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      Nearly two-thirds of House Republicans join baseless effort to overturn election

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      More than 120 Republican members of the US House of Representatives formally asked the US supreme court this week to prevent four swing states from casting electoral votes for Joe Biden to seal his victory in the November election, a brazen move that signals how the Republican party has embraced Donald Trump’s baseless attacks on the American electoral system.The request from 126 GOP members – nearly two-thirds of the Republican caucus – came in support of a lawsuit Texas filed earlier this week that sought to block the electoral votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia, all states Biden won in November. The lawsuit also won support from top House Republicans.The suit was ultimately rejected by the supreme court on Friday. The US constitution gives states clear authority to set their own election and does not give other states the right to interfere. Texas’s argument in the suit was also based on unsupported claims of fraud that have been dismissed in lower courts.“The lawsuit has so many fundamental flaws that it’s hard to know where to start. It misstates basic principles of election law and demands a remedy that is both unconstitutional and unavailable,” Lisa Marshall Manheim, a law professor at the University of Washington, wrote in an email. “At core, it’s an incoherent amalgamation of claims that already failed in the lower courts.”Despite its ultimate failure the lawsuit represented a troubling case that was unprecedented in American history: a quest to overturn a presidential election on the basis of unsubstantiated claims by an incumbent who soundly lost his re-election bid.It also became a test of fealty for the president’s party that pitted Republican governors, lawmakers and elected officials against one another.One supreme court brief, filed by prominent Republicans in opposition to the Texas lawsuit, said the arguments “make a mockery of federalism and separation of powers”.Among the 126 lawmakers who signed on to the brief is a particularly puzzling group: 19 Republican members of Congress who represent districts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin.Those members all appeared on the same ballot as the presidential candidates and all but one were elected under the same rules to which they are now objecting.(Meanwhile, Doug Collins, a Georgia congressman, ran for a US Senate seat and lost. Collins conceded his race, thereby accepting his defeat in a statewide election, and was later chosen by the Trump campaign to lead its recount effort in the state.)By signing on to the brief, those lawmakers are essentially arguing that their own results could have been tainted by the same irregularities they say cost Trump the election in their state.The Guardian contacted the offices of all 18 of those Republicans who won re-election to ask if they believed there should be further investigation into their electoral victories in November. None of them responded to a request for comment.Most of the lawmakers who supported the effort are far-right conservatives from deep red districts that voted for Trump. But collectively, their support for the lawsuit meant that more than a quarter of the House, including the California congressman Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader, believe the supreme court should invalidate the votes of tens of millions of Americans.Seventeen Republican attorneys general have also signed on in support of the last-ditch legal bid to overturn the 2020 presidential contest before states’ electors meet on Monday to officially declare Biden the victor.Biden won the election with 306 electoral votes, the same number that Trump won in 2016, and he leads the popular vote by more than 7 million. The four states targeted by the Texas lawsuit represent 62 electoral votes.Biden soundly defeated Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania, part of the “blue wall” that Trump shattered in 2016. Biden also clawed back a third “blue wall” state – Wisconsin – while eking out a surprise victory in Georgia, where multiple recounts have affirmed his win despite an audacious attempt by the president to pressure the Republican governor and secretary of state to reverse the result.Dozens of lawsuits brought by Trump’s campaign and allies in state and federal court were unsuccessful, with the cases so lacking in evidence of the widespread voter fraud they alleged that judges summarily dismissed, derided and even denounced them as meritless. Election law experts have also roundly criticized the Texas lawsuit, pointing to what they say are substantial legal flaws in the argument brought forth by the state’s Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton.Paxton, a staunch ally of the president, is under indictment in a long-running securities fraud case and faces a separate federal investigation related to allegations that he abused the power of his office in connection with a political donor. He has denied the allegations. Yet Paxton’s attempts to override the election results have raised speculation that he may be angling for a presidential pardon, though he insists that is not his motivation. More

