Posted by
Andrews on Saturday, October 25, 2008 10:52:36 PM
In
writing to a reader about the
Berg ruling, my reader brought up a question which I am sure many people have. The judge dismissing the case argued that the harm done was too diffuse and not specific enough to support a cause of action. On the face of it, that sounds like the judge is saying that violating the Constitution is unimportant, and perhaps the judge would have been better off had he provided some more explanation. But, if you think about it, there really is a good reason that claims by individual voters are not allowed unless they can show concrete harm.
Let us suppose the judge had ruled the opposite, that an individual could bring suit alleging that a candidate was ineligible to hold office, or, in the even more claim by Berg, that he could sue for breach of campaign promise. What would be the logical outcome of this ruling? It would be the end of politics as we know it. No candidate would be safe. As soon as enough people wanted him out of the race, they could all begin filing claims against him. As they have a legitimate complaint, and have standing to file, the candidate would have to draft a response to each one, as well as a motion for summary judgment, and then, if summary judgment was denied, would have to actually appear in court.
In short, for relatively little time or money, a group of dedicated individuals could bankrupt a campaign or even tie a candidate up in court by simply filing endless complaints. Worse yet, if they were allowed to bring suit over breach of campaign promises, they could even win judgments against him, farther depleting resources.
So, while it sounds a bit harsh to say that an ordinary citizen is not allowed to bring suit to determine a candidate's eligibility, there is sense to it. Allowing such suits would do nothing less than destroy our electoral system. Granted, it means we must rely upon the government itself to determine a candidate's eligibility, assisted perhaps by his opponent, or the opposition party in Congress, but the alternative is far more harmful. While it is possible preventing individual suits will allow one or two ineligible candidates to slip through the system, allowing every citizen standing to bring such suits would result in total chaos.
POSTSCRIPT
Sorry for breaking
my promise to post nothing more about the Berg suit (please don't sue!), but I felt this was an important enough principle I had to explain it, lest people think the judge had simply dismissed the significance of Constitutional requirements for holding office.
POSTSCRIPT II
The full Berg ruling
can be found here. The hosting site is quite liberal, but the author seems to do a good job of separating fact from opinion, and clearly identifying each. I disagree strongly with his analysis of FactCheck.org, for example, but he does make clear what is fact, where it was obtained, and what is imply opinion.
In any case, I have no reason to doubt that what is posted is the true ruling of the court, so I feel confident using this link.