Reply #8: Backgrounder: Getting a stay at the Supreme Court (SCOTUS)

[sonias]

Texas Redistricting blog 11/22/11

Backgrounder: Getting a stay at the Supreme Court

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus and State Representative Burt Solomons said on Monday they would ask Attorney General Greg Abbott to seek a stay in the U.S. Supreme Court if the court-drawn interim maps are not changed to adhere more closely to the maps passed by the Legislature.

So how easy would that be?

The answer: It’s a pretty darn high hurdle.

For starters, if the state decided to seek a stay, it would first need to ask the three-judge panel for a stay. This is because Supreme Court Rule 23 says that, “xcept in the most extraordinary circumstances, an application for stay will not be entertained unless the relief requested was first sought in the appropriate court or courts below or from a judge or judges thereof.”

If the panel denied relief (which it probably would since it will have written the order being appealed), the state then could file an application with justice responsible for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit- in this case, Justice Antonin Scalia.

Even that scumbag Scalia would have a hard time pulling this one out of the fire for the Texas repukes.