Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court naming states
of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and requesting relief from their unconstitutional changes to election laws.
The lawsuit asks the Supreme Court to declare the States of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin administered the 2020 presidential election in violation of the Electors Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and asks the Supreme Court to enjoin Defendant States’ use of the 2020 election results for the Office of President to appoint presidential electors to the Electoral College, and to enjoin Defendant States' use of the 2020 election results for the Office of President to appoint electors to the Electoral College and authorize, pursuant to the Court's remedial authority, the Defendant States to conduct a special election to appoint presidential electors.
Regarding states that have already appointed presidential electors based on the 2020 election results, the Texas suit asks the Supreme Court to direct the States' legislatures to appoint a new set of presidential electors in a manner that does not violate the Electors Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment, or to appoint no presidential electors at all. It also asks the Supreme Court to enjoin the Defendant States from certifying the presidential electors or otherwise meeting for the purposes of the electoral college pending further order of the Supreme Court.
For a quick overview of some of the key points in the reasoning behind the Texas lawsuit see Prof. Margot Cleveland’s Twitter timeline – as Prof. Cleveland said, “Texas' filing is a constitutional law nerd's heaven.”
Some of the key points supporting the argument for relief presented in the Texas suit include:
Each of Defendant States acted in a common pattern. State officials, sometimes through pending litigation (e.g., settling “friendly” suits) and sometimes unilaterally by executive fiat, announced new rules for the conduct of the 2020 election that were inconsistent with existing state statutes defining what constitutes a lawful vote.
The four states exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws and unlawfully enacting last-minute changes, thus skewing the results of the 2020 General Election. The battleground states flooded their people with unlawful ballot applications and ballots while ignoring statutory requirements as to how they were received, evaluated and counted.
Non-legislative actors’ purported amendments to States’ duly enacted election laws, in violation of the Electors Clause’s vesting State legislatures with plenary authority regarding the appointment of presidential electors.
Intrastate differences in the treatment of voters, with more favorable allotted to voters – whether lawful or unlawful – in areas administered by local government under Democrat control and with populations with higher ratios of Democrat voters than other areas of Defendant States.
The appearance of voting irregularities in the Defendant States that would be consistent with the unconstitutional relaxation of ballot-integrity protections in those States’ election laws. All these flaws – even the violations of state election law – violate one or more of the federal requirements for elections (i.e., equal protection, due process, and the Electors Clause) and thus arise under federal law. See Bush v Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 113 (2000) (“significant departure from the legislative scheme for appointing Presidential electors presents a federal constitutional question”) (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring). Plaintiff State respectfully submits that the foregoing types of electoral irregularities exceed the hanging-chad saga of the 2000 election in their degree of departure from both state and federal law. Moreover, these flaws cumulatively preclude knowing who legitimately won the 2020 election and threaten to cloud all future elections.
Elections for federal office must comport with federal constitutional standards. For presidential elections, each state must appoint its electors to the electoral college in a manner that complies with the Constitution. The Electors Clause requirement that only state legislatures may set the rules governing the appointment of electors and elections and cannot be delegated to local officials. The majority of the rushed decisions, made by local officials, were not approved by the state legislatures, thereby circumventing the Constitution.
The previously undisclosed Texas lawsuit against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin landed like an atomic bomb in the middle of the continued revelations of gross election fraud intended to benefit Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden. We urge CHQ readers and friends to demand their Republican Attorney General to join the Texas suit, to identify your Republican state Attorney General click here to send you Attorney General an email demanding he or she join the Texas lawsuit click here.
2020 Election
Texas lawsuit
AG Ken Paxton
Constitution
Election lawsuit
Supreme Court
Georgia
Michigan
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin
election laws
Electoral College
Electors Clause