And away we go!!!

Highlights of Judge Peter Michalski's order Thursday dismissing a lawsuit asking for an immediate injunction blocking the troopergate investigation:

Under Malone, this is a matter for the legislative branch, not the judicial branch.
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Consistent with the Malone decision, this issue is not justiciable.
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Consistent with the Malone decision, this issue is not justiciable.
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Consistent with the Malone decision, this issue is not justiciable.
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Consistent with the Malone decision, this issue is not justiciable.
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Because the committee has subpoena power and the legislature is operating within the constraints of the constitution, Malone applies for the reasons stated in Part II.B. Thus, this issue is also not justiciable.
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When a legislative rule creates no right for an outside party, its violation does not fall within the Malone limitations.
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Any allegation that the Senate Judiciary Committee has stepped outside its boundaries is, under Malone, an issue for the legislative branch, not the judicial branch.
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This position is incorrect. "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 177 (1803).
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Fairness within a legislative context is different than fairness within a judicial context. It is expected that legislators will belong to some party and will support the positions of their party, often publicly.
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Even if there had been a violation under this statute, this is not an issue for the court.

Source: (pdf!) Order of Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski, 2 October 2008.

In legal parlance, that's called a smack down. The appeal (pdf!) argues that Michalski erred in failing to note that the legislative misconduct, as it is every bit as bad as McCarthy's anti-communist crusade, rises to the level of a constitutional harm.

We'll see. The Supreme Court is holding hearings on Wednesday and is expected to rule before the scheduled release of the Branchflower report on Friday.

As I said the other day, owing to its clear frivolousness I hadn't been paying much attention to this lawsuit. However, something jumped out at me in one of today's reports:

"If this unconstitutional and unlawful investigation is allowed to continue, is completed, and if the resulting report is released as planned, Plaintiffs and Alaskans in general will suffer irreparable harm," lawyers for the Liberty Legal Foundation told the Alaska Supreme Court.

The Texas-based conservative group is representing Republican legislators who support Palin and are asking the Alaska Supreme Court to shut down the probe, which they call "biased." |CNN|

This is the first I'd noticed that the lawsuit is funded and masterminded out of Texas. Who is the Liberty Legal Foundation? From the Anchorage Daily News' story on Thursday:

The legislators suing to stop the investigation are also being represented by the Liberty Legal Institute, the Texas-based legal arm of the Free Market Foundation, which is associated with evangelical leader James Dobson's Focus on the Family and lists its guiding principles as limited government and promotion of Judeo-Christian values. |ADN|

Interesting. The Liberty Legal Institute is the legal arm of the organization. Both are run by Kelly Shackleford, who is the lawyer of record on the troopergate suit. The Free Market Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, so they are by law prohibited from engaging in partisan politics. I'm sure they've got a legal argument explaining why their involvement in Troopergate doesn't violate that law, but based on their track record I don't have much confidence in their reasoning.

But let's leave that aside. Why is Dobson bankrolling part of Palin's troopergate cover-up?

Update:

LLI is a member of the 75-member "Arlington Group", a Washington-based, religious-right consortium which seeks to influence government policy on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. The Arlington group was founded in 2002 through the joint effort of powerful members of the religious right including Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Chuck Colson, D. James Kennedy, Gary Bauer and Rod Parsley.

The groups first director was James Dobson. |Source|

...here's another puzzle. This legal strategy obviously has no chance in hell of working. So why do it? On the plus side, this runs out the clock and keeps Todd Palin from testifying. On the downside, it can't help but raise the profile of the coverup, and Todd Palin's refusal to testify could look pretty bad when the report is released. Is the spin going to be that the Alaska Supreme Court is too liberal?