Lucky day for me, my dad was at Lampson's office today right as he got off the conference call where he was told the full situation.

I finish summer school tomorrow, I look forward starting Wednesday to give Lampson a good week of my time before I go back to college.

I look forward to having not just a representative, but a great representative next year.

My husband (turnerbroadcasting) is really good at supreme court calls. He predicted this.

The supreme court breeds a certain independence from partisan politics. Then again, it was partisan politics that got turnerbroadcasting kicked off mydd, wasn't it? No surprise here in my house. We saw that one coming from a mile away.

Let's hope Lampson can make it 2 for 2 in defeating disgraced Congressman (the first being Steve Stockman in 1996).  Go Nick!

I'm not terribly surprised.  Both of the lower courts didn't seem to think that Delay had a strong case, and the 5th Circuit is notoriously conservative.  Also, I think that the Justices of the Supreme Court are probably pretty wary of getting into another political dispute - not necessarily because they don't want to interfere, but because the Court's reputation took a severe beating as a result of Bush v. Gore.

It'll be interesting to see how much national attention this race ends up getting and, by extention, how much it influences conventional wisdom at the macro level.

So far I haven't really heard this being talked about much but I can't wait to see DeLay defeated and I'm so glad they ruled he has to stay in.  It's going to be fun to watch.  What if he wins though?  Would they just send a republican in his place or something?

This meme about Scalia rejecting the appeal has been annoying me today.  It's not really accurate.  It just happens that Scalia has been appointed by order of the Court to be the first person to look at and issue orders regarding the 5th Circuit.

It takes 4 justices to vote for a case for it to actually be heard by the Supreme Court.  I'm not certain about the procedures for the temporary stay that the Republicans were looking for, but it can break down one of two ways.

First, either the Supreme Court voted on the case and essentially denied cert already, in which case Scalia had no choice but to deny the stay.

Alternatively, if the stay had been issued, a vote would have been taken by the Supreme Court.  In this case, had Scalia issued the stay, he would have forced the hands of the other justices which could have resulted in either the Supreme Court taking the case or in the court denying cert.  So, this becomes a strategic choice for Scalia:  Does he think the chances of the Republicans succeeding before the court when it starts its next term in October are worth forcing the rest of the court to vote on whether to take the case?  Given that the three possibilities are that cert is denied, or in case cert is granted, that the Repubs win, or that the Repubs lose, then there's roughly a 2/3 chance of losing on this one if all the possibilities are weighted equally.  (And the possibilities shouldn't be weighed equally, especially since the 5th circuit, a notoriously conservative appeals court, already ruled against the GOP.)

I know that's long and probably confusing, but here's the point:  Anyway you slice it, Scalia should have denied the stay, regardless of his personal politics and personal beliefs about what is actually legal in this case.  So, the fact that SCALIA denied the stay doesn't actually say anything about the merits of the case or Scalia.