Here Is the Court Filing In Which Ted Cruz Defended a Ban on Dildos

J.K. Trotter

04/13/16 11:20AM

Filed to: ted cruz

Below you’ll find the lengthy brief prepared by Ted Cruz and his legal staff during his tenure as Texas Solicitor General, in which capacity the current Republican presidential candidate defended the Texas Attorney General’s desire to uphold a statute banning the sale of dildos and other sex toys before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. (The discussion regarding the “substantive-due-process right to stimulate one’s genitals” begins on page 15.) You can find searchable version of the filing here.

The following replies are approved. To see additional replies that are pending approval, click Show Pending. Warning: These may contain graphic material.

125

Strizo J.K. Trotter 04/13/16 11:30AM

Man, for people who say they want government to stay out of their lives they sure do want to use the government to tell people how to live.

cepalg Strizo 04/13/16 11:33AM

it is important that the government stay out of -my- life. your life, well, on that point I’m flexible

HubcapJenny Strizo 04/13/16 11:41AM

They just don’t want the government standing in the way of them telling others how to live. Freedom of religion, and our religion is Discrimination!

Jason98 Strizo 04/13/16 01:10PM

conservatism.... shrinking the size of government so its just big enough to fit in your bedroom.

MWarnerM Strizo 04/13/16 03:46PM

Conservativism is the belief that the government should stay out of the lives of white, heterosexual, Christian, gun-owning, home-owning, business-running adult males who make at least a taxable income and drink alcohol / smoke cigarettes but don’t use any other drugs. These people should be left alone.

Everyone else is a peasant who requires the paternalistic guiding hand of the government to help them make the right life choices.

Mo12 J.K. Trotter 04/13/16 11:34AM

He was doing his job as Solicitor General and defending a Texas Law... just because he defended it doesn’t mean he believed everything he said.

His job was defend Texas Laws... so he did it.

Was he supposed to be the lady from Kentucky who was supposed to be signing marriage licenses and but didn’t do her job because of her own personal beliefs?

SlickWillie Mo12 04/13/16 11:37AM

Rather overzealously, it should be noted.

The Noble Renard Mo12 04/13/16 11:44AM

He also didn’t write this brief. Bill L. Davis wrote it, which is why his signature is all over it and he’s listed as attorney of record.

Mother Jones fucked up badly with this story.

ARP2 Mo12 04/13/16 11:48AM

No, more than that. Here’s another appearance in front of the Supreme Court. In essence, he just didn’t want to admit they were wrong.

Cruz’s second trip to the Supreme Court went a bit better, but was short of a full victory. The 2004 case, Dretke v. Haley, involved a man, Michael Haley, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison for stealing a calculator from a Texas Wal-Mart.
Although the crime was a misdemeanor that carried a maximum two-year sentence, Haley was charged under the state’s “habitual offender” law due to prior offenses — and that resulted in the longer prison sentence. Several years later, however, a new lawyer discovered that Haley’s criminal record did not meet the standards required to charge someone as a habitual offender.
On behalf of the state, Cruz argued that Haley had waited too long to contest the error.
”You’ve conceded that this sentence is unlawful?” Justice Anthony Kennedy asked during oral arguments.
Cruz said yes.
“Well then, why are you here? Is there some rule that you can’t confess error in your state?” Kennedy asked.
No, Cruz responded, saying that the state was concerned about the precedent it would set for other cases.
“Well, so a man does 15 years so you can vindicate your legal point in some other case?” Kennedy continued. “I just don’t understand why you don’t dismiss this case and move to lower the sentence.”

Here are his cases in front of SCOTUS. Many of these were not simply Cruz “doing his job.”

Dr. Nguyen Van Phoc Mo12 04/13/16 11:51AM

Yeah, I get that it makes for a giggle to imagine gross ted cruz getting worked up about sex toys, but its not like he had a choice in the matter. Plus, for what its worth, I think the argument is right, I don't think there's a substantive due process right to dildos.

Nm2 J.K. Trotter 04/13/16 11:42AM

Please don’t make me defend Ted Fucking Cruz, but the odds he read that, much less wrote any of that approach 0. This is a 5th circuit filing, which sounds like a big deal, but Texas ag probably files multiple things with them per day.

And it turns out, that when you are a lawyer for the state you have to defend state laws, even when stupid. I feel bad for Bill Davis who had to actually write that dumb thing.

Can we return to the verifiable story that Ted Cruz is in fact a lizard person in a really bad human suit?

The Noble Renard Nm2 04/13/16 11:49AM

Mother Jones should have known better. They’re a big enough publication that at least someone at their office should have known to add a caveat about how this actually works.

Instead, the Mother Jones article essentially confuses the whole issue by constantly referring to the writers as “Cruz’s legal team,” or “Cruz’s office,” or “Cruz and Abbott.” The only mention of the person who actually was in charge of the case comes at the very end of the article, when apparently Cruz forwarded some sympathetic messages he’d received to Bill Davis, including a Volokh post about the case.

bourgeoisie The Noble Renard 04/13/16 01:11PM

Cruz and Abbott’s names are at the top of the filing. You’re really stretching to call this a fuck up by Mother Jones.

Also, both Abbott and Cruz are listed below the “Respectfully Submitted” closing. Bill Davis wrote this on behalf of the others listed.

You’re making yourself look silly in this thread.

The Noble Renard bourgeoisie 04/13/16 01:19PM

Cruz and Abbott’s names are on it, but the idea that Abbott had anything to do with it is just out of step with how these offices operate.

I routinely get government briefs in opposition to my motions with the name of the head of their office and the Attorney General on it. Loretta Lynch has literally nothing to do with my case, and will have had zero input on it. But her name is on the brief.