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      in Elections

      Supreme court rejects Republican bid to overturn Biden's Pennsylvania victory

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      The US supreme court on Tuesday turned away a long-shot bid by Republicans to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania, where Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 race.
      The suit, filed on behalf of Mike Kelly, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, took issue with a 2019 state law that adopted no-excuse absentee voting, and argued that the expansion of mail-in voting was illegal.
      Several courts, including the Pennsylvania supreme court, had already denied the request, noting that Kelly waited until after the 2020 election to file his suit when the law was in place well before the election.
      The case is the first piece of 2020 election litigation to reach the US supreme court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority including three Trump appointees. But the decision is not a surprise. As is customary with emergency requests, the supreme court did not offer an explanation for its decision. There were no noted dissents.
      Pennsylvania was one of the pivotal states in the election, with Biden, a Democrat, defeating Trump after the Republican president won the state in 2016. State officials had already certified the election results.
      Trump has falsely claimed that he won re-election, making unfounded claims about widespread voting fraud in states including Pennsylvania. Democrats and other critics have accused Trump of aiming to reduce public confidence in the integrity of US elections and undermine democracy by trying to subvert the will of the voters.
      “This election is over. We must continue to stop this circus of ‘lawsuits’ and move forward,” the Pennsylvania attorney general, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter.
      The supreme court also must decide what to do with another election-related case brought on Tuesday. Republican-governed Texas, hoping to help Trump, mounted an unusual effort to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania and three other states – Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin – by filing a lawsuit against them directly at the supreme court.
      The Republican plaintiffs argued that the universal, “no-excuse” mail-in ballot program passed by the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania legislature in 2019, enabling voters to cast ballots by mail for any reason, violated the state’s constitution.
      Biden won Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes and received a much higher proportion of the mail-in votes than Trump. Many more people voted by mail this year because of health concerns prompted by the coronavirus pandemic as they sought to avoid crowds at polling places.
      Ahead of the election, Trump urged his supporters not to vote by mail, making groundless claims that mail-in voting – a longstanding feature of American elections – was rife with fraud.Pennsylvania said in a court filing that the Republican challengers were asking the justices to “undertake one of the most dramatic, disruptive invocations of judicial power” in US history by nullifying a state’s certification of its election results.
      The state said most of what the challengers had sought was moot because the election results already were certified and what they were really wanted was for “the court overturn the results of the election”.
      Trump’s campaign and his allies have lost in a stream of lawsuits in key states won by Biden, also including Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and others. Judges have rejected sweeping assertions of voting irregularities.
      Biden has amassed 306 electoral votes – exceeding the necessary 270 – compared to 232 for Trump in the state-by-state electoral college that determines the election’s outcome, while also winning the national popular vote by more than 7m votes.
      Tuesday represents a “safe harbor” deadline set by an 1887 US law for states to certify presidential election results. Meeting the deadline is not mandatory but provides assurance that a state’s results will not be second-guessed by Congress. After this deadline, Trump could still pursue lawsuits seeking to overturn Biden’s victory but the effort would become even more difficult.
      Reuters contributed to this report More

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      in US Politics

      Texas sues four states over election results in effort to help Donald Trump

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      The state of Texas, aiming to help Donald Trump upend the results of the US election, decisively won by Joe Biden, said on Tuesday it has filed a lawsuit against the states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin at the US supreme court, calling changes they made to election procedures amid the coronavirus pandemic unlawful.
      The extraordinary and probably long-shot lawsuit, announced by the Republican attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, was filed directly with the supreme court, as is permitted for certain litigation between states.
      The supreme court has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices appointed by Trump.
      The lawsuit represents the latest legal effort intended to reverse the Republican president’s loss to Democratic candidate Biden in the 3 November election, which had appeared to be running out of steam after dozens of losses by the Trump campaign in its court challenges over the past month.
      Republican-governed Texas in the lawsuit accused election officials in the four states of failing to protect mail-in voting from fraud, thus diminishing “the weight of votes cast in states that lawfully abide by the election structure set forth in the constitution”.
      State election officials have said they have found no evidence of such fraud that would change the results, and local and national officials have declared it the most secure election in US history.
      There was an increase in voting by mail in the election due to the pandemic, as many Americans stayed away from polling places to avoid the spread of Covid-19.
      Texas is asking the supreme court to block the electoral college votes in the four states – a total of 62 votes – from being counted.
      Biden has amassed 306 electoral votes – exceeding the necessary 270 – compared with 232 for Trump in the state-by-state electoral college that determines the election’s outcome, while also winning the national popular vote by more than 7m votes.
      Texas also is asking the supreme court to delay the 14 December deadline for electoral college votes to be cast.
      Paul Smith, a professor at Georgetown University’s law school, said Texas did not have a legitimate basis to bring the suit.
      “There is no possible way that the state of Texas has standing to complain about how other states counted the votes and how they are about to cast their electoral votes,” Smith said.
      Trump’s campaign and his allies have pursued unsuccessful lawsuits in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other states, making unfounded claims of widespread election fraud. Judges appointed under Democratic and Republican administrations, including Trump’s, have ruled against the president’s campaign, often in excoriating tones.
      Trump lost those four states after winning them in 2016.
      The supreme court is not obligated to hear the case and has said in previous decisions that its “original jurisdiction” that allows litigation between states to be filed directly with the nine justices should be invoked sparingly. More

