“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.” The Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 1
As Michael Every (Rabobank) observes: “A Texas-sized mess may have just appeared but if you check the news you will not see much reference to it.”
In case you’re not up on current events, Texas filed a case with the Supreme Court against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2020/Press/SCOTUSFiling.pdf
Why wouldn’t you know?
Well, if you rely on corporate media for your news, they censored it (for your own good, of course).
Why the Supremes?
Well, because the Constitution says so:
“In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.” The Constitution of the United States, Article III, Section s
Here’s the Texas opening salvo, err, uhm, I mean “complaint”:
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1251(a) and this Court’s Rule 17, the State of Texas respectfully seeks leave to file the accompanying Bill of Complaint against the States of Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (collectively, the “Defendant States”) challenging their administration of the 2020 presidential election. As set forth in the accompanying brief and complaint, the 2020 election suffered from significant and unconstitutional irregularities in the Defendant States:
- Non-legislative actors’ purported amendments to States’ duly enacted election laws, in violation of the Electors Clause’s vesting State legislatures with plenary authority regarding the appointment of presidential electors.
- Intrastate differences in the treatment of voters, with more favorable allotted to voters -whether lawful or unlawful– in areas administered by local government under Democrat control and with populations with higher ratios of Democrat voters than other areas of Defendant States.
- The appearance of voting irregularities in the Defendant States that would be consistent with the unconstitutional relaxation of ballot-integrity protections in those States’ election laws.
All these flaws – even the violations of state election law – violate one or more of the federal requirements for elections (i.e., equal protection, due process, and the Electors Clause) and thus arise under federal law. See Bush v Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 113 (2000) (“significant departure from the legislative scheme for appointing Presidential electors presents a federal constitutional question”) (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring). Plaintiff State respectfully submits that the foregoing types of electoral irregularities exceed the hanging-chad saga of the 2000 election in their degree of departure from both state and federal law. Moreover, these flaws cumulatively preclude knowing who legitimately won the 2020 election and threaten to cloud all future elections.
Taken together, these flaws affect an outcome determinative numbers of popular votes in a group of States that cast outcome-determinative numbers of electoral votes. This Court should grant leave to file the complaint and, ultimately, enjoin the use of unlawful election results without review and ratification by the Defendant States’ legislatures and remand to the Defendant States’ respective legislatures to appoint Presidential Electors in a manner consistent with the Electors Clause and pursuant to 3 U.S.C. § 2.
As one election law expert put it, the US constitution is effectively a contract between the 50 states, including how their president is elected, and Texas is claiming other parties broke parts of that contract.
Texas is apparently now supported by 17 other states. Talk about a divided country.
Perhaps not a surprise, the Supreme Court took the Texas case in expedited fashion, and has called for a response by 3PM Thursday.
Yes, it *is* a huge can of worms it is opening if it acts. Yet it is also a can of worms if it doesn’t act when Texas and other states claim:
Our Country stands at an important crossroads. Either the Constitution matters and must be followed, even when some officials consider it inconvenient or out of date, or it is simply a piece of parchment on display at the National Archives. We ask the Court to choose the former.
In short, this *might* be the most significant Supreme Court case since 2000, which notoriously decided the presidential election in Florida.
Every: “Markets don’t know how to price these kind of tail risks. They will ignore this right up until the last second: but if we get a surprise result, be ready for resulting surprises.“
No kidding.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/rabobank-texas-opens-huge-can-worms-nobody-media-will-cover-it
Econophysics2020 