1/9: In the New York redistricting case, Justice Alito's justification for why #SCOTUS even had *jurisdiction* to issue a stay is based upon a remarkably misleading portrayal of the state court proceedings. I realize this is technical, but I wanted to write a short thread to explain the shadiness:

2/9: In a nutshell, and *unlike* what's true for cases that come from the lower federal courts, #SCOTUS can review state courts only once the highest state court that *could* have ruled on the issue *did* rule on the issue. Here, that's New York's highest court, i.e., the "Court of Appeals."

28 U.S. Code § 1257 - State co...

3/9: In this case, after losing in the trial court, Rep. Malliotakis and the other defendants *simultaneously* sought relief from NY's highest court *and* its intermediate court, the "Appellate Division." On February 11, the Court of Appeals said "you have to go to the Appellate Division first":

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4/9: Instead of waiting for the Appellate Division to rule, the defendants then went straight to #SCOTUS — filing their applications for emergency relief the very next day, i.e., February 12. But on February 19, the Appellate Division *did* rule, and it denied the applications for stays:

vhdshf2oms2wcnsvk7sdv3so.blob.core.windows.net/thearp-media/d...

5/9: At that point, nothing would've stopped Malliotakis and the other defendants from going back to the NY Court of Appeals and asking it for relief again, now that the intermediate court had said no. Instead, they filed ... nothing. That fact, alone, should have deprived #SCOTUS of jurisdiction.

6/9: Now come back to what Justice Alito wrote about all of this. Read the last sentence here closely: Alito makes it seem as if the Court of Appeals' February 11 transfer to the Appellate Division came *after* the Appellate Division had already denied a stay. But it came *eight days beforehand.*

7/9: Alito thus claims (in the next sentence) that the applicants had "nowhere else to turn" for relief besides #SCOTUS, entirely because he asserts that the Court of Appeals' 2/11 ruling transferring the case to the Appellate Division was *effectively* the final word of the state's highest court.

8/9: But he can only make that claim by distorting the order of events, and by igoring the fact that the applicants could have gone back to the Court of Appeals after the Appellate Division's 2/19 ruling, but *chose not to.* Thus, the ground on which Alito rested #SCOTUS's jurisdiction is bollocks.