Thread by @AkivaMCohen

Oh, baby, no, what are you doing?

"You are discriminating against us on the basis of race, in that some of us are black and some of us are white" might be the stupidest line in this godawful year of performative political litigation, and that's in a field fucking full of elite level contenders

Lest you think that stupid performative political litigation is limited to the Trumpist right, this is a suit filed by some of the Democrats who fled Texas to deny the legislature a quorum, against Texas' governor, house speaker, and - AFAICT - a random Black GOP house rep

I mean, I kind of get what the Texas Governor and House Speaker are doing in this LOLsuit, but what did poor James White do?

house.texas.gov/members/member…

I'm gonna skip Paragraph 2, which is just a list of where each of these reps live, and jump to the rest of the intro, which will of course explain in broad terms what this suit is abo--- oh my god what is this shit?

I mean, it doesn't actually say "we're suing because the House is imposing consequences on us for fleeing the state to avoid a quorum" but that's got to be what this is about, right? If so, in what universe is that "because of [your] protected status"?

Also, how do you ask for what looks to be a fucking class action to protect the class of "state legislators who want to deny the legislature a quorum by leaving town"? Remember that "numerosity" requirement we discussed in the Trump class action thread? There are only 150 of you!

And no, the consequences are not "because you are petitioning Congress". It's because you're refusing to appear in the Texas house to do your jobs of voting on the bills before you. And, well, Texas has rules governing what happens if you do that.

1) This has nothing to do with whether you have a good reason to deny them a quorum (the proposed bills are pretty fucking awful)

2) This has nothing to do with what you're doing on your out-of-state jaunt. The fact that you chose to go to DC instead of bird watching in Alaska

is not a get-out-of-consequences-free card.

Texas's rules on "legislators who refuse to appear to deny a quorum" don't have a "unless you've got a really good reason" exception.

Also, if your case is based on "we did this Constitutionally protected thing and now they are harming us because of it" you might want to include WHAT THE THING WAS and WHAT IS HAPPENING TO YOU in your fucking introdamnduction, you goofballs

Like, Federal civil rights cases against a state governor are not the place to maintain an air of alluring mystery.

Oh come the fuck on, really?

You can tell I'm doing this live, right?

Look, I know I said I was going to skip Paragraph 2, but it turns out I'm not. I'm just going to show it to you now.

Along with Paragraph 6.

I mean why? Why would anyone do this?

I can usually come up with a reason why, in the mind of the lolyer filing the lolsuit, the stupid thing they said or pled contributes to the case, but I'm at a complete fucking loss here.

I mean, were they concerned that the first time wasn't enough? Were they just so proud of the pleading they thought doing it twice would be even more effective? What the hell?

No, really, White is absolutely just a random member of the House (of RepresentativE, apparently)

This sounds really serious. I wonder what that course of conduct was?

No, really, I wonder what it was.

Because they don't bother pleading any specific things

Guys, I have literally never seen this before. I've seen complaints that plead batshit conspiracy lunacy (by amending the Help America Vote act, every person in every government conspired to rig the election). ...

I've seen complaints plead factual allegations that just aren't actionable. "On June 12, 2020, he called me a piece of shit! That's defamatory!"

But I've never seen a complaint that doesn't bother pleading ... anything, at all.
"They're violating my rights!"
"How?"
"By doing what they're doing!"
"What are they doing?"
"Violating my rights!"

And then they top it off with a request for injunctive relief.

"Your Honor, make them stop!"
"Stop what?"
"What they're doing!"
"Which is?"
"Violating my rights!"

Hey, @RMFifthCircuit ... ever hear of these jokers before?