Posted on 08/30/2014 11:06:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The news came out yesterday afternoon that yet another blow had been dealt to Chris McDaniel’s ongoing challenge to his runoff election against Thad Cochran. The ruling seemed to bear very little – if any – relevance to questions about voting improprieties at the ballot box, and everything to do with some paperwork.
A Mississippi judge has tossed out state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s challenge to that state’s June 24 GOP primary runoff results, ending another chapter in one of the most bitterly contested U.S. Senate primaries in recent memory and bringing longtime Sen. Thad Cochran one step closer to another term in Washington.
Special Judge Hollis McGehee ruled that McDaniel waited too long to file his challenge with state Republican Party. McDaniel filed the challenge 41 days after the election; McGehee said that under state law the challenge had to be filed within 20 days.
Some people are inevitably going to blame the judge – fair enough given the reputation of the political situation at times. But even some of the harshest critics of the decision had originally applauded the choice of McGehee.
Was he bought off? True conservatives and supporters of Chris McDaniel had high hopes when the state supreme court named Judge Hollis McGehee to oversee the court challenge. And judging from his remarks during the cases first hearing, he seemed to be an honest judge interested in doing what was right. Being a minister and man of God, how could we have expected any less from him? He indicated his intention to decide the case based on the will of the voters and that even if Cochran were elected in November he had the power to unseat him if he were not the legitimate nominee.
Truth be told, you’d be handing even the most even handed judge a tough job in finding in McDaniel’s favor if the opposition opened up with a claim that state law demanded a challenge be filed within 20 days and you’d not done it until more than twice that time had passed. Of course, this is another area where both Team McDaniel and some of his supporters around the country have disagreed. It seems that the law in question is worded in a way which could be interpreted as only applying to county election challenges. But the Cochran team immediately countered by citing a 1959 state supreme court decision arguing to the contrary.
The section of state law on county election challenges says the first step, filing a case with the party’s executive committee, must be done within 20 days of the election. A following section on statewide and district challenges does not contain the deadline language.
But the high court in its 1959 ruling on a Democratic district attorney primary said the code sections were part of a single act passed by the Legislature. It ruled that it would “be senseless” to assume that deadline, aimed to keep general elections on track, would not apply to races for all other offices.
The court said the two sections are “in pari materia,” which I believe is Latin for, look at the whole thing together, dummy.
Give how quickly the clock is running out and the lack of any substantive support in the courts thus far, it’s hard to see where McDaniel goes from here, short of finding a way to appeal directly to the US Supreme Court. And once there, it’s not entirely clear what the new argument would be or how Mississippi would proceed even if SCOTUS found in McDaniel’s favor. Would there be yet another election? And if so, they would have to determine who would be eligible to vote in it, given that the main crux of the argument at this stage is based on residents illegally voting in both the original Democrat primary and then a second time in the runoff. The other option is to simply declare McDaniel the winner absent another vote, but I’ve yet to find anyone citing a precedent in Mississippi for such a move.
McDaniel is supposed to make an announcement about the next steps – if any – next week. But it’s really looking like the available options may have been exhausted.
The main objective must be putting the federal government back within its proper bounds. Too many believe the main objective to be electing a Republican. The Republicans have no intention of controlling the federal government. They can not even say what they will do should they take the Senate. But what they do say are the most vile lies about the Tea Party and McDaniel.
They behave like Democrats, treat them like Democrats... scratch that, RINOs are worse than Democrats since RINOs are lying traitors.
Start demanding Thad debate his dimocrat opponent. His dementia will be there for all to see
No need. Cochran probably isn’t even aware he’s running, just a Team Barbour puppet.
Just quietly pull the rug out from under Barbour by grass-rooting a Childers win. These RINOs are NOT expecting this to happen. Surprise them.
The Barbour gang had county election clerks drag their feet and throw every road block possible in the way of investigating the election. The result was an investigation that took weeks longer than expected.
Then when McDaniel is ready to file the election challenge he first does the proper thing which is to approach the the MS State GOP Elections Board with results for them to review and decide so that court can be avoided. The State GOP refuses to review and so another week is lost.
Then McDaniel files his challenge in state court and the Cochran camp finds a case decided in 1959 that states election challenges must be filed within 20 days even though the election laws were completely rewritten later and the 20 day requirement was never mentioned.
But the parting shot is Barbour stating after the dismissal that McDaniel had no case to begin with. This is the tell tale sign of absolute corruption because only a despot would call out a judgement on a case that was ever heard, without any evidence ever argued.
