At the Supreme Court, the case of the candidate who filed a complaint, even if he won: NPR

At the Supreme Court on Wednesday, conservative and liberal justices appeared to be of little help to either side in a case that tests Illinois’ voting rules. The judges, often agitated, joined forces to have a little fun at the expense of two experienced lawyers.

At issue was a lawsuit filed by Rep. Michael Bost, R-Ill., challenging the constitutionality of an Illinois regulation that allows ballots mailed before Election Day to be counted up to 14 days after the polls close. Lower courts ruled against Bost after finding that he had failed to show that he had been individually harmed by the voting rules since his victory.

Representing Bost, former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement claimed that Bost was harmed by mail-in ballots because they reduced his margin of victory and because he had to pay staff during the two weeks of vote counting. But Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan didn’t believe it. Bost’s arguments, Roberts said, boiled down to “Hello, I’m a candidate. These rules apply to me and I’m suing.”

Justice Samuel Alito went on to tell Bost’s lawyer: “I don’t understand why you couldn’t have done much better than you did in your complaint and alleged what I think many people believe to be true, which is that relaxing vote counting rules like this generally hurts Republican candidates, generally helps Democratic candidates.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor went on to point out that Bost’s brief “didn’t even consider our legal language. You presented no facts.”

When the justices asked whether candidates with no real chance of winning an election should always automatically be able to sue, Clement responded with what was perhaps a tongue-in-cheek statement: “I’m going to run alongside the 2 percent candidate.” I stand with the Socialist Workers Party and other candidates who get very few votes.

“Those are some interesting bedfellows you’re bringing,” Sotomayor observed. Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed to agree, noting that in an earlier Socialist Workers Party case, “My God, they had no chance of winning the election, no chance.”

Illinois Solicitor General Jane Notz then began by describing how, under Bost’s favorite rule, “any self-nominated candidate could challenge any election rule with which he or she disagreed politically, even if that rule was completely innocuous.”

But she quickly ran into trouble, arguing that only candidates with a chance of winning elections can sue.

“What you are drawing for us is a potential disaster,” Chief Justice Roberts responded.

Alito asked whether Notz “seriously argues that the question of whether or not the allegations here are sufficient requires an analysis of the particular background and experience of the candidate filing the complaint?”

Gorsuch questioned whether there was “anything improper about federal courts making predictions about a candidate’s chances of success immediately before an election.”

And Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson seemed to agree that Illinois was “moving away” from the arguments laid out in its own brief. Of course, Kavanaugh said, “It’s your choice.”