Sibley v. Congress III: Monkey see, Monkey do

Thomas Henry Huxley has been quoted as saying that if you left a hundred monkeys pounding on a hundred typewriters for a hundred years eventually one of them would type out a Shakespearean sonnet.

Maybe I am that Monkey.  For you see, I have been pounding on my "typewriter" for what seems like a hundred years seeking to get the judicial system to do its duty.  Now, I might have typed out the legal equivalent of a Shakespearean sonnet.

In my litigation regarding the present-duty of Congress to "call" a Convention to Propose Amendments to the Constitution, Senator McConnell has "removed" the case from D.C. Superior Court to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.  His reason, I believe, is that District Court Judges are famously pro-government.  I am seeking to "remand" the case back to D.C. Superior Court which I believe would allow a fairer venue in my opinion to address the issues raised in my lawsuit.  Indeed, I might even get an advisory jury, something that one seldom sees in federal court.

To accomplish that, on May 22, I filed my Motion to Remand arguing that the federal court did not have "subject matter jurisdiction" over my Article V claims.  Accordingly, I argue, that without subject-matter jurisdiction the case must be remanded back to D.C. Superior Court.

This puts Judge James E. “Jeb” Boasberg on the horns of a dilemma.  For my Complaint only alleges that I possess the general right of every Citizen: “to require that the Government be administered according to law. . . .”.  Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U.S. 126, 130 (1922).  However, an appalling line of cases tracing back to  Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-561(1992) have held that in order for a U.S. District Court to have subject-matter jurisdiction, a plaintiff must have "standing" which means that I would have to have suffered an injury in fact which is concrete and particularized -- something I did not suffer in this instance. My "suffering" is the same as yours -- a Congress which is a law unto itself, ignores the mandates of the  Constitution and listens only to those who pay for their attention.

So here is the dilemma for the good Judge Boasberg.  Follow the controlling law and remand the case to D.C. Superior Court and thereby confirm that as U.S. Citizens we no longer have the right: “to require that the Government be administered according to law. . . .”   That would be one hell of an admission of the erosion of the social compact which is the U.S. Constitution to that of an aspirational document only.

Or, Judge Boasberg can keep the case by refusing the remand and break with the last 23 years of legal cases which have served to disenfranchise our First Amendment right to petition.  But then, he would have to address the merits of my claims.

It will be an interesting decision in either event.