The Texas Supreme Court did not issue any opinions with today’s orders list.

The Court did issue two preliminary orders related to the El Paso mayor-recall case Tom Brown Ministries v. John F. Cook, No. 12-0193. (previous blog post) After challengers obtained enough signatures to force a recall election, the El Paso Court held that some of the signatures had been gathered in violation of Texas campaign-finance law and that the scheduled recall election should not be held. Today, the Texas Supreme Court denied a request to temporarily “stay” the judgment of the court of appeals (which would have had the effect of re-instituting the recall election). The Court also denied what the docket sheet describes as “respondent’s request for damages.” (( I am guessing that the Respondent (the mayor) included a request for sanctions or other damages in his response to the stay request. The electronic version of his brief is not online. )) The Court has not yet decided the merits of the petition, which remains pending.