Democrats swept the 2022 Michigan state elections, capturing every statewide office and the legislature (see details here).
That was partly because the GOP fielded lousy candidates, as a result of crazy Trumpers prevailing in the GOP primaries, although backlash on abortion rights probably also worked against Republican candidates in Michigan as elsewhere.
After the election, amid the smoking ruins of the Michigan Republican Party, extremists seized control of the state party apparatus. They elected Kristina Karamo (bio here), who’d just been clobbered in the secretary of state’s race (see results here), as state party chair. Extremists won other key party positions, too.
Part of a party chair’s job is to craft a winning strategy. Normally you don’t assign this task to someone who just got crushed in an election. But not much is normal in the Michigan GOP these days.
Karamo is a world-class election denier. Before the 2022 election, she sued to block mail voting in Wayne County. That’s where Detroit is, and three-fourths of the voters there are black. That makes Detroit a prime target for GOP voter suppression. You may recall that Republican rioters tried to break into the Wayne County elections office in November 2020 to “stop the count” (see article and video here).
That lawsuit was meritless. Not only did Karamo have no facts to back up her fraud claims, but voting by mail is in the Michigan constitution. Her lawsuit had no chance of succeeding; in legal terms, it was “frivolous.” Now, a Michigan judge has ordered her and others involved in the lawsuit to pay $58,000 to the Detroit clerk’s office.
This isn’t something the judge peeled off the wall, nor is it retaliatory. While the news media likes to call it a “fine,” it’s not punitive and doesn’t go into the court fines kitty. It’s based on the principle that lawsuits must be in good faith, which is enshrined in court rules (typically “Rule 11”), and while lawyers call it a “sanction” its purpose is to make the defendant (in this case, the county clerk) whole by requiring the plaintiffs to reimburse its defense expenses.
In American legal practice, normally parties to a lawsuit bear their own legal expenses, but there are some exceptions. Sometimes statutes award attorney fees to the winning party (e.g., in consumer protection cases). Court rules authorize, but don’t require, judges to award reimbursement of legal expenses reasonably incurred in defending against frivolous lawsuits.
Imposing Rule 11 sanctions have to be requested by the party seeking reimbursement, awarding them is up to the judge, and it’s handled on a case-by-case basis. It’s notable that many of the baseless election lawsuits filed by Republicans in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles have resulted in Rule 11 sanctions.
Trump’s lawyers, Kari Lake in Arizona, and now the Michigan election deniers trying to interfere with Detroit’s mail voting, are all getting slapped with Rule 11 invoices. In other words, judges — liberal and conservative alike — are taking a dim view of election deniers inflicting their grievances on the courts.
This is a good thing, but has limited deterrence, because the offenders usually can raise the money from donations. So it’s not coming out of their own pockets. (And if you’re foolish enough to donate to one of these “causes,” go right ahead; it’s your money to blow.) But at the very least, it makes a statement; and it’s a sort of scarlet letter (i.e., a mark of shame).
What’s likely to have greater effect on lawyers contemplating participating in similar future lawsuits is the threat of professional discipline. That’s no idle threat. Rudy Giuliani has been suspended, and sham-electors conspirator John Eastman’s disciplinary hearing before the California bar got underway this week.
Lawyer discipline and Rule 11 sanctions are part of the guardrail system protecting our democracy from bad actors. Professional sports have rules; if you behave badly, you get ejected. In the election cases, judges do the officiating, and Rule 11 gives them a tool to keep the players in line. Karamo and her confederates crossed the line, the whistle blew, and now they have to come up with $58,000.
One of those sanctioned in the Michigan case, Daniel Hartman, the state party counsel, isn’t happy. Well, who cares? “This is why people don’t trust the judicial system,” he said (see story here). You know what? He’s not entitled to a system he trusts. We’re entitled to a system we trust on an objective basis. I don’t give a hoot that criminals don’t like being sentenced for their crimes, and he doesn’t like being sanctioned for misusing the courts for bad purposes.
The system is slapping these people down, and good for it. That’s exactly what we need to preserve our democracy and the rule of law.