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      in US Politics

      Justice Alito takes aim at abortion rights, gay marriage and Covid rules

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      The inability of people to say, without fear of being branded as bigots, that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman is threatening to make freedom of speech “a second-tier constitutional right”, supreme court justice Samuel Alito said at a virtual conference on Thursday.In a bleak address, Alito took aim at abortion rights, same-sex marriage, gun control and other conservative bugbears.The remarks were made to the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group that has helped Donald Trump remake the judiciary in the last four years.While supreme court justices have in the past waded into politics in public forums, Alito’s 30-minute speech stood out for its provocative engagement on fronts in the culture wars that had not seemed to be particularly hot, at least before the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett last month.Alito’s speech fueled concerns that Barrett’s elevation, which established an ironclad 6-3 conservative majority on the court, could lead the court to revisit basic anti-discrimination protections, marriage equality, reproductive rights and other issues.“This was a hyper-political, partisan speech, and his message in sum was: I’m free to say this now. We have the votes,” tweeted Chris Geidner, director of strategy at the justice collaborative advocacy group.As the United States continues to shatter daily records for new Covid-19 cases, Alito blasted coronavirus mitigation measures for imposing “previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty”.He singled out restrictions in Nevada limiting religious services to 50 attendees. “The states’s message is this: forget about worship and head for the slot machines, or maybe a Cirque du Soleil show,” Alito said.Although by any measure conservative jurisprudence under Trump has flourished, securing minority legal views for a generation, Alito spun a conservative victimization narrative, in which citizens are threatened in their freedom to speak and act as they please.“When I speak with recent law school graduates, what I hear over and over is that they face harassment and retaliation if they say anything that departs from the law school orthodoxy,” he said.“It pains me to say this,” Alito said, “but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.” As an example, Alito decried a Washington state law requiring a pharmacist to fill prescriptions for “morning-after pills, which destroy an embryo after fertilization”, as he put it.“Even before the pandemic, there was growing hostility to the expression of unfashionable views,” Alito continued, using the rubric of “the rule of law and the current crisis” to mount an attack on same-sex marriage, secured by the court in Obergefell v Hodges (2015), a ruling from which he dissented.“You can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman,” Alito complained. “Until very recently, that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now it’s considered bigotry.”Alito went on:
      That this would happen after our decision in Obergefell should not have come as a surprise. Yes, the opinion of the court included words meant to calm the furors of those who cling to traditional views on marriage. But I could see, and so did the other justices in dissent, where the decision would lead. I wrote the following: ‘I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers and schools.’ That is just what is coming to past.
      One of the great challenges for the supreme court going forward will be to protect freedom of speech. Although that freedom is falling out of favor in some circles we need to do whatever we can to prevent it from becoming a second-tier constitutional right.”
      Legal analysts said the speech displayed thinking familiar from the 70-year-old justice’s opinions – but they called his decision to give voice to those opinions unusual.“I’m not surprised that Justice Alito believes any of those things,” tweeted University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck. “One need only read his written opinions to see most of them. I’m surprised that he decided to *say* them in a public speech that was live-streamed over the internet – clips of which will now be recirculated for ever.”Alito unleashed will make him a hero to more people looking for a leader of the conservative Court — but it also will make people outside of the SCOTUS world realize how he comes off (and it’s not good). pic.twitter.com/Gqt7uyHW07— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) November 13, 2020
      Alito is a George W Bush appointee who previously worked as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey and a circuit court judge. The speech was pre-recorded for the 2020 National Lawyers Federation sponsored by the Federalist Society. “Today I’m talking to a camera, and that feels really strange,” Alito said.To capture the mood of what he described as an assault on religious liberties and free speech, Alito quoted a 1997 Bob Dylan song.“To quote a popular Nobel laureate,” Alito said, “it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.” More

