{"id":2496750,"date":"2025-10-09T06:14:02","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T10:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kagan-ignores-standing-issues-that-hamstring-gop-election-suits\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T06:16:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T10:16:23","slug":"kagan-ignores-standing-issues-that-hamstring-gop-election-suits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kagan-ignores-standing-issues-that-hamstring-gop-election-suits\/","title":{"rendered":"Kagan Ignores Standing Issues That Hamstring GOP Election Suits"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fkagan-ignores-standing-issues-that-hamstring-gop-election-suits%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2496750&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>During a key Supreme Court hearing in the case *Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections*,Associate Justice Elena Kagan challenged the idea that Republicans have more difficulty obtaining legal standing to contest election rules compared to Democrats.The case involves a 2022 lawsuit filed by Republican Rep. Mike Bost and others against Illinois&#8217; election board, challenging a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kavanaugh-blasts-illinois-for-flip-flopping-on-candidate-standing\/\" title=\"Kavanaugh Blasts Illinois For Flip-Flopping On Candidate ...\">state law allowing ballots<\/a> to be accepted up to two weeks after Election Day. Lower courts dismissed the suit due to alleged lack of standing, prompting the Supreme Court to consider whether federal candidates have sufficient grounds to challenge such election regulations.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Kagan argued that both Republicans and Democrats face similar conditions when seeking to sue over election rules, emphasizing that each party tends to contest rules they see as disadvantageous. Kagan suggested there is no separate legal inquiry for candidates versus parties in these cases. Bost&#8217;s attorney, Paul Clement, countered that candidates might actually have clearer standing but noted that Democrats often pair with voters whose standing is easier to prove, whereas Republicans tend to challenge rules that extend ballot counting and voting periods, making it harder for them to establish standing.<\/p>\n<p>kagan asserted that the Republican National Committee (RNC) has historically not been barred from court on standing grounds, a claim Clement questioned, citing recent cases such as *RNC v. Burgess*, where courts dismissed suits for lack of standing. Clement urged the Court to simplify the approach by affirming that candidates and parties naturally have standing to challenge election rules.<\/p>\n<p>The hearing highlights ongoing debates over who has the right to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-supreme-court-is-poised-to-shake-up-the-midterms\/\" title=\"How ... is poised to shake up the midterms\">challenge state election regulations<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >differing legal hurdles faced<\/a> by parties in election-related lawsuits.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>During a pivotal Supreme Court hearing on Wednesday, Associate Justice Elena Kagan attempted to dismiss the notion that Republicans face greater difficulty acquiring standing to challenge election rules than Democrats do. <\/p>\n<p>The incident happened during <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/oral_arguments\/argument_transcripts\/2025\/24-568_7l48.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">oral arguments<\/a> in <em>Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections<\/em>, a case concentrated on a 2022 lawsuit filed by Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., and two other Republicans against Illinois&rsquo; election board that <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/05\/21\/scotus-quietly-weighs-major-case-on-candidates-standing-to-challenge-election-rules\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">challenges<\/a> the legality of a state law permitting ballots to be accepted up to two weeks after Election Day. Bost and Co.&rsquo;s suit was dismissed by lower courts over alleged &ldquo;lack of standing,&rdquo; prompting them to ask the Supreme Court to address the &ldquo;sole question&rdquo; of whether they, &ldquo;as federal candidates, have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scotus-quietly-weighs-major-case-on-election-challenges\/\" title=\"SCOTUS Quietly Weighs Major Case On Election Challenges\">pleaded sufficient factual allegations<\/a> to show Article III standing to challenge state time, place, and manner regulations concerning their federal elections.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Acquiring standing to challenge election rules has been a persistent problem for (mainly) Republicans in recent years. As The Federalist previously <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/05\/21\/scotus-quietly-weighs-major-case-on-candidates-standing-to-challenge-election-rules\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a>, &ldquo;It was at the forefront of several <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scotus-to-decide-candidates-ability-to-contest-election-laws\/\" title=\"SCOTUS To Decide ...&#039; Ability To Contest Election Laws\">prominent lawsuits filed contesting<\/a> the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/ideas.dickinsonlaw.psu.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=1127&amp;context=dlr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2020 presidential election cycle<\/a>, as well as a case involving a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/supreme-court-rules-against-republicans-election-case-biden-1965073\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">challenge<\/a>&nbsp;to then-President Biden&rsquo;s &lsquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/bidenbucks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bidenbucks<\/a>&lsquo; executive order.