[U: US Answers!] Abbott And Paxton: In "Loony [Non-]Law 101" -- Losing On A Jury Request, Now Seek Mandamus. Hilariously... Stupid.

We update, here on Tuesday, with the feds' answer to the below nonsense (it was filed this morning, July 30, 2024): ". . .Texas has known for months this will be a bench trial. As Texas recognized, the scheduling order entered on March 5, 2024 made no provision for jury instructions, jury selection, or any other procedure appropriate to a jury trial. See Reply in Support of Motion to Place Case on Jury Docket, ECF 135 at 2. Texas first demanded a jury in its Answer and Counterclaim filed two months later, on May 10, 2024. ECF 118 at 1; see also Amended Answer and Counterclaim, ECF 120 at 1. But Texas made no effort, then or in the weeks that followed, to amend the existing scheduling order to accommodate a jury trial. . . ."

Yep -- Gov. Abbott is a. . . prevaricating idiot -- as is his AG, Paxton. This was all designed months ago, to "run out the clock", and get to a November 2024 election, and the now-increasingly vain hope -- of a Tangerine administration return, and thus an end to this litigation -- by a federal dismissal motion, from a new federal administration. Won't happen. End update.

These two jokers are going to trial in a week. They knew months ago that they had no RIGHT to a jury trial in this matter (governments, like Texas, are not "people" granted Sixth (or Seventh) Amendment rights, in CIVIL matters, against other branches of government -- here, the feds).

But here -- after previously losing on that nutty gambit, the pair threatens, within 24 hours, to seek mandamus in the Fifth Circuit. This is a very stupid stall tactic.

That motion will fall on deaf ears. And there is no reason why the trial cannot begin, during the three days it might take for the Fifth to laugh Texas Gov. Abbott out, on his ear.

Now you know. Onward.

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