Scalia Rejects Arguments in Application for RPT DeLay Stay

Antonin Scalia has denied the Republican Party of Texas' application for a stay of enforcement of Judge Sparks' July 6 decision. It seems to be the end of the road for the litigation portion of this affair.

Earlier today, lawyers representing Tina Benkiser and the Republican Party of Texas filed an application for a stay of enforcement of the judgement that the Texas Democratic Party obtained In TDP vs. Benkiser et al. That judgement, among other things, enjoins Tina Benkiser from removing Tom DeLay’s name from the November ballot for the CD-22 race.

But late this afternoon, Justice Antonin Scalia, who reviews appeals of 5th Circuit Court rulings, denied the application.

Final door slammed in the collective faces of Tina Benkiser, the Republican Party of Texas, and Tom “I’ll be back” DeLay.

There is no where else to go with this. Tom DeLay cannot be replaced on the ballot. Said James Bopp, the RPT’s lawyer in the case:

“The efforts to get relief through the courts prior to the election have been exhausted. Obviously the party is considering their options.”

Options? They have options?

The only person in this whole mess that has an option here is Tom DeLay. Now Tom will have an option to come back and run, or to exercise the other option, to announce what we all know he will announce.

That he is withdrawing from the race.

FortBendNow holds that Scalia denied the application because he disagreed with the arguments presented:

“The denial by Justice Scalia indicates he disagreed with the GOP argument. As a result, no replacement candidate will be allowed to be named.”

Now I think that’s possible, but I also think that he must have thrown up his hands after the first read of the 51 page long application, especially after seeing such whiney rhetoric like

“This application seeks to protect Republican Party of Texas’ First Amendment right of association by protecting its ability to nominate a candidate of its choice free from the intrusion of those with adverse interests, the Texas Democratic Party (“TDP”). As a result of TDP’s intrusion into RPT’s nomination process, RPT is forced to retain as its nominee, a nominee who has announced that he will be ineligible to take office if elected, because he has moved to Virginia and plans to live there indefinitely, even though Texas Election laws allow political parties to replace ineligible candidates as their nominee with someone who would be eligible to serve if elected. The Fifth Circuit’s decision condones this intrusion by holding that RPT’s exercise of its statutory right to require a candidate to reaffirm his eligibility for office, once he has taken steps fundamentally incompatible with his previous promise that he would be eligible for office if elected, unconstitutionally adds a qualification for office."

[All the emphasis mine]

That’s three sentences boys and girls. Three long, whiney sentences. Intrusion. Where can their whiney little heads be? Obviously they were making a run at political bias. While Scalia’s politics run just left of Benito Mussolini’s, he is not a man to mess with the constitution.

I also want to point out an outright lie within that paragraph. “he will be ineligible to take office if elected, because he has moved to Virginia and plans to live there indefinitely.”

On July 6, in Sparks’ court, when DeLay was asked by TDP lawyers where he would be on Election Day, Chad Dunn, a TDP lawyer said that “[DeLay] stated he didn’t know where he was going to live on election day,” Actually, according to muse, DeLay’s exact words were "Uh, I dunno, dude. Where do you want me to be?".

Oh well, it’s over for now. I would expect a withdrawl announcement very soon, probably after Tom talks it over with his good friend and confidante, Almighty God.