Galaxy-brained take by Robert Barnes:
View attachment 1784360
Standing rulings can sometimes be questionable (then again, so can alot of other procedural devices), but god
damn Robert. This is basic 1L Civil Procedure stuff that he's just farting into the wind about.
The problem with standing is that it's arbitrary and a roundabout way of avoiding your actual reasonings; while doing long term damage to the legal system itself. I can fully understand consequential arguments like "states shouldn't be suing other states over who won elections, that's a nightmare precendent-wise." I think everybody involved in this - Drumpftards, Bidlets, Never Trumpers, and Antifascists - can all agree that not every single election should be a huge slapfight between states. But the simple fact is that those who make peaceful resolution impossible make violence inevitable. And no that's not glowposting, quite the opposite. In early modern era (18th century or so), personal disputes over slander and fraud would be handled with organized violence. Duels. And in earlier less honorable periods, with less organized violence like cattle raids and honor killings. Barbaric to our eyes, but these were how disputes were handled by humans in a state of nature. This is how humans react to these interpersonal conflicts by default - by our natural psychology and our genetic instinct. When we are slapped, we want to slap the other person not exactly as hard as we were slapped but as hard as we FEEL we were slapped. It is not in human nature to hang one's head and do nothing when we feel wronged, but rather to be moved to rash action and - for better or for worse - society has evolved in such a way where we no longer "have" to do that. We can resolve our disputes in an organized and non-violent fashion in courts.
And guess what standing does? It destroys that. You do want to give judges the tools to deny cases on relevance and the simple fact that if they did make a ruling they'd create serious legal consequences beyond the desires of either party involved; which "oh too bad no standing" does not properly articulate. It's like trying to talk to your parents as a child. "Why should I do this?" "Because I said so." Well that's not really a helpful fucking response, and just encourages the child to view you as a stubborn authoritarian acting without logic. Same thing here. Judges need to stop proclaiming from on high and just be fucking honest with the rest of the country. If the Supreme Court didn't want to take up the Texas case for a good reason, fine. I'll accept that. I can already guess what it is now, but Joe Schmo on the street isn't going to figure that out unless it's in black and white on wikipedia.
Just look at this case from the opposite end of things:
"We the plaintiffs feel the executive order will harm us in x, y, and z ways"
Judge: "Zzzzz... HUH? Oh, well... uhh... it's not directed at you, it's just a suggestion to the bureaucrats in the fourth estate to do stuff. NO STANDING!" [bang of gavel]
Yeah, real fucking helpful. So what will the tech groups do next? Probably either hide their activities or try to subvert the system. Great job at encouraging people to follow the law and respect authority there, judge.