Somewhere between the campaign microphone and the courthouse door, political bullshit is supposed to encounter a speed bump. Tuesday’s Supreme Court order offers a reminder that the speed bump sometimes comes with an invoice.
On October 13, the Court declined review in Parker v. Gates, case 25-882. AP reports that the unsuccessful appeal concerned $122,000 in legal costs imposed on lawyers behind Kari Lake and Mark Finchem’s 2022 lawsuit seeking hand-counted ballots. The fees apply to the attorneys, not Lake and Finchem.
Reuters reports that attorney Andrew Parker argued sanctions could deter lawyers from bringing novel or unpopular claims. Lower courts had found the lawsuit’s claims unsupported. Tuesday’s denial leaves the lower-court result in place; it is not a fresh Supreme Court opinion deciding every election-security question.
That distinction matters. We can appreciate accountability without turning a terse court order into a legal fireworks show. The actual outcome is plenty interesting without adding imaginary pyrotechnics.
Creativity Has A Filing Fee
Unpopular legal arguments deserve a hearing when they have a factual and legal foundation. Civil-rights advances have often required challenging comfortable assumptions. A profession that punished every unsuccessful argument would become an expensive museum of things judges already believe.
But an imaginative argument and an unsupported factual claim are different creatures. One asks the law to move forward. The other asks reality to hold its breath while somebody’s political narrative catches up.
In my view, demanding evidence before a lawyer seeks to overhaul how people vote is an entirely reasonable requirement. We demand receipts when somebody returns a toaster. The administration of democracy should probably clear at least that bar.
A courtroom also serves people who did not volunteer to appear in the drama. Defendants need representation. Public officials must respond. Judges must spend time sorting the record. Calling the whole exercise a passionate defense of liberty does not make those costs evaporate into patriotic confetti.
Confidence Is Not A Substitute For Proof
The broader political problem is the temptation to treat suspicion as an unlimited credit line. If a theory excites an audience, every demand for verification becomes another supposed sign that the theory must be true. This is a wonderfully efficient belief system: it never has to pay rent to reality.
A healthy democracy needs the opposite habit. Investigate specific problems. Preserve records. Test explanations. Correct mistakes. If the evidence changes your conclusion, change the conclusion instead of redecorating the accusation.
That standard should apply to Democrats, Republicans, and anyone whose preferred candidate has discovered the deeply troubling phenomenon of receiving fewer votes. Liberal politics should mean defending a fair process, including when the process delivers an outcome we dislike.
There is room for vigorous litigation over voting rights, access, administration, and genuine irregularities. None of that requires giving unsupported allegations a complimentary legal limousine. Accountability for lawyers can protect serious challenges by separating them from performances that consume the same institutional oxygen.
Nor does this order establish that every voting system is flawless. Systems should face scrutiny. The point is that scrutiny should produce verifiable claims, not merely a more dramatic font on the same suspicion.
For the political class, Tuesday’s lesson is modest and useful: your audience may applaud an accusation, but a judge can still ask what supports it. For the legal profession, the question arrives before the applause.
Turns out the courthouse has a different subscription plan than the outrage industry. Unsupported claims are not included, and the cancellation fee can be substantial.