Election Litigation Update: Pennsylvania/SCOTUS
Pennsylvania has filed a response in Trump's attempt to have the Supreme Court consolidate a bunch of cases well after the last plausible minute.

This is *NOT* an opposition on the merits.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-845/165063/20201230170629712_Secretary%20Boockvar%20Response%20in%20Opposition%20to%20Motion%20to%20Expedite.pdf

Rather, Pennsylvania decided to submit a brief response in opposition to the motion for expedited consideration. This is not a filing that was, strictly speaking, necessary - no response deadline had been set by the Court.

Also, if the Court was at all interested in hearing the cases before the 6th, they would very likely have set a briefing schedule already.

So this should be an interesting read.

The first entry on the table of authorities is interesting - Baker v Carr is a key case for the political question doctrine. That's a doctrine that basically stands for the idea that the federal courts shouldn't be involved in disputes entrusted to other branches of government.

To put it another way, a court that invokes the political question doctrine is basically saying this:

The highlighted bit here is subtly pointing out to the Court that there's a really good procedural reason to tell the Orange Menace to pound sand: there's no good reason to combine the cases.

I'm getting the feeling that Pennsylvania is Officially Over the post-election litigation. I don't blame them. I know I'm very over it and all I do is throw snark at clownshoes attempts to destroy the nation.

Somewhere, on some hard disk, in some building in Pennsylvania, there is a draft of this paragraph that has swear words.

Good footnote here - pointing out that there's more than one decision throwing out the same stupid claim, but it hasn't been appealed.

Good enough that I'll even forgive the adverb that starts the last sentence.

"profoundly incoherent" is my new favorite phrase.

They're being generous. It doesn't make little sense. It makes no sense at all; it's actively nonsense.

(And I bet that's in an earlier draft, too.)

This is clear, plain writing. And I would love it if more people would fully internalize the truth that it states.

I think "more disconnected from the law and reality" means "they keep trying to pound the table, but they keep missing, and they hit themselves in sensitive areas every damn time."

To be fair, that's not the only part of the motion to expedite that lacked any coherent legal argument.

Honestly, if PA can succeed in getting SCOTUS to say that the Supreme Court's role in state election disputes is strictly limited, I'll be surprised. Pleasantly surprised, to be sure, but surprised.

And I think that's what this is fishing for. If so, it's a good effort.

I think they're looking for a ruling that once we're past the Electoral College, only Congress can settle disputes. I think the Court would prefer to punt on that if at all possible.

It's nice to see the fake electors called out.

Very nice indeed. Especially this bluntly.

Excellent writing. Good closing.

Good closing, as I said, to a response that probably wasn't necessary, but still a real pleasure to read.

. @JoshShapiroPA:

And with that, we're out.

Very good response. Not going to change anything, I think. If SCOTUS wanted to hear this before the 6th, they probably would already have set a briefing schedule - the case was docketed a week ago, and there's less than a week left.

So I'm not sure it was objectively a spectacularly great use of time during the holidays. But I bet it felt good to write. And it felt damn good to read.

/fin