Late on Friday, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear the Texas lawsuit asking the court to throw out the election results in four swing states: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The suit was brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Even with three conservative justices on the court appointed by Donald Trump, the end result was not close. Two justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, voted to have the court hear the case, as both of those justices have a long-standing opinion that the court is required to hear any suit brought by a state. But, Alito noted that hearing the case was the only step he and Thomas were willing to take, and that they would not approve the case if it was heard (“no other relief”).
In the end, then, it was a unanimous decision on the merits of the case: there were none. The court said that one state (Texas) did not have standing to sue another state about how that other state carried out its elections.
As noted multiple times on Twitter:
From a wise friend: So, just so I understand what the Alito/Thomas blurb is about, SCOTUS is effectively saying “get the eff off my lawn” while Alito/Thomas are like “you’re welcome to ring the doorbell but no way are we opening the door to you weirdos?” EXACTLY 🔥
— Sarah Isgur (@whignewtons) December 11, 2020
This was “the big one” that Trump has been talking about. And in terms of danger to our democracy, it was big: eighteen other Republican attorneys general joined the lawsuit, and over half of the Republican caucus in the House signed on to an amicus brief supporting the suit. Meaning, of course, that they were asking the court to throw out the results of an election and install Trump as president. To overthrow our democracy, in other words.
In the end, SCOTUS told them to go pound sand. For that, we can be thankful. But even after Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20th, we will still have to deal with the Trumpism in this country – including people who only support free and fair elections if they win.
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