We may finally get a resolution to the question of Wendy Davis‘ ballot status in SD10, as Kim Brimer has asked the Texas Supreme Court for an expedited ruling to his appeal of the civil court ruling that she was eligible according to the law. Quorum Report has the court filing and the petition for writ of mandamus for those of you who are into that sort of thing. I can’t tell what file types they are – almost surely PDF or Word Doc – as the links didn’t include their extensions. Download them and try Adobe or Word, one of them ought to work.
In the meantime, Evan Smith has some free legal advice for the litigious Brimer:
Kim, dude: Do you know how incredibly weak you look in all this? If you can beat her at the polls, beat her at the polls. If the voters in the district want you back in the Senate, they’ll put you there. Incumbents win nearly every time; that’s the system of quasi-democracy that redistricting guarantees. But if you can’t beat her at the polls and you instead beat her in advance in the courts, we’re gonna know what happened, and your consistituents are gonna know it too. Stones, Kim. Stones. Show us you have them. Drop this legal nonsense and get on with the election.
The thing is, Brimer should be worried that she’ll beat him at the polls. That’s a pretty purple district, Brimer has some serious ethical baggage, and Davis is a strong candidate running in a good year for Democrats. I’m not surprised that he’d rather win on a technicality than die with his boots on. Maybe the Supremes will give him that one last chance to hang on, with the hope that the 2011 redistricting will save his bacon. But yeah, if that happens, we’ll all know the reason why.