Tag: Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle

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Memphis Lawyers Hit GOP Effort to Oust Judge Who Expanded Mail-in Voting

Chancellor Lyle

One of the more significant acts of jurisprudence in Tennessee in 2020 was a decision by Nashville chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle to strike down barriers in state law to mail-in voting.

Ruling last June on suits brought by a group of Memphis petitioners and the ACLU, Lyle declared she was suspending, for the duration of the pandemic, restrictions on absentee-voting for all eligible Tennessee voters.

In so doing, she rejected arguments from Tennessee Secretary of State officials that expanding mail-in voting on that scale would overwhelm state election offices and that fear of COVID-19 was not sufficient grounds for avoiding in-person voting.

The state dragged its heels on complying and appealed, resulting in new orders from Lyle, followed by a hearing by the state Supreme Court, which by a one-vote margin vacated part of Lyle’s ruling but allowed a right to vote absentee due to “underlying medical conditions” that could be affected by COVID.

Now Republican members of the state House of Representatives are trying to get Judge Lyle removed for her efforts. A House ouster resolution, sponsored by 64 Republican members, maintains that Lyle “committed serious ethical violations and abused her authority by pursuing a personal and partisan agenda” in substituting her judgment for the restrictions on eligibility to vote absentee embedded in state law.

The resolution would create a 10-member committee, composed of five members each from the House and Senate, to make recommendations regarding Lyle’s status. Should the group recommend removal, a two-thirds vote in both chambers to do so would result in Lyle’s ouster from the bench.

Reaction came Friday from University of Memphis law professor Steve Mulroy, who argued the case for mail-in expansion last year before both Lyle and the state Supreme Court on behalf of the Memphis petitioners, members of Up the Vote 901. Said Mulroy: “Judge Lyle’s rulings were thoroughly based on the law and the factual record. The election relief she ordered was consistent with how almost every state reacted to the pandemic.

“The Tennessee Supreme Court ended up directing the state to do the bulk of that relief. Nothing she did was remotely ‘unethical,’ or approached the legal ‘for cause’ standard of misconduct required under the law for removal.

“If the legislature can remove a judge every time they don’t like a single decision, you can kiss judicial independence goodbye.”

Memphis lawyer Jake Brown, who also represented Up the Vote 901, added: “Chancellor Lyle is a dispassionate, serious-minded jurist. An attack on her is an attack on competence and the very notion of an independent judiciary. The language of this resolution is sophomoric in tone and plainly partisan in purpose.

“The Chancellor’s opinions in the absentee-ballot case were reserved and closely reasoned. Therefore, the only persons guilty of ethical violations here would be any members of the state bar who are also legislators that sign on to this frivolous pronouncement. “

No Tennessee state judge has been removed from office by the General Assembly since Chancellor David Lanier of Dyersburg was ousted after his conviction on seven federal charges of sexual assault in 1993.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

“Live-Ins” Eligible for Medically Related Absentee Ballots, Judge Says

Elaborating on her earlier rulings at the request of plaintiffs in litigation regarding mail-in ballots. Nashville Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle this week underscored the fact that any voter living with someone with an underlying medical condition is eligible to apply for an absentee ballot.

Chancellor Lyle

Chancellor Lyle pointed out in a new opinion that a state Supreme Court order of August 5th, issued in response to a state appeal of her earlier rulings, requires “that anyone residing with a COVID- vulnerable voter would be eligible to vote absentee in November.”

Lyle added that the Supreme Court order “required the State to make its concession clear to voters” and said : “We instruct the State to ensure that appropriate guidance, consistent with the State’s acknowledged interpretation, is provided to Tennessee registered voters with respect to the eligibility of such persons to vote absentee by mail in advance of the November 2020 election … .”

Memphis attorney Steve Mulroy, who represents several of the plaintiffs in the case, noted, as Lyle had, that, before the Supreme Court, the state had conceded “that if a person determines for him/herself they’re COVID-eligible, they can’t be prosecuted for perjury.”

Mulroy said further that the absentee requirements, issued as required of the state and noted on the website of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,), reference “all the many quite common underlying conditions—asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes (Type I and Type II), obesity, smoking,” and apply as well to “caretakers” of persons with qualifying conditions.

Said Mulroy: “Adding in anyone who ‘resides with’ such voters, and you’re probably north of 2/3 of voters. Unless you’re a perfectly healthy twenty-something who lives only with other twenty-somethings and doesn’t ever look in on Grandma, you’re probably absentee-eligible at this point.”

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New Order to State: Make Eligibility for Mail-in Voting Clear

Chancellor Lyle

As the time to actually cast votes grows ever nearer, the battle continues between exponents of pandemic-related mail-in voting and resisting forces in state government.

Petitioners for the mail-in process gained at least a temporary victory this week in the form of a new order from Nashville Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle to state and local election authorities to include clear and explicit language on any public advisories regarding eligibility for mail-in voting permission to apply on the basis of “underlying
medical or health conditions which in their determination render them more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 or at greater risk should they contract it” [italics ours].

The order also requires an explicit acknowledgement of eligibility for caretakers of “persons who have underlying medical or health conditions which in their determination render them more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 or at greater risk should they contract it.” It also requires the State to ensure that county election officials use the same language in their instructions to voters.

Chancellor Lyle’s order requires that state Election Coordinator Mark Goins file “a Declaration with this Court by noon, September 1, 2020” that the order has been complied with.

The order was in response to a petition from plaintiffs Up the Vote 901, a group of Memphians (as well as the ACLU), that states election officials had not followed through on instructions from the state Supreme Court, which, in dismissing a temporary injunction
by Chancellor Lyle requiring universal mail-in eligibility, directed election authorities to make public the fact of eligibility in language like that quoted above in their public advisories.

The judge noted, as the plaintiffs had, that a spokesperson for the state had made a last-minute concession in the hearing before the High Court that anyone with such an underlying condition or their caretakers could vote absentee, and that individual voters were entitled to determine for themselves their susceptibility to contracting COVID-19.

It now remains to be seen if the state, which has consistently procrastinated in dealing with such directives as Lyle’s or actively resisted them, will avail itself of yet another appeal in relation to the current order.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Judge Rejects State Non-Compliance Efforts on Absentee-Vote Order

The Flyer has learned that Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle has denied a motion from state attorneys seeking a stay of her order last week to permit universal absentee voting this year.

On Friday, Lyle had ruled affirmatively on legal motions on behalf of mail-in voting during the pandemic. The suits had been brought both by Memphis representatives of Up the Vote 901 and by members of the American Civil Liberties Union. But, as indicated in evidence presented by the plaintiffs on Monday, the state appeared to have resolved to take an obstructionist course rather than comply immediately with Lyle’s ruling.

The evidence included:

*the transcript of a telephone conversation between state Representative London Lamar of Memphis and personnel of the Secretary of State’s office who temporized and delayed rather than comply with Lamar’s request for an absentee ballot;

*a Twitter thread from an East Tennessee voter who documented efforts by the Knox County Election Commission to discourage her from voting absentee and threatened her with prosecution for fraud; and

*an email from state Elections Coordinator Mark Goins instructing election officials to “hold off on sending absentee applications to voters” who sought mail-in ballots for reasons relating to their apprehensions about contracting COVID-19 at the public polls.

Judge Lyle entered an ordered denying the state’s motion for a stay but permitting them to take the matter up on appeal. Meanwhile her original order on behalf of honoring vote-by-mail applications continues in effect, and she will preside over an upcoming hearing regarding sanctions against the state.