Difference between revisions of "Texas v. Pennsylvania"
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*[[Ohio]] | *[[Ohio]] | ||
*A group of 24 Pennsylvania Republican state senators | *A group of 24 Pennsylvania Republican state senators | ||
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| + | ==Plaintiffs' Arguments== | ||
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| + | The 42-page bill of complaint within the filing contained the bulk of the arguments made by the State of Texas and the supporting amici. Rather than trying to prove voter "fraud" as such, the case rested more on a [[separation of powers]] argument, arguing that government officials in the four states in question usurped the authority of the state legislatures to revise statutes regulating the election process. Not only was this unconstitutional in and of itself, the plaintiffs went on to point out the election results engineered by such actions, since they were part of a federal election, affected every other state in turn. "Voters who cast lawful ballots," the suit stated, "cannot have their votes diminished by states that administered their 2020 presidential elections in a manner where it is impossible to distinguish a lawful ballot from an unlawful ballot." Since all states were the injured parties, it went on, the individual state governments could not simply be left to clean up their own problems; the Supreme Court had original jurisdiction and therefore must intervene. | ||
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| + | The plaintiffs noted further that there was already some precedent for the Court intervening in such state-level controversies, as earlier in 2020, during the [[coronavirus]] pandemic, it had rejected the attempts of some state executives to impose restrictions on religious organizations, using the pandemic as a justification. Moreover, Justices [[Neil Gorsuch]] and [[Samuel Alito]] had previously spoken out against the arbitrary altering of established rules during a crisis more abstractly. | ||
| + | |||
| + | The suit then examined the facts of the case in each of the four states in turn. Though specific conditions varied from one to the other, it alleged that there were at least four commonalities in each offending state: | ||
| + | * The decision of state executives to drastically expand absentee and mail-in voting created "a massive opportunity for fraud"; | ||
| + | * The defendant states had made it impossible to separate the legal mail-in ballots from the illegal ones (in the case of Pennsylvania, in direct defiance of an order from the Court to do so); | ||
| + | * Each state had significantly weakened its security measures against fraud, despite knowing such a large influx of absentee and mail-in ballots heightened the risk of fraud occurring; and | ||
| + | * The counting of unlawful ballots in each state occurred on a scale greater, perhaps far greater, than the difference in total votes between Trump and Biden. | ||
==References== | ==References== | ||
Revision as of 22:26, February 8, 2021
Texas v. Pennsylvania (official style: State of Texas v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, State of Georgia, State of Michigan, and State of Wisconsin) was a United States Supreme Court case filed on December 8, 2020 by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, seeking relief in the ongoing 2020 United States Presidential Election.
The filing was quite unexpected: Texas is a fairly solid Republican state and (despite polls to the contrary) voted in the majority for President Donald Trump, and was not involved in any significant controversy in the conduct of its election (in fact, the Texas Secretary of State refused to certify any of the Dominion Voting Systems machines for use in the election due to its own testing, which found significant issues with potential hacking). As the matter involves one sovereign state suing another (or four, in this case), the Supreme Court has not only original jurisdiction, but exclusive jurisdiction (i.e. the suit could not be filed in a Federal District Court). The case was docketed shortly after it was filed and the defendants were given until 3PM EST on December 10 to respond.
Unlike the many other cases which contained allegations of fraud (e.g. ballot stuffing, secret algorithms in the voting machine software), the Texas case centered on the Electors Clause of the United States Constitution, specifically that the Legislatures of each State have the sole province of determining how Presidential Electors are chosen (and, by extension, the election laws of the state). Texas argued that the actions taken by members of the Executive and Judicial branches (by "amending" electoral laws, either by "settlements" of "friendly lawsuits" filed by partisan organizations, or unilateral changes under the guise of a "public health emergency" from the COVID-19 pandemic), not ratified by the Legislatures of those states, violate the Electors Clause. By doing so, it has denied the voters of Texas due process and equal protection by allowing states to change their election laws without legislative consent for the benefit of a preferred political candidate.
However, in an order issued on December 11, 2020, the Court rejected the filing, stating that Texas had no standing in the case. Justices Alito and Thomas made separate statements, stating that in their opinion the Court could not reject the filing based on original jurisdiction, but would have not granted relief anyhow.[1]
The Court should have found that Texas has standing, and it should have granted the relief that Texas sought.
