I am sorry that it has become confusing but legal talk often seems to engineered to do just that.

The appropriate section of the Constitution; "In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."
Note in the language -- "affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls," This clearly does not refer to any office holder of any state in the union. This is followed by "and those in which a State shall be a Party" First consideration; "and those". Would you agree that this refers to "In all Cases"? Therefore could also read "'and (In all Cases) in which a State shall be a Party'". To follow the situation that you have put forth, that "State" refers to a member state of the union, would be placing these state on par with the appointed representatives of foreign states and those foreign states themselves. It seems unlikely that the founders of a nation would be placing in law a factual standing that every subset of this new nation is equivalent to all nations without the borders of this newly formed nation.

I realize the fact that we as a nation refer to portions of our country as states and foreign nations also as States. This is some would say a weakness of the language. But it does make it incumbent upon us to read the use of various words with great care. The close proximity of the word "State" with other words that refer to appointed representatives of foeign nations gives weight to the fact that use of the word "State" in this context is meant to mean foreign country not a subset of the US.

I discussed this with a separate set of "grey matter" and his opinion in regards to the paragraph is similar to yours. However he refers to paragraph one and concludes that since this is a state law and not a case, "in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States" but that of a state the Supreme Court does not then have original jurisdiction.

So I have again laid out my thoughts and consulted to verify them. I still think I am correct but the alternative case has merit as well.

Quote Originally Posted by chuck View Post
I can't disagree with you and I respect that you have more background and have done more research than I have. My original question reflected that I had doubts about the validity of the premise of an article from a source that is obviously biased. But my doubts are based on the fact that I have seen nothing in the way of that concept being raised by the parties involved... parties that have more incentive, background, and research capability than either of us. But other than that, I still have not heard anything that refutes the contention of the author. Frankly, your response confuses me more than it explains.I did not find a reference to a governor of a state being referred to as a sovereign in your response or in the original article. However, I did find the State of Arizona named as a defendant in the article.

I'm not sure what you are getting at here.

"These references" I have to assume are the Constitution and The Federalist Papers yet I cannot find the quotes you provided in them. As mentioned before, the Constitution seems to contradict your concept that the word "state" excludes the states in the USA. I have not read the Federalist Papers as you have indicated that you have, but I did refer to the paragraphs preceding and following the paragraph that was referenced in the article. In both of those paragraphs, the word "state" was clearly used to address the states in the USA. In the paragraph following the paragraph under discussion, the word "nation" was used when a more general term was needed.

I appreciate your effort to explain why the contention of the article is wrong, but so far, you have only supplied references that support it.