I've been really busy the last couple days so I've probably missed a lot. But in reading the amended complaint, it looks to me like Gilbert has basically stripped this lawsuit down to a bare basic minimum, relying heavily on the arguments of the GOP's attorney Bell from Monday, instead of any specific allegation(s) of wrongdoing, in order to compel the court to answer the question and notify all delegates of their freedom to vote their conscience.
I'm not sure if I agree with the strategy, because anything could happen. But on the one hand, the amended complaint does seem to allege with specificity the fact that the party has already selected Romney as the nominee, and are expecting delegates to vote that way, when in fact Romney is not yet the nominee...
It's a really interesting gamble. I was there in court and I saw the back and forth between the judge and the GOP attorney regarding whether the GOP feels they are completely outside of the law when it comes to ANYTHING they want to do while selecting the nominee, INCLUDING BREAKING THEIR OWN RULES, AND/OR CHANGING THEM AT THE LAST MINUTE, EVEN WHEN THIS DISENFRANCHISES MEMBERS OF THE PARTY who are operating under those rules.
Perhaps since the judge already stated there would be no time to hear a whole case based on the sheer number of incidents alleged, maybe Gilbert said "Let's just take this down to the very core of the issue. Is it or is it not a Federal election, and are these Delegates free to vote their conscience or not?" Why get bogged down in all the details and all the specifics when there isn't time to prove any of that anyway before obtaining injunctive relief?
I don't know, the more I'm thinking about it the more I think he might be onto something. Instead of worrying about all the bad stuff done so far, let's just look at what the law says, and please tell us judge, does the party have to follow the law or not?
The only major problem I can foresee is that the judge wishes to steer clear of the Constitutional issue invoked here (1st Amendment Freedom to Associate) and Gilbert seems to have ignored the judge's direction to find a way to approach this that doesn't force a determination that is necessarily bound up in that question of Constitutionality. Based on that, this amended complaint may fail. I'm sure if Romney ends up NOT being the nominee, this judge doesn't want to be in the middle of a firestorm with the GOP appealing his decision and claiming now the convention is invalid because their constitutional rights were violated, and then the whole general election is held up, or who knows how the hell this would play out.
It's a really sticky situation and would've been nice if Gilbert had included at least a few states, the most horrifying examples of abuses, so that at least the judge would have some compelling reason as to why the plaintiffs need the court to intervene with an injunction.
I really can't call it either way. Reading the amended complaint, it seems like Gilbert has made this less about wrongdoing and more about just answering the question. I just don't know if the court will want to do #2 without feeling some compelling reason to, based on #1, though.
I only hope the judge was as disgusted as I was to hear that GOP attorney say the party leadership can do whatever the hell they want and don't even have to stick to their own rules. Even then, Gilbert may be asking too much by diving head-on into the Constitutional issue at hand without specifically showing some heinous violation of the law has occurred. I'm really not sure if this is good. And yet part of me thinks maybe it might work.
It might all depend on whether this judge has really really big balls, big enough balls to do the right thing.
