On April 19, a federal appeals court in Chicago threw a wrench into the Trump administration’s efforts to punish sanctuary cities for their basic decency. The ruling, issued by a three-judge panel—all Republican appointees—upheld a lower court’s injunction prohibiting Attorney General Jeff Session from trying to use the power of the purse to force cities to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. The injunction is nationwide meaning that, for now, the Trump administration can’t keep holding sanctuary cities’ money hostage.

“The attorney general in this case used the sword of federal funding to conscript state and local authorities to aid in federal civil immigration enforcement,” wrote Judge Ilana Rovner in a forceful 35-page opinion. So, she continued, “It falls to us, the judiciary … to act as a check on such usurpation of power.”

The appellate court decision was a victory for sanctuary cities—but also for the urban resistance more broadly, which has spent the last 15 months pushing back against malicious Trump administration policy and, yes, “usurpation of power.” These efforts aren’t always accompanied by a cutting legal rebuke, or a string of news articles—it’s hard to compete with Stormy Daniels and North Korea—but they’re going as strong today as they were on the bitter morning of January 20, 2017.

The Connecticut state House passed a measure Thursday that would give the state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who won the popular vote, if enough states promise to do the same.

The bill would have the state join an interstate compact that grants participating states’ votes to candidates who wins the popular vote, the Hartford Courant reported.

However, the compact doesn’t go into effect until enough states join for the group to have 270 electoral votes – the amount a presidential candidate must earn to win the Electoral College.

Ten states have joined the group so far, representing a total of 165 electoral votes.

Support for the compact grew after both President Trump and former President George W. Bush won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote.

This Order therefore concerns only technical matters of pleading and subject-matter jurisdiction. To the extent Plaintiffs wish to air their general grievances with the DNC or its candidate selection process, their redress is through the ballot box, the DNC’s internal workings, or their right of free speech——not through the judiciary. To the extent Plaintiffs have asserted specific causes of action grounded in specific factual allegations, it is this Court’s emphatic duty to measure Plaintiffs’ pleadings against existing legal standards. Having done so, and for the reasons that follow, the Court finds that the named Plaintiffs have not presented a case that is cognizable in federal court.

“Federal Courts cannot exercise jurisdiction over cases where the parties lack standing.” Florida Wildlife Fed’n, Inc. v. S. Fla. Water Mgmt. Dist., 647 F.3d 1296, 1302 (11th Cir. 2012). Because Plaintiffs do not allege a causal link between their donations and the DNC’s statements, they lack standing to assert the fraud-type claims in Counts I, II, III, and IV of the First Amended Complaint (DE 8). Their breach of fiduciary duty claim in Count V relies on a harm far too diffuse to constitute an injury in-fact in federal court. And their negligence claim in Count VI is buffered by too many layers of speculation and conjecture to create the immediacy of harm necessary to unlock this Court’s jurisdiction. That being so, Plaintiffs have not “present[ed] a live case or controversy,” and the Court “must dismiss the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.” Id.

Demonstrative of Plaintiffs’ desire to use this litigation for political purposes, Plaintiffs have used social media to present their version of this litigation, to peddle conspiracy theories and to disparage Defendants. See DE 26 pp. 8-10, 27-3, 27-9. For example, Plaintiffs’ counsel Jared Beck repeatedly refers to the DNC as “shi*bags” on Twitter and uses other degrading language in reference to Defendants. DE 27-3. He has also repeatedly promoted patently false and deeply offensive conspiracy theories about the deaths of a former DNC staffer and Plaintiffs’ process server in an attempt to bolster attention for this lawsuit. DE 27-8 & 27-9; see also Appellants’ Br. at 4.

D. Plaintiffs Are Not “Consumers” and Cannot State a Claim Under the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act (Count III).
Plaintiffs cannot satisfy the requirements for bringing a claim under the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act (“CPPA”), because neither political donors nor members of a political party are “consumers” within the meaning of the statute. See D.C. Code § 28-3901(a)(2) (defining a consumer as “a person who, other than for purposes of resale, does or would purchase, lease (as lessee), or receive consumer goods or services, including as a co-obliger or surety, or does or would otherwise provide the economic demand for a trade practice”). Plaintiffs did not purchase any goods or services from either Defendant. See Slaby v. Fairbridge, 3 F. Supp. 2d 22, 27 (D.D.C. 1998) (“Plaintiff . . . does not allege that she purchased, leased or received consumer goods or services from defendant . . . and therefore fails to establish any consumer-merchant relationship to bring it within the scope of the [statute].”); see also Howard v. Riggs Nat’l Bank, 432 A.2d 701, 709 (D.C. 1981) (limiting the application of the CPPA pursuant to D.C. Code § 28-3901(a)(3) to “the merchant, or another merchant further along the supply chain”).