Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court, the state's highest appellate court, declined the Ballot Law Commission's appeal on Monday 13 July, three days after the Essex County Superior Court had put Michael Walsh back before Republican voters in the attorney-general contest1. His reinstatement therefore stands.
Declining an appeal sets no precedent and implies no view on the merits. The court did not hold that the Commission was wrong, or that the Superior Court was right; it simply did not take the case. The Commission's authority to verify nomination signatures survives intact in doctrine, with no appellate ruling defining its limits and no record from this dispute to reason from next time.
The practical effect runs the other way from the doctrinal one. Ballots must be printed, the calendar does not pause for further review, and a candidate listed when the printers run is a candidate voters will see. The same dynamic has been running through the Justice Department's Michigan voter-file case, where a Sixth Circuit panel's dismissal left an en banc petition as the only live track. Close to a deadline, a court's decision not to decide hands the ground to whoever already holds it.
