The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against President Donald Trump’s motion to fast-track election challenges.
The court rejected pleas from Trump and his allies to accept quick consideration of cases involving the outcome in five states won by President-elect Joe Biden: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
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The Associated Press reported:
The orders, issued without comment, were unsurprising. The justices had previously taken no action in those cases in advance of last week’s counting of the electoral votes in Congress, which confirmed Biden’s victory.
The court still could act on appeals related to the Nov. 3 election later this winter or in the spring.
Several justices had expressed interest in a Pennsylvania case involving the state Supreme Court’s decision to extend the deadline for receipt of mailed ballots by three days, over the opposition of the Republican-controlled legislature.
But even if the court were to take up an election-related case, it probably wouldn’t hear arguments until the fall.
This is the second anti-Trump ruling in a week from the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 majority.
Last week, the Court rejected a lawsuit by Texas GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert that sought to expand Vice President Mike Pence’s legal authority to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral win.
The justices’ denial of Gohmert’s bid came after Congress certified Biden’s victory early Thursday morning.
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Judge Jeremy Kernodle of the Eastern District of Texas, who was nominated by Trump and confirmed in the Senate by voice vote in 2018, wrote that Gohmert “alleges at most an institutional injury to the House of Representatives. Under well-settled Supreme Court authority, that is insufficient to support standing.”
Pence asked Kernodle to reject the case, arguing the legal issues from Gohmert should be directed to the House and Senate, rather than the vice president.
“A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,” Pence said.
“Ironically, Representative Gohmert’s position, if adopted by the Court, would actually deprive him of his opportunity as a Member of the House under the Electoral Count Act to raise objections to the counting of electoral votes, and then to debate and vote on them,” Pence’s filing added.
House General Counsel Doug Letter filed a brief asking for the Gohmert case to be dismissed, calling it a “radical departure from our constitutional procedures and consistent legislative practices.”
“At the bottom, this litigation seeks to enlist the federal courts in a belated and meritless assault on longstanding constitutional processes for confirming the results of a national election for President,” the House attorney wrote.