Related Filings
The docket for this case, containing links to the original complaint filed, all responses and replies, and motions to intervene and/or participate as Amici, can be found here:[2]
The following parties have filed to either officially intervene as parties of interest, or to file amici briefs, are listed below:
Intervention
- President Trump
- Six states (Missouri as lead state, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah; all voted in the majority for President Trump)
- A group comprised of members of the Michigan and Pennsylvania legislatures, along with voters from Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin
Amici in Support
- Seventeen states (all of which voted in the majority for President Trump, also led by Missouri)[3]
- Attorney General Mark Brnovich of Arizona (which purportedly voted for Biden, and who's results were certified by RINO Governor Doug Ducey)[4]
- A group of "Constitutional Attorneys" (the most notable being former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore)
- The Christian Family Coalition of Florida
- The Speaker and Majority Leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (who are both Republicans)
- A separate group of 70 Republican Pennsylvania state representatives, not including the Speaker and Majority Leader
- Members of the Arizona, Alaska, and Idaho state legislatures, and the Lieutenant Governor of Idaho
- The Justice and Freedom Fund
- 27 Members (plus one Member-Elect) of the Georgia General Assembly (representing both chambers)
- Lin Wood
- Citizens United, Citizens United Foundation, and The Presidential Coalition, LLC
- "New California State" and "New Nevada State" (a group seeking to create new states from the existing territories of those states)
- Over 125 Republican House of Representatives Members, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy
Amici in Opposition
- A group of individuals (many of who previously served in Congress and are considered to be part of the Deep State):
- Twenty states (all but one of which voted for Biden) along with the District of Columbia and the Territories of Guam and the United States Virgin Islands (the latter which do not have any Electoral College representation):[5]
- The City of Detroit
- The Governor of Montana in his official capacity
- The Democratic Caucus of the Pennsylvania Senate
Neutral Amici
- Ohio
- A group of 24 Pennsylvania Republican state senators
Plaintiffs' Arguments
The 42-page bill of complaint within the filing contained the bulk of the arguments made by the State of Texas and the supporting amici. Rather than trying to prove voter "fraud" as such, the case rested more on a separation of powers argument, arguing that government officials in the four states in question usurped the authority of the state legislatures to revise statutes regulating the election process. Not only was this unconstitutional in and of itself, the plaintiffs went on to point out the election results engineered by such actions, since they were part of a federal election, affected every other state in turn. "Voters who cast lawful ballots," the suit stated, "cannot have their votes diminished by states that administered their 2020 presidential elections in a manner where it is impossible to distinguish a lawful ballot from an unlawful ballot." Since all states were the injured parties, it went on, the individual state governments could not simply be left to clean up their own problems; the Supreme Court had original jurisdiction and therefore must intervene.
The plaintiffs noted further that there was already some precedent for the Court intervening in such state-level controversies, as earlier in 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, it had rejected the attempts of some state executives to impose restrictions on religious organizations, using the pandemic as a justification. Moreover, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito had previously spoken out against the arbitrary altering of established rules during a crisis more abstractly.
The suit then examined the facts of the case in each of the four states in turn. Though specific conditions varied from one to the other, it alleged that there were at least four commonalities in each offending state:
- The decision of state executives to drastically expand absentee and mail-in voting created "a massive opportunity for fraud";
- The defendant states had made it impossible to separate the legal mail-in ballots from the illegal ones (in the case of Pennsylvania, in direct defiance of an order from the Court to do so);
- Each state had significantly weakened its security measures against fraud, despite knowing such a large influx of absentee and mail-in ballots heightened the risk of fraud occurring; and
- The counting of unlawful ballots in each state occurred on a scale greater, perhaps far greater, than the difference in total votes between Trump and Biden.
References
- ↑ https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/12110zr_p860.pdf
- ↑ https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/22o155.html
- ↑ In addition to the six states who have also filed a joint motion to intervene, the other states are Alabama, Florida, Nebraska (which splits its electoral votes, one of which went to Biden), North Dakota, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia.
- ↑ Brnovich and Arizona are involved in a separate suit against the Democratic National Committee arguing in a matter involving Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
- ↑ The states which filed are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine (which splits its electoral votes, one of which went to President Trump), Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada (another state which voted for Biden but is embroiled in controversy), New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina (which voted for President Trump, but who's leadership is primarily Democrat), Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.