Mississippi is a very corrupt state and even though there is an organization calling itself ‘GOP’ that has a lock on power, you can bet the GOP knuckleheads would turn democrat in a NY minute if given the opportunity. In fact Cochran was a democrat and Haley Barbour as well. These are people that are GOP for convenience, not for principle.
REMEMBER MISSISSIPPI!!!!
It puts Cruz, Sessions, Lee and others in the majority but it does not put them in the leadership. The GOP leadership is bought and paid for by the same entities that have bought off the democrats. McConnell is a democrat with an ‘R’ by his name. He is a deceiver. He is the GOP leader because he is the financial controller of the money and the funds providers put McConnell into that position.
McConnell as Senate Majority Leader will find myriad ways to delay or avoid bringing critical spending votes to the floor excusing each delay and avoidance with a lack of votes or a lack of cloture. But he will find the votes to grow government larger, he will support incremental ‘fixes’ to the PPACA ‘Obamacare’, he will find ways to advance comprehensive immigration reform, he will never introduce much needed tax reform or spending cuts. In other words he is and will be a democrat with a slightly different flair.
McDonnell is a covert democrat, an infiltrator to the GOP, a republican for convenience; that is the truth. His job is do the bidding of his masters and to manage and marginalize the ‘nativists’, ‘extremists’, ‘crazies’ on the right.
IIRC, Mississippi will not allow a write-in campaign for McDaniel. If so, Travis Childers. the Democrat candidate is pro-life and pro-gun, and voting for him is an honorable alternative to letting Thad Cockroach get yet another term. This is especially true since Cockroach is as senile as his wife and may be expected to resign early in the term to allow Haley Boss Hogg Barbour to direct the choice of Cockroach’s successor by his puppet governor.
Personally, I think the GOP are kiss ass democrat slave children with no sense and only a tad less wrong than the worthless democrats themselves.
They finally got the hint from me as well. No more mailings. . .and phone calls are waning and really almost non existent. Caller ID was the best investment I ever made. . .even though you can’t always identify who is calling. .if I don’t recognize the number or the person doesn’t attempt to leave a message. . I don’t answer.
They finally got the hint from me as well. No more mailings. . .and phone calls are waning and really almost non existent. Caller ID was the best investment I ever made. . .even though you can’t always identify who is calling. .if I don’t recognize the number or the person doesn’t attempt to leave a message. . I don’t answer.
Well.. we can only ‘afford’ to purge one RINO this time around.. which would you prefer go?
Absolutely, unless write-in campaign can be launched, which would hurt Boss Haley Barbour and Thad Cochran.
Otherwise, Cochran has to go, if there is any justice.
“The NRA has gotten both a majority of Republicans and a Majority of Democrats to do what they want. They do so by throwing their weight to whichever side promises to do what they want, and they punish traitors ruthlessly. This is why both sides FEAR the NRA.
This is exactly what the Tea Party needs to do. It needs to make sure everyone understands that if one candidate tries to thwart us, he will get swatted. EVERY TIME.
Eventually we will win, just like the NRA always wins in the end.”
Exactly right.
Unfortunately I have some doubts that it will ever come together for the Tea Party because politics is too much of a spectator sport now.
The NRA supports candidates not parties. They’re results oriented period. If a pol takes a position against the NRAs goal they make themselves a target regardless of what letter they have by their name.
Freepers know that the status quo is a death spiral and yet many will eat the $hit sandwich and continue to pi$$ & moan and still queue up to vote GOPe because this is the most important election of our life time (every election of my 50+ years has been the most important of our life time).
It’s evident that the GOPe care little about the will of the voters and yet many can’t not support “Our Team”.
JMHO but until elections start being about what’s the right thing for our country instead our team versus the other team the PTB will continue playing both sides against the middle and stealing as much as they can, citizens be damned.
Cochran will not complete his term.
The plan will be to have him step down in a few months and let a Barbour acolyte take over.
A Democrat will not retain the seat in 2020 in Mississippi, but a Barbour GOPe incumbent will.
-PJ
41 days? Then he deserves to lose. Idiot!
MIght McDaniel be able to get any useful concessions out of Childers in exchange for an endorsement? Endorsing someone or not may be the only card remaining to McDaniel.
Ms ping
Voting for Travis Childers myself. The hell with the MSGOP
I recommend the exact opposite. Show up in force, and vote for the Democrat. Make them PAY for stabbing us in the back. If the Tea Party doesn’t force them to pay a price for those racist ads, the Tea Party will be toast. They will run more racist ads against us in other Senate and House Races in two years.
Bite them for stepping on us. Whatever happened to this idea?
Great Idea, they went to get Black Dems to vote on trumped up racist allegations, time to show Boss Hogg Barbour that the peoples vote cannot be tampered with
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.