UPDATE: Arizona Attacks U.S. Solicitor General's Dissing Of Tax Case Vs. California, "Simply Duck(s) What It Cannot Defend"

Arizona quickly answered the U.S. Solicitor General's brief opposing the state's lawsuit against California. Arizona accuses its neighbor of stealing some $10.5M from Arizona and its LLCs each year.

The Response was filed tonight, just 10 days after the Solicitor General told the U.S. Supreme Court that it should not accept Arizona's case. "AZ Law" wrote then that it is "very unusual" for the Supreme Court Justices to ask for an opinion from the Solicitor General and then to not follow it.

But, Arizona claps back in its 12 1/2 page brief, saying that the SG is "simply ducking what it cannot defend" in California's actions and Arizona's right to pursue a remedy in the highest court. (The Supreme Court is not required to accept Arizona's case.)

As an example of this, Arizona's Response notes that the SG "correctly observes" that the model for the Supreme Court accepting this type of case between two states is if the alleged unconstitutional behavior is akin to an act that would cause a war (Latin = "casus belli").

But despite the acknowledged centrality of this standard, the SG Brief notably refuses to offer any analysis under it. And that standard makes this action a “model case” for accepting jurisdiction. 

Arizona specifically argued that “[t]he federal government would never tolerate equivalent conduct by other nations—something California does not meaningfully dispute.” The SG Brief notably does not dispute this point either. And for
good reason: If China or Venezuela imposed an illegal head tax on all U.S. citizens of
Chinese/Venezuelan descent and then enforced the tax by coercing U.S. banks into transferring U.S.-based deposits to them, the United States would hardly stand idly by. Instead it quite properly would regard such conduct as a casus belli precipitating an
international incident. 

For more information and to review Arizona's initial filing, please see our initial article. To review the Solicitor General's Brief, please see our most recent article on the case.

It is currently unclear when the Supreme Court will reach a decision on whether or not to accept Arizona's case.
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