Joining 57-year-old Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton’s lawsuit in the Supreme Court, 120 out of the 196 Republicans members of Congress put their names on an amicus brief in support of Paxton’s effort to toss out Electoral votes from the Nov. 3 presidential election. Viewed as a “Hail Mary” most legal experts, other than the most partisan backers of 74-year-old President Donald Trump, Paxton’s lawsuit asks the Supreme Court to nullify the vote in battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia, all sealed the election for 78-year-old President-elect Joe Biden. Paxton’s suit claims that swing state election officials violated their own rules, counting thousands of ballots that would have been excluded for Biden. Paxton asks the Supreme Court for injunctive relief blocking the battleground states from certifying election results to the Electoral College slated to meet Dec. 14.
Members of the Trump administration have claimed election fraud, both in terms of state election officials deviating from state rules but also producing unspecified numbers of ballots without proper verification. When Trump’s legal team presented evidence of fraud to U.S. District Courts in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia, not one court found the evidence compelling enough to change the vote or call for a an audit. Paxton’s suit was crafted by Chapman University constitutional law professor John Eastman who contends that fraud in the battleground states disenfranchised Texas voters. Eastman claims in his suit that swing state election officials covered their tracks well enough to make election fraud claims impossible to prove. Chapman contends that it’s not necessary to show fraud, only that swing state election officials violated their own rules.
Biden’s supporters insist that without proof of fraud, Paxton has no claim in the Supreme Court, regardless of how swing state election officials handled the ballots. Whether admitted to or not by Paxton and other GOP officials, the Supreme Court isn’t likely to review Paxton’s claims because the court has no way to verify irregular ballots counted by swing state election officials. It’s one thing to allege fraud or illegal activity, still another to prove that anything irregular went on. Paxton’s suit makes the claim that swing state election officials deviated from their own rules when collecting-and-counting mail-in ballots. Pennsylvania Atty. Gen. Josh Shapiro called any attempt to overturn the Nov. 3 vote “seditious,” meaning it was treason to seek verification of mail-in ballots collected-and-counted under Covid-19-era counting guidelines, overstating Republicans attempts at injunctive relief.
When the election results were tabulated late evening Nov. 3, Trump has a decisive lead in the battleground states, only to watch his lead evaporate the next day, allegedly due to more mail-in ballots collected. Normal election trends don’t see such and dramatic turnaround, looking like some foul play took place. Trump’s legal team has had a hard time proving widespread election fraud, precisely, as Eastman says, because the way in which election officials counted votes made evidence of fraud impossible. “The court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated,” Shapiro said. But in saying that seeking injunctive relief in court is “seditious” is, itself, anti-American since the U.S. legal system affords aggrieved parties the right to resolve their differences in court.
Shapiro’s statements go too far and could easily offend justices, knowing that both sides have a right to air their grievances. If Trump believes he was cheated out of a free-and-fair election, then he has a right to his day in court. Calling Trump’s actions “seditious” is itself “seditious” because it doesn’t account for the fact that both sides of a legal dispute have a right to be heard. If there’s nothing to hide on either side, why are Democrats overreacting for Trump attempt to have his case heard in the Supreme Court. Signing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court is the right of anyone that feels they need to be heard in a legal proceeding. Democrats’ denunciations of Trump’s legal rights to reverse the Nov. 3 election shows that they want no part of any legal process that challenges the results. Whether Trump prevails or not in the Supreme Court, he certainly has a right to file for injunctive relief.
Whether or not the Supreme Court takes up Paxton’s lawsuit joined by 120 Republicans members of Congress is not the point. Aggrieved parties in the U.S. justice system are entitled to file for injunctive relief in the courts. “We apologize to our readers for endorsing Michael Waltz in the 2020 general election in Congress. We had no idea, had no way of know at the time, that Waltz was not committed to democracy,” said the Orlando Sentinel’s editorial board. Since when does seeking a judicial remedy not part of U.S. democracy? Democrats and their friends in the press have gone over the top protesting Trump’s right to seek injunctive relief in the courts. No one really knows what happened with the millions of universal mail-in ballots. If Republicans want to find out, how is that not democratic? What’s against the U.S. legal system is saying someone has no right to sue in the courts.
