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The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected an unprecedented attempt by the state of Texas to scrap election results in four battle states lost by Donald Trump, an effort backed by the president and more than 100 other Republicans elected.
In a brief statement explaining its decision, the court rejected the lawsuit without a hearing, saying that Texas had no standing to challenge the results in other states: “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially recognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts your choices. “
Two of the court’s most conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, said they would have supported a hearing on the case, but added in a short statement that they “would not grant further relief.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican currently under federal investigation, had asked the United States Superior Court to dismiss more than 20 million votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, four states that led Joe Biden to the victory.
The move was supported not only by Trump, but also by 17 other Republican state attorneys general and 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Paxton filed the lawsuit on Monday, weeks after the Nov. 3 election and after each of the states certified their results, asking the U.S. superior court to invoke its original jurisdiction over inter-state disputes and allow it to the case goes ahead. The lawsuit sought to sideline elections in the four states so that their Republican-controlled state legislatures could decide the winner.
The case sparked a furious backlash from the states targeted by Texas, and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro wrote in response that the case was a “seditious abuse of the judicial process.”
The lawsuit was the latest in a broad effort by Trump and his allies to reverse their defeat in the Nov.3 election, which includes not just legal action but attempts to publicly or privately pressure state election officials.
Although the assault has failed to reverse Biden’s victory, unsubstantiated claims of fraud have undermined faith in the U.S. electoral system, led to death threats against poll workers, and revealed a surprising disposition of Republicans-elect to explicitly support or quietly tolerate the destruction of the democratic process.
Josh Kaul, the Democratic Wisconsin attorney general, told reporters on Friday that the Texas lawsuit was a “red flag warning for our democracy” and said the arguments were “extreme and undemocratic.”
“These elected officials are trying to replace not the losing candidate but the voters. That is the reasoning of the dictatorship, not of democracy, ”he said.
