Judge Orders DOJ to Respond Fast in Alaska Senate Suit

A federal judge in Alaska, Sharon Gleason, has ordered the Justice Department to respond by 1 p.m. Friday to new motions to dismiss, filed hours after DOJ amended its complaint in Anchorage on Thursday. The suit seeks to delay certification of the state's Senate election, and the state and Democratic nominee Mary Peltola's campaign want it tossed before Election Day, which is Tuesday. Everybody else in the case has until noon Saturday to reply. I've been around enough courthouses to know a deadline that short means somebody's about to get very busy, and this one is busier than a one-armed paperhanger. Whether she rules before Tuesday is still up in the air, which is about the only thing in Alaska this week that hasn't been settled by a stack of paperwork. Somebody check on Washington. It's been licking the fence again.