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><strong>[READ:[READ:<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/09\/30\/the-federalists-guide-to-the-2025-supreme-court-term\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Federalist&rsquo;s Guide To The 2025 Supreme Court Term<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Kagan appeared to downplay such an issue when questioning Bost&rsquo;s attorney, Paul Clement. Limiting her focus to Republicans and Democrats, the Obama appointee probed the lawyer on how &ldquo;in a lot of these suits, it&rsquo;s the parties that sue&rdquo; and that, &ldquo;as Justice [Samuel] Alito suggested, it&rsquo;s usually fairly predictable what rules the RNC is going to sue on and what rules the DNC is going to sue on, and both have their favorite rules and their disfavored rules.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;[U]sually, we don&rsquo;t think about standing in that area. But &hellip; I would think that the same standard should basically apply, that whether we think about it or not, what we&rsquo;re really asking is, is this the kind of rule that is likely to put your candidate at a disadvantage relative to where he was before?&rdquo; Kagan said. &ldquo;[D]o you think that there&rsquo;s some separate inquiry for individuals, for candidates, as opposed to parties when they sue for these rules?&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Responding in the negative, Clement said that &ldquo;if anything, I think the candidates are more obvious, but I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s a radically different proposition.&rdquo; He went on to note how oftentimes &ldquo;in these cases, when the party sues, they often couple themselves with a candidate or voters,&rdquo; and that an issue arises in such cases because Republicans and Democrats typically challenge different types of election rules.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;[T]he rules that the Democrats don&rsquo;t like tend to operate negatively directly on voters. And so &hellip; when the Democrats come in, they can marry up with a couple of voters and the court can say the voters have standing, so we&rsquo;re done; we don&rsquo;t even have to think about the party or the candidate,&rdquo; Clement said. &ldquo;The Republicans in a lot of these cases are challenging rules that allow you to keep counting ballots forever, keep the voting place open forever.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>While accepting Clement&rsquo;s point, Kagan claimed that &ldquo;that doesn&rsquo;t prevent the Republicans from getting into court and making their claim. It never has.&rdquo; More notably, however, she attempted to argue that &ldquo;the RNC challenges most of these kinds of rules and, as far as I know, nobody has ever kicked it out of court on standing grounds.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Clement expressed uncertainty as to whether or not Kagan&rsquo;s claim was accurate but said that &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a lot harder for the Republicans in some of these contexts because they can&rsquo;t just marry themselves up with a voter.&rdquo; He furthermore added that history on the federal candidate standing question is lacking because &ldquo;until relatively recently, everybody kind of just thought it was the most obvious thing in the world.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m here to urge, let&rsquo;s return to simplicity,&rdquo; Clement said. If &ldquo;you&rsquo;re a candidate [or] you&rsquo;re a party, of course you have standing.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>Clement later used his rebuttal time at the end of the hearing to seemingly refute Kagan&rsquo;s claim that groups like the RNC have never lost on standing in election litigation.<\/p>\n<p>The attorney specifically highlighted a <a href=\"https:\/\/statesunited.org\/resources\/rnc-v-burgess\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2024 case<\/a> (<em>RNC v. Burgess<\/em>) referenced in plaintiffs&rsquo; November 2024 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/DocketPDF\/24\/24-568\/332166\/20241119111610479_241110a%20Petition%20for%20efiling.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">petition<\/a> to SCOTUS. As <a href=\"https:\/\/publicinterestlegal.org\/cases\/republican-national-committee-v-burgess\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">summarized<\/a> by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, the lawsuit &mdash; which was dismissed by a district court over alleged lack of standing &mdash; challenged &ldquo;Nevada&rsquo;s acceptance of ballots that arrive up to four days after Election Day.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kagan downplays GOP standing issues in election rule case<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":2496751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Elena-Kagan.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[64873,6203,11028,32779,32275],"class_list":["post-2496750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-election-suits","tag-gop","tag-kagan","tag-legal-issues","tag-supreme-court"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Elena-Kagan.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2496750"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2496754,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496750\/revisions\/2496754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2496751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2496750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2496750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2496750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}