Texas v. Pennsylvania | |
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Decided December 11, 2020 | |
Full case name | State 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 | |
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Case opinion | |
Per curiam | |
Statement | Alito, joined by Thomas |
Laws applied | |
U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 2, art. III |
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Attempts to overturn | |
Democratic Party | |
Republican Party | |
Third parties | |
Related races | |
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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]
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