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Wednesday Morning Rant

No Venue

One major outcome from the aftermath of the 2020 election was the egregious behavior of the Supreme Court. Everyone here surely remembers how that litigation shook out. Some states sued other states over their handling of the election and subsequent vote-counting, and the Supreme Court used elaborate mental and legal gymnastics to to reject those cases. Handling litigation between the states is one of the Court's actual jobs, and in 2020 it simply refused to do it so as to end the litigation and make the problem go away. Whether cowardly terror or simple activism, it doesn't matter. The Court was derelict.

It's pretty straightforward how. Article III, Section II:

The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states;--between a state and citizens of another state;--between citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.

It is the Court's job to, among other things, adjudicate conflicts between states. It chose not to in 2020. As we see in 2026, that was not a one-off.

Last year, an unqualified illegal alien named Harjinder Singh executed an illegal U-Turn in a big rig on the Florida Turnpike. The illegal maneuver caused a car wreck that killed three people. Despite being an illegal alien who could not speak English and failed to recognize road signs, Singh was improperly issued a CDL by the states of California and Washington, and he fled to California after the wreck. A few days after his return to California, he was arrested by the US Marshals. California's (and other states') regular issuance of improper and illegal CDLs to unqualified and often illegal aliens is a problem with interstate ramifications.

In response to this incident, Florida filed suit against California and Washington in October of last year. Being a conflict between the states, the case went before the Supreme Court. Or, rather it should have gone before the Supreme Court. This time, like every time there is a suit between the states that may prove politically difficult, the Court flatly refused to take the case. Unlike 2020, however, there were no mental gymnastics to justify it.

A solid majority of the Court simply refused, and the majority issued no explanation. There was no rationale or justification, and the majority opinion was unsigned. Per the Washington Examiner:

Florida filed a motion for the Supreme Court to hear the lawsuit directly because it was a lawsuit between two or more states, a rare instance of the high court’s original jurisdiction, but the unsigned majority did not offer an explanation for why it denied hearing the case.

The actual opinion shows that clearly:

The motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied. JUSTICE THOMAS, with whom JUSTICE ALITO joins, dissenting from the denial of motion for leave to file complaint

This dissent follows, signed by the two justices who usually try to do the right thing. No majority opinion and therefore no author. Just "nah, we're not gonna do it." This is, as the Examiner pointed out, in the Court's actual, real, legitimate, Constitutional jurisdiction. And the Court refused, as has become its habit. Thomas made his opinion on this plain-language point quite clear:

This Court has exclusive original jurisdiction over Florida’s suit because it involves one State suing other States.
Article III establishes that "[i]n all Cases . . . in which a State shall be [a] Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction." §2, cl. 2. Congress has made our original jurisdiction "exclusive" in "all controversies between two or more States," meaning that no other court can hear this case. 28 U. S. C. §1251(a).
I doubt this Court has discretion to refuse to hear cases within its exclusive original jurisdiction. ... "If this Court does not exercise jurisdiction over a controversy between two States, then the complaining State has no judicial forum in which to seek relief." Nebraska v. Colorado, 577 U. S. 1211, 1212 (2016) (THOMAS, J., dissenting from denial of motion for leave to file complaint). The only statute addressing this Court’s jurisdiction over these kinds of cases nowhere contemplates a process of discretionary review. See §1251(a) Nonetheless, this Court has adopted a discretionary approach to its exclusive original jurisdiction ...

This is not the first time Thomas has made this precise point, which is why quotes himself in his dissent. There is no venue for litigation between the states if the Court refuses to hear such cases, and the Court routinely refuses to hear such cases. I am sure the Court has much better things to do than hear "nuisance claims" (as this case was called by the defendants) - things like legislating from the bench.

The non-communists have seen some victories in the Court over the past few years, but this case continues to underscore an ongoing problem. The Court is populated with political justices who never fail to find jurisdiction when it's a case they want to take, and never fail to reject their responsibilities when it's a case they don't - even if that leaves states with no venue whatsoever to sort out their grievances with each other.