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      in Elections

      Trump lawyers petitioning supreme court have close ties to Brett Kavanaugh

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      Trump campaign lawyers who have asked the supreme court to intervene in Pennsylvania’s vote count have close ties to Brett Kavanaugh, the justice who is expected to have a decisive vote in any upcoming election-related rulings.
      Justin Clark, a senior lawyer for Donald Trump’s campaign, helped shepherd Kavanaugh’s controversial 2018 confirmation through the Senate in his previous role as White House congressional liaison.
      Another lawyer, William Consovoy, the litigator who filed the supreme court challenge on behalf of the Trump campaign, helped to bankroll a high-profile Federalist Society dinner in Kavanaugh’s honour in 2019.
      It is far from clear whether the Trump campaign’s bid before the US supreme court – which is challenging Pennsylvania’s inclusion of mail-in ballots received after 3 November – will lead to any changes in the state’s ultimate vote count. But the relationships between the campaign lawyers and Kavanaugh are an example of how conservative lawyers and jurists who have been appointed to the highest court have especially close political ties.
      Activist Chris Kang, who serves as chief counsel for Demand Justice, a progressive group that has said it is trying to restore federal courts’ “legitimacy”, said the relationships between Consovoy, Clark and Kavanaugh, were “alarming”.
      “It is very troubling. This kind of thing is more commonplace these days, but I don’t think it makes it any less concerning,” Kang said. “It’s a very insular world of supreme court justices and the lawyers who argue in front of them. It does breed a backscratching culture that is very problematic.”
      The Federalist Society lies at the heart of the conservative bar, and has played what critics call an outsized role in advising the White House on the nomination of judges and justices.
      The lawyers who are part of the Federalist Society, some of whom become judges, share a strict conservative view of the law which, in turn, has helped to propel Republican political causes, like restricting voting rights and opposition to environmental regulations.
      One staunch critic of the group, the Rhode Island Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse, has said that nearly 90% of Trump’s appellate judges, as well as most of the supreme court’s conservative justices, are members of the Federalist Society, which is funded entirely by anonymous conservative donors and corporations. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump says he's 'going in with our lawyers' as soon as the election is over – video

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      US president Donald Trump said he’s preparing for legal challenges to the counting of mail and absentee votes in Pennsylvania. Speaking to reporters in Charlotte ahead of a rally in Hickory, North Carolina, Trump said ‘we’re going in the night of – as soon as the election is over – we’re going in with our lawyers.’ Trump has repeatedly attacked the Supreme Court in recent days for not blocking the counting of late arriving ballots for days after election day
      Trump defends ‘patriots’ who surrounded Biden campaign bus – live updates
      Trump says he is preparing for legal challenges to vote counts as final sprint begins More

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      in US Politics

      USA OK? My FAQs about Trump, Biden, the election and what happens next | Robert Reich

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      You’ve been in or around politics for more than 50 years. How are you feeling about Tuesday’s election?
      I’m more frightened for my country than I’ve ever been. Another four years of Donald Trump would be devastating. Still, I suspect Biden will win.
      But in 2016, the polls ….
      Polling is better now, and Biden’s lead is larger than Hillary Clinton’s was.
      What about the electoral college?
      He is also leading in the so-called “swing” states that gave Trump an electoral college victory in 2016.
      Will Trump contest the election?
      Undoubtedly. He’ll claim fraudulent mail-in ballots in any swing state Biden wins where the governor is a Republican – states such as Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Arizona. He’ll ask those governors not to certify Biden electors until fraudulent ballots are weeded out.
      What’s his goal?
      To deny Biden a majority of electors and throw the decision into the House of Representatives, where Republicans are likely to have a majority of state delegations.
      Will it work?
      No, because technically Biden only needs a majority of electors already appointed. Even if disputed ones are excluded, I expect he’ll still get a majority.
      What about late ballots?
      Trump has demanded all ballots be counted by midnight election day. It’s not up to him. It’s up to individual state legislatures and state courts. Most will count ballots as long as they’re postmarked no later than election day.
      Will these issues end up in the supreme court?
      Some may, but the justices know they have to appear impartial. Last week they turned down a request to extend the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots in Wisconsin but allowed extensions to remain in place in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
      But the supreme court decided the 2000 election for George W Bush.
      The last thing John Roberts, the chief justice, wants is another Bush v Gore. With six Republican appointees now on the court, he knows its legitimacy hangs in the balance.
      Trump has called for 50,000 partisans to monitor polls while people vote, naming these recruits the “army for Trump”. Do you expect violence or intimidation?
      Not enough to affect the outcome.
      Assume you’re right and Biden wins. Will Trump concede?
      I doubt it. He can’t stand to lose. He’ll continue to claim the election was stolen from him.
      Will the Democrats retake the Senate?
      Too close to call.
      If not, can Biden get anything done?
      Biden was a senator for 36 years and has worked with many of the current Republicans. He believes he can coax them into working with him.
      Is he right?
      I fear he’s overly optimistic. The GOP isn’t what it used to be. It’s now answerable to a much more conservative, Trumpian base.
      If Republicans keep the Senate, what can we expect from a Biden administration?
      Reversals of Trump executive orders and regulations – which will restore environmental and labor protections and strengthen the Affordable Care Act. Biden will also fill the executive branch with competent people, who will make a big difference. And he’ll end Trump’s isolationist, go-it-alone foreign policy.
      And if Democrats retake the Senate?
      Helpful, but keep your expectations low. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had Democratic Congresses for their first two years yet spent all their political capital cleaning up economic messes their Republican predecessors left behind. Biden will inherit an even bigger economic mess plus a pandemic. With luck, he’ll enact a big stimulus package, reverse the Trump Republican tax cuts for the wealthy, and distribute and administer a Covid vaccine. All important, but nothing earth-shattering.
      If Biden wins, he’ll be the oldest man to ever be president. Will this be a problem for him in governing?
      I don’t see why. He’s healthy. But I doubt he’ll seek a second term, which will affect how he governs.
      What do you mean?
      He’s going to be a transitional rather than a transformational president. He won’t change the underlying structure of power in society. He won’t lead a movement. He says he’ll be a “bridge” to the next generation of leaders, by which I think he means that he’ll try to stabilize the country, maybe heal some of the nation’s wounds, so that he can turn the keys over to the visionaries and movement builders of the future.
      Will Trump just fade into the sunset?
      Hardly. He and Fox News will continue to be the most powerful forces in the GOP, at least for the next four years.
      And what happens if your whole premise is wrong and Donald Trump wins a second term?
      America and the rest of the world are seriously imperiled. I prefer not to think about it.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US More

