On the dismissal of the Chris McDaniel challenge in Mississippi

Hotair ^ | 08/30/2014 | Jazz Shaw

[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 case’s 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.

[Jim Robinson]

It was probably a catch 22. I seem to remember something about a certainn umber of days had to pass before he could file. And, ironically, or maybe not so ironic, it was the GOP dragging its feet that strung it out.

[DiogenesLamp]

This is what prepared, proactive people do. They do not get overconfident. They play out scenarios where everything goes wrong and prepare for them.

And Mitch McConnell and the RNC need to be prepared to see that seat go to a Democrat because they decided to thwart the will of the people and attack their base with false racist accusations.

Politics, like it or not, is a big money, slash and burn deadly serious game. Amateurs most often get amateur results. I’m sorry for but not surprised at the results.

And I will not be sorry nor will I be surprised if Travis Childers takes that seat for the Democrats. As a matter of fact, I think i'm going to mail him a campaign contribution.

I would rather burn it down than let those backstabbers have it.

[DJ MacWoW]

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[LostInBayport]

I suggest if we get any mailings from the RNC we print out those images and send them back in the postage-paid envelopes.

I would do it too, but for some reason they’ve stopped sending me solicitations. ;)

[DiogenesLamp]

He will have to give up. I would recommend all tea partiers in Missippi stay home; let the dims have this one.

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?

[DiogenesLamp]

The tea party candidates need to stop beating a dead horse and move on. They are not wanted in the GOP and never have been.

And that's why we need to burn down the existing party. If they want a political war, we need to give them a political war. We need to make them understand that the choice is either us or the Democrats.

The Tea Party is the only political force out there that will attempt to reign in the out of control government. If we can't get reformers into power, then there is no saving this nation.

[vetvetdoug]

The fix was in the minute after the first primary vote. McDaniel with adequate staff and personnel could have rammed it up Barbour and Cochran’s rectum with the runoff but elementary, amateurish and stupid actions by his camp turned off many voters that supported him in the first vote. McDaniel’s subsequent attempts at challenging the runoff voting was orchestrated with incompetence. The wheels came off McDaniel early with his staff’s and his mishandling of the nursing home incident.

[GeronL]

because if you aren’t a liar and a cheater you don’t deserve to win?? Is that what it means?

I’d rather burn it down too. I would rather skip that vote than vote for Dems or anti-conservative R’s

[txhurl]

I sense you won’t be alone. TEA took out Cantor in VA after being cheated out of a Cuccinelli win by RATS funding that losertarian, Mississippi TEA will be out for vengeance as well.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Just d—n!

[DiogenesLamp]

I sense you won’t be alone. TEA took out Cantor in VA after being cheated out of a Cuccinelli win by RATS funding that losertarian, Mississippi TEA will be out for vengeance as well.

The Tea Party needs to make the sentiment on that flag into a reality. We need to bite those people who step on us.

The only way to bite them is to make their dirty dealings blow up in their face. We need Cochran OUT, and we need McConnell OUT. At this point, they are worse than Democrats.

[Paine in the Neck]

[txhurl]

And the good fortune for our Mississippi brothers and sisters is the Dem candidate looks relatively sane.

[Amendment10]

Although the horse has escaped from the barn on this situation, I’m going to sound the McDaniel alert for such situations in the future.

[Drew68]

And if enough people did that then could they really prevent him from taking the seat?

That would really get into uncharted territory. For one, there's probably several Chris McDaniels in Mississippi. Should a "Chris McDaniel" win a write-in campaign, would not any one of them be able to step forward and try to claim the Senate seat?

[FreeInWV]

“I don’t believe that’s allowable in that state.”

He wouldn’t have to win. Just cost Cochran the election. Cochran and the GOPe don’t deserve it. They are just clinging to power and perpetuating everything wrong with the GOP. Hopefully, they would learn a valuable lesson, quit using corruption and respect the will of the voters.

But maybe not. I had thought that they had already hit rock bottom and learned their lessons. Apparently they hit rock bottom and started digging.

[Jacquerie]

No argument from me. The reasons the GOPE want the senate are perks, power and money. A Mitch McConnell senate will happily work with the Bamster.

[Ray76]

Link citing the specific statutes, and informative comments

http://nmisscommentor.com/politics/some-reading-comprehension-problems-with-the-mcdaniel-lawyers-who-also-forgot-to-read-the-pocket-part/

h/t Lurking Libertarian

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Absolutely not! That’s not at all what I said. I am in favor of the legal challenge whether it wins or loses, but like all legal challenges, there are deadlines for certain things and not knowing those deadlines is being ignorant, in part or in whole, of the law. You can have the most exquisitely crafted legal case ever constructed by man, but if it is submitted late, it is late, and you are chopped off at the knees. 20 days is a tight deadline. You submit a legal challenge late and it is 1000 times easier for a judge to say “you’re late, get out of here” than to take complex matters under advisement and evaluate evidence and all those other things that NAIVE people expect from an idealized vision of the legal system. The fact of the matter is, you either make it easy for someone to act as you would wish or you make it hard. Submitting forms late makes or allows the judge to take the easy way out.

To me, the campaign materials promulgated by the Cochran side reeked of dirty tricks and a questionable outcome early on. Thus the challenge was to be anticipated as a requirement by the McDaniel side. Not anticipating it is being unprepared. This “unprepared” thing has cost the TP plenty of elections.

[KGeorge]

Respectfully, I just don’t agree. (Thankfully, I guess, I’m in Texas, so don’t count)
Voting for democrats is cutting off our nose to spite our face.

If only people (conservatives & independents) could get their act together & have Cochran get historically few votes. Now that would send a message.