State Supreme Court rejects McDaniel appeal

[alp227]

Source: Jackson Clarion Ledger

The state Supreme Court on Friday upheld the dismissal of Chris McDaniel's lawsuit over his June GOP primary loss to incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran.

The court ruled four to two, upholding a lower court decision that McDaniel waited too long to file the challenge of his loss. Three justices did not participate.

McDaniel in statement said, "Republicans are still left wanting justice" by the decision and said he hopes "conservatives in Mississippi will view this decision as a driving factor to get involved in Republican politics."

Read more: http://www.clarionledger.com/story/politicalledger/2014/10/24/mcdaniel-loses-appeal/17858671/

[bluestateguy]

1. That's still going on?

Had forgotten about it

[Chakab]

5. "Undesireables" were allowed to cast votes in a Republican primary.

Never mind the fact that those were the rules that they set up to interfere in Democrat primaries when it suited them.

The wingnuts didn't get their way, so the whining isn't going to stop anytime in the near future.

[Zambero]

2. Driving factor to get involved in Republican politics?

Inform the dimwit: The aforementioned Mississippi Republicans did in fact get involved, they just didn't bother to select him as their nominee.

[orpupilofnature57]

3. Imagine that conservatives in Mississippi calling for justice .

[Fred Sanders]

4. Holy cow, two idiots agreed with MCDaniels that the black folk voting for Cochrane so the tea bagger

would not get elected should not have done so? 4 to 2?

Now I know why the Republicans and Kochs are trying to take over the judiciary with compliant racists, they are almost there in the red States.

[blkmusclmachine]

8. Noticed that, too. 2 black robed activists.

[Jim Lane]

10. They weren't idiots and they didn't say that.

The lower court had thrown out McDaniel's challenge on a procedural basis, namely that it wasn't filed within 20 days. The two dissenters on the Supreme Court of Mississippi interpreted the 20-day deadline for challenging a primary as being inapplicable to statewide elections. From Justice Coleman's dissenting opinion:

Within the modern Election Code, two statutes provide for a twenty day filing deadline. First, Section 23-15-921 states in pertinent part:

(A) person desiring to contest the election of another person returned as the nominee of the party to any county or county district office, or as the nominee of a legislative district composed of one (1) county or less, may, within twenty (20) days after the primary election, file a petition . . . .

Miss. Code Ann. § 23-15-921 (Rev. 2007) (emphasis added). Second, Section 23-15-951 states: &quot A) person desiring to contest the election of another person returned as elected to any office within any county, may, within twenty (20) days after the election, file a petition . . . .” Miss. Code Ann. § 23-15-951 (Rev. 2007) (emphasis added). Section 23-15-951 also provides that “the election of district attorney or other state district election be contested, the petition may be filed . . . within twenty (20) days after the election.” Id.

Thus, the only two statutes today with express twenty day deadlines are for the primary election for a county and for the general election within a county or for a district election.

An appellate court will generally refuse to consider issues not litigated and decided in the lower court. In this case, the substance of McDaniel's challenge had not been ruled on by the lower court. These two Justices, having concluded that the lower court's interpretation of the procedural statute was incorrect, therefore voted to send the case back to the lower court so it could consider the merits. The dissent expressed no opinion about black people voting, or about any other aspect of the merits of McDaniel's challenge.

I'll admit I've only skimmed the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions. Nevertheless, it does seem to me that the dissenters have a good argument. My suspicion is that the court majority is inclined to align with the Mississippi Republican Party establishment, which obviously backed Cochran.

[Fred Sanders]

11. It seems every single law has a 20 day limit for appeal..obvious to all but two this is the limit.

[Jim Lane]

12. Every single law with a 20-day limit says "county".

It's plausible that a challenge to a statewide result would take more time to put together. If the Legislature nevertheless wanted a blanket 20-day limit, it would be easy enough for it to say so -- but it didn't.

There is a general principle of interpretation, from long before there was even a Tea Party, that the words in the statute are assumed to be there for a reason. If the time-limit provision includes language specifying that it applies to county elections, that principle argues in favor of limiting it to county elections.

From the point of view of flipping the seat, it's too bad the dissenters didn't prevail. If the case had been remanded, then the lower court would have had to take up the acrimonious dispute between McDaniel and Cochran. Some juicy headlines about those hearings, during the week before the election, might have inflamed some McDaniel supporters enough that they'd refuse to vote for Cochran. And, pardon my cynicism, I suspect that that political consideration was not lost on the Justices who voted to end the McDaniel challenge immediately.

[lsewpershad]

6. "involved in republican politics"

Or NOT.

[Bryce Butler]

7. ...

Chris McDaniel, b/c of this injustice, you should run as a write-in...

[marble falls]

9. Like Nelson says: