MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT: Lawyers for Ron Paul Lawsuit NOTE: Having the lawsuit not up 4 debate

there was a rule change since 2008 making it a plurality. But in our states we have a majority, anyhow, unless credentials committee pulls outrageous shenanigans and we don't have enough altogether.

Thanks, but that was really an aside to the rest of my post.

Using the Privacy Act as an analogy, Gilbert may just be asking the court to order the RNC to inform the delegates of their rights under the Voting Rights Act. Using this approach, no wrongdoing needs to be proved. Again, using the Privacy Act analogy, no company has to be shown to be violating it to be required to notify its customers of their rights.

So long as the judge agrees that the VRA supercedes any party rules or state laws, it is merely a formality to require notification.

At least that's my read on it. It's like he's chosen the path of least resistance.
 
Thanks, but that was really an aside to the rest of my post.

Using the Privacy Act as an analogy, Gilbert may just be asking the court to order the RNC to inform the delegates of their rights under the Voting Rights Act. Using this approach, no wrongdoing needs to be proved. Again, using the Privacy Act analogy, no company has to be shown to be violating it to be required to notify its customers of their rights.

So long as the judge agrees that the VRA supercedes any party rules or state laws, it is merely a formality to require notification.

At least that's my read on it. It's like he's chosen the path of least resistance.

I agree that is what his intent seems to be.
 
sailingaway -- A fact is something a Defendant did to a Plaintiff. A statement of a legal position is not wrongdoing by definition.

Assume that I state in Court that it is my client's position that contracts are voidable with respect to parties over 50. Would that allow for a lawsuit? No. A Plaintiff could only sue if my client failed to honor a specific contract of someone over 50. Then, they could sue for that specific act.

Courts don't deal with hypothetical situations. They deal with concrete wrongs. Again, look through the amended complaint and identify one specific situation with a specific date and location where a specific Defendant did something of legal consequence to a specific Plaintiff. You won't find one.
 
sailingaway -- A fact is something a Defendant did to a Plaintiff. A statement of a legal position is not wrongdoing by definition.

Assume that I state in Court that it is my client's position that contracts are voidable with respect to parties over 50. Would that allow for a lawsuit? No. A Plaintiff could only sue if my client failed to honor a specific contract of someone over 50. Then, they could sue for that specific act.

Courts don't deal with hypothetical situations. They deal with concrete wrongs. Again, look through the amended complaint and identify one specific situation with a specific date and location where a specific Defendant did something of legal consequence to a specific Plaintiff. You won't find one.

While the hypothetical you laid out may not be grounds to sue for damages, the fact of having such a policy could be challenged if there is an over-arching law that prevents you from having such a contract clause. Could you not be made to notify your customers of any change in policy resulting from such a challenge? That seems to be the crux of what Gilbert is asking for, though it is not neatly laid out.
 
The question is that of binding and that of an action in the future. How do we approach this? The current harm to the delegates is the binding, but that is in reference to a future act.

The case that SteveT referenced earlier (sample VRA case) delt with voting in the past of a county that amended the state constitution.

We are dealing with a threat to the freedom to vote in the future, binding.
 
I think the only "help" we might be to the current complaint is adding more concrete evidence to how binding threatens the delegates ability to vote freely.

Plantiffs are the Who is harmed.
Defendants are the Who are causing the harm.
Binding is the what is being done to Plantiffs by Defendants.
When is 2008 to present, during the rules committe and voting on the rules.

is this a start?
 
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By MATT REYNOLDS

SANTA ANA, Calif. (CN) - A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit accusing the Republican establishment of thwarting Ron Paul's bid for the party's presidential nomination, but left the door open for an amended complaint.

U.S. District Judge David Carter rejected allegations by delegates to the Republican National Convention and other Paul supporters that the party establishment used underhanded tactics to undermine Paul's bid to secure the nomination.

Though he found their claims vague and mostly unintelligible, he gave them a "third and final opportunity" to amend their complaint.
Paul's supporters had claimed that the Republican National Committee and state GOP operatives violated the Voting Rights Act by misusing state bylaws, threatening voters, and using election fraud to prevent voters and delegates from casting their votes for the libertarian icon.

They claimed that a gun had been used to "threaten a plaintiff to vote as ordered" and that "bones have been broken," among other allegations.

In his 20-page order, Carter granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, saying the claims were unintelligible and lacked plausibility under the Voting Rights Act -- the same law Paul voted against reauthorizing six years ago.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/08/09/49160.htm
 
sailingaway -- A fact is something a Defendant did to a Plaintiff. A statement of a legal position is not wrongdoing by definition.

Assume that I state in Court that it is my client's position that contracts are voidable with respect to parties over 50. Would that allow for a lawsuit? No. A Plaintiff could only sue if my client failed to honor a specific contract of someone over 50. Then, they could sue for that specific act.

Courts don't deal with hypothetical situations. They deal with concrete wrongs. Again, look through the amended complaint and identify one specific situation with a specific date and location where a specific Defendant did something of legal consequence to a specific Plaintiff. You won't find one.

