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Judge says, yeah, no, failed Senate candidate isn't going to get any money, let alone $1.2 billion, from Bill Galvin

Hours after failed Republican Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai sued Secretary of State William Galvin over what he claims is massive election fraud, a federal judge schooled him - and his lawyer - in the basics of federal constitutional law, specifically the 11th Amendment, which bars federal courts from hearing lawsuits involving the way state officials do their jobs, such as overseeing elections.

In an order, US District Court Judge Mark Wolf said Ayyadurai's demand for $1.2 billion from Galvin failed to show any legal citations for why he deserves the money, but said he doubted he could, since "the Eleventh Amendment bars the award of such relief in a case brought in federal court against a state official sued in his official capacity."

Wolf also initially rejected Ayyadurai's demand for a temporary injunction that would force Galvin to not use his alleged influence over Twitter to block the candidate from tweeting between now and Nov. 3, when Ayyadurai hopes to emerge victorious in a write-in campaign after losing in the Republican primary last month.

Wolf said he's willing to consider the request, but only after Ayyadurai's lawyer takes several required steps, which he failed to do yesterday, including providing proof he has served Galvin with a copy of the demand and that he has made a "good faith effort" to confer with Galvin's attorneys to try to resolve the problem or at least narrow the court's focus - and that he provide legal citations to show a court could even do what he requests.

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Comments

Or maybe more.

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I still see his campaign signs in yards around southern MA, particularly Rehoboth. People are just the worst.

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painted in a dull green, they have no effect.

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I'm all in favor of limiting the uses of qualified immunity, but here it seems to have performed its intended function.

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There are so many good reasons to throw out this lawsuit. Qualified immunity isn't incorrect, but I'd rather the judge go after one of the more obvious reasons such as no proof any photos were taken of any ballots.

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Where was qualified immunity cited in this ruling?

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Nowhere. Eleventh Amendment is about good old-fashioned sovereign immunity, not the fiction invented in 1967 to place corrupt cops above the law.

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"the Eleventh Amendment bars the award of such relief in a case brought in federal court against a state official sued in his official capacity."

That's the basis for qualified immunity.

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The judge gave the guy's attorney a chance to make his case properly - with citations and stuff and after at least trying to first reach a settlement with the state - just without any chance of actually getting any monetary damages.

Should he try that and the judge doesn't toss the case, the state (presumably Galvin would be represented by the state Attorney General, just like the AG's office is representing Charlie Baker in several suits related to his Covid-19 orders) could then make the arguments about the alleged ballot photos and raise other issues.

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The judge didn't say they couldn't go after Galvin, just not in Federal court. The 11th Amendment doesn't bar suing state officials. It just says the Federal government can't interfere with them. Remember, at that point in history, people still said "the United States are" rather than "the United States is". Moving from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution meant that states had to cede some of their independence to Federal jurisdiction and there was a lot of resistance to doing that.

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Shiva would probably hate Lyndon considering how similar they are. Two sides of a toxic coin.

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