(Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)
This morning Texas’s all-Republican Supreme Court rejected the Texas GOP’s last ditch bid to force the city of Houston to use its convention center for the state party convention on Thursday.
Holding that Texas’s election law giving courts jurisdiction to “issue a writ of mandamus to compel the performance of any duty imposed by law in connection with the holding of an election or a political party convention” was not applicable to contracts with the state, the Court refused to grant relief citing lack of jurisdiction.
As Texas’s COVID numbers have surged, Texas Republicans continued to insist they would host an in-person gathering for delegates at the George R. Brown Convention Center. For their own safety, though, Governor Greg Abbott and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick planned to address the gathering via video.
Hey remember when Patrick went on television and said that “lots of grandparents out there in this country like me … want to live smart and see through this, but I don’t want the whole country to be sacrificed?” Easy to say when you’re calling in to chat with Laura Ingraham from the comfort of your rumpus room, but less so when faced with the prospect of 6,000 of your fellow Texans exhaling in your direction as they breathe in your every word. But luckily for Patrick, Houston’s Democratic Mayor Sylvester Turner announced last week that he was invoking the force majeure clause to cancel the city’s contract with the Gippers.
“These are some very serious times,” Turner said last week, announcing his decision. “Simply put, the public health concerns outweighed anything else.” And indeed they are serious times, with Harris County reporting 45,368 confirmed cases as of this writing, the most of any county in the state. Nonetheless, the Texas GOP demanded to hold the state party convention in Houston as scheduled.
“We are prepared to take all necessary steps to proceed in the peaceable exercise of our constitutionally protected rights,” State party Chair James Dickey said last week, citing the Black Lives Matters protests, which took place “without any of the safety precautions and measures we have taken” as proof of his party’s right to assemble indoors on city property.
Justice Jeffrey S. Boyd, speaking for a 7-1 majority of the court, did not agree.
“The Party argues it has constitutional rights to hold a convention and engage in electoral activities, and that is unquestionably true,” he wrote. “But those rights do not allow it to simply commandeer use of the Center. Houston First’s only duty to allow the Party use of the Center for its Convention is under the terms of the parties’ Agreement, not a constitution.”
Which would appear to settle the matter, although the party is currently litigating in lower court and has vowed to fight to the bitter end to secure specific performance from the city.
So, welcome to the Deep State, Texas Supreme Court! You can collect your Resistance swag bag in the AOC conference room, before heading to the Elizabeth Warren Dining Hall for a round of Bolshevik workers’ anthems.
(Opinion on the next page…)
IN RE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF TEXAS, RELATOR [Denial of Writ of Mandamus, July 13, 2020]
Houston convention center operator cancels in-person Texas GOP meeting [Texas Tribune]
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.