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发帖数: 2026 | 1 Republican-governed Texas on Tuesday sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania
and Wisconsin in a case brought directly to the high court that asked the
nine justices to throw out the voting results in the four election
battleground states. Trump won in all four states in the 2016 election but
was beaten in each of them by President-elect Joe Biden in the Nov. 3
election.
Rebecca Green, a professor at William & Mary Law School in Virginia, said
Texas did not have legal standing to challenge how other states handled the
election.
“It is so outlandish. It is totally contrary to how our Constitution
mandates that elections be run,” Green said. “The idea that a state could
complain about another state’s processes is just absurd.”
The lawsuit is being spearheaded by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a
Republican and Trump ally. The lawsuit argued that changes made by the four
states to voting procedures amid the coronavirus pandemic to expand mail-in
voting were unlawful.
Texas asked the justices to immediately block the four states from using the
voting results to appoint presidential electors to the Electoral College,
essentially erasing the will of millions of voters.
A filing at the high court like Paxton’s would usually be made by the
solicitor general of Texas, Kyle Hawkins, the state’s top appellate lawyer,
and not the state’s attorney general, but Hawkins did not sign on.
The reason for that is unclear, “but it’s possible it’s because he didn’
t want to put his name on a legal filing that’s little more than a press
release,” said Justin Levitt, a professor of election law at Loyola Law
School in California.
Hawkins did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Paxton filed the case directly with the Supreme Court rather than with a
lower court, as is permitted for certain litigation between states, invoking
a legal doctrine called “original jurisdiction.” Officials from Georgia,
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin called the lawsuit a reckless attack on
democracy.
Jonathan Adler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law
in Ohio, said some of the conservative justices may vote to consider the
lawsuit’s arguments on the grounds that they need to hear “original
jurisdiction” cases. But even those justices are still very unlikely to go
along with Paxton’s effort to upend the election, Adler added.
“My view is that the justices would be very, wary of opening that can of
worms,” Adler said.
Adler said it is possible that Paxton brought the case in the hopes of
getting a presidential pardon from Trump. Paxton faces allegations in Texas
of bribery and abuse of his office to benefit a political donor, according
to local media.
“It is fairly clear that one way you get a pardon is you rally to the
president’s defense,” Adler said.
Even if Paxton had made well-founded arguments, the remedy he requested from
the justices is unrealistic, according to Josh Blackman, a professor at the
South Texas College of Law.
“It would be unthinkable for the court to just throw out that many votes,”
Blackman said. “That’s just not how election law works.”
Joshua Douglas, an election law professor at the University of Kentucky,
said, “The claims and requested relief are laughable. It’s an absurd
lawsuit and we shouldn’t treat it as anything other than that.” |
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