Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives joins Texas in SCOTUS lawsuit

Pennsylvania’s House speaker and majority leader on Thursday filed an amici curiae brief with the Supreme Court against the state of Pennsylvania and in favor of Texas’s lawsuit against the commonwealth and three other states.

The number of states and entities joining Texas in their suit against the big four states involved in stealing the 2020 election continues to grow. In the afternoon of Dec 10, the Pennsylvania House joined the case

A brief (pdf) filed by Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler and Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, both Republicans, requests that the Supreme Court “carefully consider the procedural issues and questions raised by the Plaintiff concerning the administration of the 2020 General Election in Pennsylvania.”

“The unimpeachability of our elections requires clear procedures of administration so that everyone gets a fair shake. Unfortunately, outside actors have so markedly twisted and gerrymandered the Commonwealth’s Election Code to the point that amici find it unrecognizable from the laws that they enacted,” they wrote, adding that the state of Texas “raised important questions about how this procedural malfeasance affected the 2020 General Election.”

Cutler and Benninghoff, in support of Paxton’s lawsuit, further stipulated that “under the pretextual guise of COVID-19, special interests began attempting to use Pennsylvania courts” to carry out “election procedures of their own choosing,” citing mail-in ballot extensions implemented by Kathy Boockvar, the Pennsylvania secretary of state.

The state of Texas sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on Monday night with the US Supreme Court challenging their unlawful election procedures.

Texas argued these four states violated the US Constitution because they made changes to voting rules and procedures through the courts or through executive actions. 

Until now, total of 22 states – including Texas – have signed or are seeking to sign a Supreme Court lawsuit challenging elections in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Since Texas filed a suit, more than 20 states have joined or shown interest in joining. As it stands, the following states are seeking redress from the Supreme Court for the November 3 elections: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio, West Virginia, and Florida.

Also on Thursday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro filed a brief with the court, arguing that Paxton’s assertions are frivolous and an attempt to “disenfranchise voters” in the commonwealth.

“Its request for this Court to exercise its original jurisdiction and then anoint Texas’s preferred candidate for President is legally indefensible and is an [affront] to principles of constitutional democracy,” Shapiro’s brief read. He further argued that Texas hasn’t suffered harm “simply because it dislikes the result of the election, and nothing in the text, history, or structure of the Constitution supports Texas’s view that it can dictate the manner in which four other states run their elections.”