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      Could the 2020 US election really be decided by the supreme court?

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      Like Babe Ruth pointing a bat over a fence, Donald Trump last month called his shot.
      “I think this will end up in the supreme court,” Trump told reporters, referring to the election. “And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices. I think having a 4-4 situation is not a good situation.”
      Earlier this week, Trump got his ninth justice, with the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the seat vacated by the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
      But is the 2020 presidential election really headed for the supreme court? Here’s a look at the situation:
      Can Barrett hand Trump the election?
      Probably not. The most likely scenario is that American voters alone will decide the election.
      For all its flaws and added complications this year from the coronavirus pandemic, the US elections system has basic features to ensure a high correlation between the vote that is cast and the result that is announced.
      It is highly decentralized, with thousands of jurisdictions staffed by members of each major party, all using different technologies and independently reporting results, which can be reviewed or recounted, with both sides and the media watching out for irregularities before, during and after election day. It might take awhile, and the tragic story of disenfranchisement in the United States continues, but elections officials have vowed to deliver an accurate count.
      Sometimes, however, US elections are very close, and in an era of nihilistic partisanship, court fights during elections are becoming increasingly common. Such disputes might land with increasing frequency before the supreme court.
      It is extremely rare for a presidential election to land before the supreme court. In 1876, five justices sat on a commission that decided the 1876 race for Rutherford B Hayes over Samuel Tilden.
      In the modern era, it has happened just once, in 2000, after the Florida state supreme court ordered a recount in a razor-thin race that the Republican secretary of state said George W Bush had won. Republicans challenged the recount order and the case went to the supreme court, which sustained the challenge and stopped the recount.
      How might a 2020 election-supreme court scenario unfold?
      The supreme court has already issued two significant rulings in the election, one that allowed ballots received in Pennsylvania up to three days after election day to be counted, and a second blocking ballots received in Wisconsin after election day from being counted. Lower courts have issued numerous decisions on issues around voting and counting.
      Republicans in Pennsylvania have vowed to renew their challenge to ballots received after election day, and if they can push the case back to the supreme court, they might find victory this time with Barrett making a majority.
      But if the supreme court ends up getting involved in a major way in the presidential election, it would likely be to weigh in on a question that is not yet clear because we don’t know what legal conflicts will play out in which states.
      In Bush v Gore (2000), lawyers on the Republican side argued that the state supreme court had usurped the legislature’s authority by ordering a recount. The supreme court stopped the recount, not by relying on the argument about the court bigfooting the legislature, but by finding that different standards for vote-counting in different counties violated the equal protection clause.
      Is there a chance Barrett would recuse herself from any case involving a president who appointed her so recently?
      At her confirmation hearing, Barrett dodged just this question. “I commit to you to fully and faithfully applying the law of recusal,” she said. “And part of the law is to consider any appearance questions. And I will apply the factors that other justices have before me in determining whether the circumstances require my recusal or not. But I can’t offer a legal conclusion right now about the outcome of the decision I would reach.” More