If you were suing only for the determination of the specific federal question of whether contracts were voidable for those over 50 that the attorney for the other side stated their legal belief to the contrary, prior to an event where your rights would be irrevocably damaged if your contract were voided, it might. But I don't know because I am not a federal litigator whether it is sufficient pleading. Regardless, the parts of the case that were more attractive to me personally involved the multistate pattern and practice of fraud and abuse to disenfranchise Ron Paul delegates. So I would like to see that in there. But you aren't trying to help fix it, you are trying to get people to give up, and didn't like the suit before you ever saw the complaint.

It isn't like we can erase what Gilbert is doing. We would like it better directed and we would like some representation of the interests of the delegates who are plaintiffs who didn't have someone to represent them.

So our discussion should be about if there is a way to get that here, and just tearing down what has already been filed, without statements how to fix it, is not helpful.
 
I think the only "help" we might be to the current complaint is adding more concrete evidence to how binding threatens the delegates ability to vote freely.

Plantiffs are the Who is harmed.
Defendants are the Who are causing the harm.
Binding is the what is being done to Plantiffs by Defendants.
When is 2008 to present, during the rules committe and voting on the rules.

is this a start?

It is a start to what Gilbert is getting at, I think, because you are right, this is more declaratory judgement than suit for damages for past acts, past acts are relevant mostly to show the PROCLIVITY of defendents to act badly thereby giving rise to the need for the declaratory judgment and the statement by the attorney is what Gilbert is using instead, to show that proclivity.

MY complaint would be more like, there is a pattern and practice of fraud and abuse over the states generally, 'as demonstrated by acts including without limitation to' and specify Louisiana, Oregon, maybe the initial Missouri caucus in St Charles, Maine and Colorado with the fake slates and the payments by the Romney campaign to the guy who passed those slates, alleging also that the RNC and Romney campaign were acting in an intertwined fashion, note the letters coming to Maine from Boston, the 'victory fund' and 'nominee' stuff, etc. Then I'd say that because of that we have reason to believe they may cheat again in credentials determinations and lay out the cases for our delegates,

....and my view would be that the RNC rules aren't 'irrelevant' but that once they as a contract are accepted by people participating in their primary over another to lead to the National Convention, to change those rules to keep delegates duly elected from voting after all contests are over is impermissible. That leaves the 'association' issue it is saying they COULD have framed their association differently but they didn't. It would be saying there is a point where it is disenfranchisement to unilaterally deny duly elected delegates where fraud and abuse has been perpetrated against them in the delegate process under the rules they chose to begin with.

That may not be very clear because I am getting a bit tired at this point, and I'm trying to work on something else at the same time, but it is the response I can give to that post tonight.
 
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This comment is borderline insulting. I am not attempting to sabotage this case because I think it's the wrong strategy, and I certainly am able to reason objectively.

That doesn't have bearing on what I said.

Steve hasn't even said he's against the strategy. He's just giving you his honest opinion about how things have gone and how they'll turn out. I don't recall him saying it shouldn't have been one case in federal court, regardless of who's handling it (my position).

But when I assumed it in my posts, he didn't deny it, either.
 
The question is that of binding and that of an action in the future. How do we approach this? The current harm to the delegates is the binding, but that is in reference to a future act.

The case that SteveT referenced earlier (sample VRA case) delt with voting in the past of a county that amended the state constitution.

We are dealing with a threat to the freedom to vote in the future, binding.

Hasn't this case always been about "Guidance" going forward. The Federal Court's opinion of freedom to vote conscience without coercion or intimidation and the protection Federal Law verses RNC Rules on the matter of voter rights. Binding votes verses freedom to abstain or vote conscience.
Does fraud and all the other allegations really matter if it is considered, as Gilbert pointed out, that RNC Attorney is on record (evident) that RNC believes they can follow, change, abandon and/or break their own rules to effect the outcome of the election process for the Offices of the President and Vice President of the United States. We know the media supports the positions of the RNC. The question is, does the Federal Court see it differently.
On record, The RNC prefers their own methods with out regard to existing Federal Law. I see that as thumbing the nose at the Judge. Judges don't like that and that might be what comes into play with allowing the new amended complaint. Maybe there was a wink and a nod that we were unable to see.
 
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At this juncture, the most productive thing that can be done is to try to get the suit withdrawn. If it's too late for that, then it's too late to do anything else to help this case.

Then, try to get delegates who have been wronged (and can prove it) to bring their claims in their respective states (too late for the RNC) using competent counsel.

Remember: Free something isn't always better than nothing. We're beginning to see evidence of that in this case.

This is my proposal for a fix and not a tear-down of what has already occurred.

How is withdrawing not a tear down?

The point is this, we can't withdraw what Gilbert already filed. We might be able to influence it. So withdraw isn't a workable solution. If I were the only plaintiff I might file with a different attorney-- although to be honest, I think I do not agree it should be in multiple states because that dulls the truly shocking multistate impact of the pattern and practice of fraud and abuse across the nation imho. It is as if they COUNT on being able to do it, and where they were most succesful they get away with it because then we don't HAVE delegates to argue about having them seat. That is kind of frustrating, and it being in federal court allows it to be addressed. But no one here is saying with an unfiled case 'go out and hire this guy', we already have him, and can't unilaterally stop him. We may know plaintiffs who can influence him but since other plaintiffs are also involved, I don't see a practical way that withdrawal could occur even if we wanted it to.
 
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