On December 9, President Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court let him intervene in Texas v Pennsylvania, the case in which Texas is suing Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin because Texas thinks those states didn’t certify legal election returns. Here is the Trump brief.
On December 7, the state of Texas asked the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate the election returns for president from Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Here is the filing in Texas v Pennsylvania, 22 O 155. The “O” stands for “original jurisdiction”, which is used when a state asks the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case that had not been heard in any lower court. On December 8, the U.S. Supreme Court asked the four states to respond by December 10.
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to hear Tedards v Ducey, 19-1427, at its December 11 conference. This is the Arizona case on whether Governors can appoint replacement U.S. Senators to a term greater than two years. On August 25, 2018, U.S. Senator John McCain had died, and Arizona decided not to hold a special election until November 2020. Some Arizona voters had argued that states must hold odd-year special elections in circumstances like that, but the lower federal courts upheld the state.
Missouri Representative Dan Stacey (R-Blue Springs) introduced HB 26 on December 1, 2020. It would change Missouri primaries from open to closed. Representative Stacey has introduced a similar bill before, but his previous bills didn’t pass. Thanks to Ken Bush for this news.
On December 7, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the case Kelly v Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 20A98. Justice Samuel Alito had referred the case to the entire court, which then rejected it without noted dissent from any justice.
