justices serve in the larger districts, where three-judge panels hear cases.
In a sane election system there would be no paperwork at all, thus no possibility of paperwork errors.
@Standing Stan,
Should constitutions be written?
They should be short enough to recite verbally and memorize. People who know their ABCs are becoming an ever smaller percentage of the population, at an increasing rate. Long before the end of this century they will be a vanishingly small minority, possibly even smaller than in medieval Europe.
@Standing Stan,
Could you provide an example of such a constitution?
David Rogers has filed suit for a writ of mandamus with the Supreme Court of Texas.
The case number is 26-0010 .
We don’t yet live in an ideal society, and writing constitutions isn’t my thing. But how long was, for example, the Code of Hammurabi? The Ten Commandments is another example of a system of laws that is short enough to be memorized. Maybe the Ten Commandments is all the law we really need? It should be up to local custom, but whatever the laws are, they should be short and simple enough to be memorized and understood by all competent adults and older children.
The code of Hammurabi was way too long. A lot of this could be pruned because we have since gotten rid of slavery and polygamy, for example.
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/hamcode.asp