Republicans desperate to avoid a Supreme Court battle over Obama's immigration actions in 2016

The 26 mostly GOP-led states battling the implementation of President Obama's executive actions on immigration now have a problem: if the Supreme Court agrees to take the case, they'll be arguing against providing immigrants deportation relief in the midst of a presidential election year. And while that may play well in Ruby-red Texas, where the suit originated, it won't play well in a swing state like Nevada, where the Latino vote is a critical slice of the electorate.

That's the spirit in which the Republican-led coalition's latest brief to the Supreme Court is written—begging the justices not to hear the case, which would be briefed and argued in the first several months of 2016 with a decision to follow in June. (Of course, if the Supreme Court takes a pass, it also means the states will have taken a critical step toward successfully blocking the programs, known as DAPA and DACA, from advancing.)

Complying with a deadline the court set earlier this month, Texas aimed to keep its prior victories in place and urged the justices not to take the case, arguing that the initial court order preventing the programs from moving forward -- plus an appeals decision affirming it -- “was necessary to uphold the separation of powers and ensure the proper functioning of the administrative state.” [...]

“President Obama’s executive action on immigration represents an unprecedented attempt to expand the power of the executive branch,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement accompanying the brief. “The president alone does not have the authority to grant millions of illegal immigrants a host of benefits -- like Social Security and Medicare -- which should be reserved for lawful citizens. Rewriting national immigration law requires the full and careful consideration of Congress, and Texas will continue to fight this affront to the rule of law.”

As an alleged felon, Paxton's probably not the best judge of the boundaries of the law. But hey, as Rummy observed, you go to war with the army you have and, in the case of Texas, the guy now leading the charge is simultaneously fighting three felony counts of fraud.

Anyhow, when 25 other states raced to join Texas late last year in blocking President Obama from providing deportation relief for up to five million undocumented immigrants, what they likely didn't count on was having the heart of the case exposed in the highest court in the land during a national election.

While it would have been far preferable for Republicans to have kept their powder dry in this case, there would also be some sweet justice in them being forced to parade around their anti-immigrant agenda just as they're trying to court the friends and family members of the very people they are targeting.