Texas v. Pennsylvania

Texas v. Pennsylvania
Decided December 11, 2020
Full case nameState of Texas v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, State of Georgia, State of Michigan, and State of Wisconsin
Docket no.22O155
Holding
Texas lacks Article III standing to sue other states over how they conduct their own elections. Case dismissed.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Roberts
Associate Justices
Clarence Thomas · Stephen Breyer
Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor
Elena Kagan · Neil Gorsuch
Brett Kavanaugh · Amy Coney Barrett
Case opinion
Per curiam
StatementAlito, joined by Thomas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 2, art. III

Texas v. Pennsylvania, 592 U.S. ___ (2020), was a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the administration of the 2020 presidential election in four other states, in which Joe Biden defeated incumbent Donald Trump.

Filed by Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton on December 8, 2020, under the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, Texas v. Pennsylvania alleged that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin violated the United States Constitution by changing election procedures through non-legislative means – thus violating the independent state legislature theory. The suit sought to temporarily withhold the certified vote count from these four states prior to the Electoral College vote on December 14. The suit was filed after about 90 lawsuits arising from disputes over the election results filed by Trump and the Republican Party had failed in numerous state and federal courts.

The suit had been drafted by a team of lawyers with ties to the Trump presidential campaign. Paxton agreed to file the case after other state attorneys general declined to do so. The Solicitor General of Texas Kyle D. Hawkins objected to the suit and refused to let his name be added. Paxton hired Lawrence J. Joseph, who had helped draft the suit, as special counsel to assist with the suit.[1]

Within one day of Texas's filing, Trump, over 100 Republican Representatives, and 18 Republican state attorneys general filed motions to support the case.[2][3] Trump referred to this case as "the big one" of the election-challenging lawsuits.[4] Attorneys general for the defendant states, joined in briefs submitted by their counterparts from twenty other states, two territories, and the District of Columbia,[5] urged the Court to refuse the case, with Pennsylvania's brief calling it a "seditious abuse of the judicial process".[6] Legal experts argued that the case was not likely to be heard and not likely to succeed if it did get heard, and that it was thus a "Hail Mary" action.[7][8][9]

The Supreme Court issued orders on December 11, declining to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of the election held by another state.[10][11]

  1. ^ Rutenberg, Jim; Becker, Jo; Lipton, Eric; Haberman, Maggie; Martin, Jonathan; Rosenberg, Matthew; Schmidt, Michael S. (January 31, 2021). "77 Days: Trump's Campaign to Subvert the Election". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  2. ^ Gillman, Todd J. (December 9, 2020). "17 states, and Trump, join Texas request for Supreme Court to overturn Biden wins in four states". The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on December 9, 2020. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
  3. ^ Liptak, Adam (December 8, 2020). "Texas files an audacious suit with the Supreme Court challenging the election results". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 9, 2020. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference ct2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference reuters 20201210 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference po0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ "Texas tries Hail Mary to block election outcome". SCOTUSblog. December 8, 2020. Archived from the original on December 9, 2020. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference market was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference ad was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Liptak, Adam (December 11, 2020). "Supreme Court Rejects Texas Suit Seeking to Subvert Election". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on December 11, 2020. Retrieved December 12, 2020.
  11. ^ "Order in Pending Case" (PDF). Supreme Court of the United States. December 11, 2020. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 11, 2020. Retrieved December 11, 2020.

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