The United States Supreme Court rejected the Texas lawsuit seeing to overturn the election results in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin on Friday night. The lawsuit was supported by a third of states, over a hundred House Republicans, and President Trump himself.
The Supreme Court determined that Texas does not have legal standing to bring the claim.
“The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution,” the justices ruled in an unsigned order. “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.”
In a very brief order, the court says Texas lacks Article III standing to sue other states over how they conduct their own elections. In layperson's words: a state has no valid interest, under the Constitution, in attempting to police other states' voting procedures. pic.twitter.com/o2TRRN2PmM
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) December 11, 2020
The only justices who argued that the court should have accepted the case were Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, who said it was a matter of original jurisdiction, where cases between states can start at the Supreme Court. All other justices, including Trump nominees Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Alito, joined Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the court in rejecting the case.
“In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction,” Alito wrote in his dissenting statement, which was joined by Thomas. “I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.”
Mark Levin blasted the Supreme Court for “ducking” from the case. “The irony of the Supreme Court’s latest duck is that, in the end, it may have ruined itself — that is, if the Democrats take both Senate seats in Georgia, and Biden is sworn in as president,” he said on Twitter. “Schumer has made clear his intent to destroy the Court as an independent institution. Consequently, the Court’s unwillingness to even hear significant challenges will boomerang.”
Prior to the Supreme Court announcement, the Trump campaign released two ads calling on Americans to contact their representatives to demand fair elections.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2020
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2020
The Biden camp was naturally pleased with the announcement from the court. “The Supreme Court has decisively and speedily rejected the latest of Donald Trump and his allies’ attacks on the democratic process. This is no surprise,” said former Vice President Joe Biden’s spokesman Mike Gwin.
“The Supreme Court, in tossing the Texas lawsuit that was joined by seventeen states and 106 US congressman, have decreed that a state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law,” Texas GOP chairman Allen West said in a statement, “resulting in damaging effects on other states that abide by the law, while the guilty state suffers no consequences. This decision establishes a precedent that says states can violate the U.S. constitution and not be held accountable. This decision will have far-reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic.”
West also suggested that “law-abiding” states should “bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.”
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Matt Margolis is the author of Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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