By Delphine Luneau | The Center Square

UPDATES:

PA Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit Seeking To Throw Out Mail-in Ballots

PA House GOP Leaders: Lawmakers Won’t Meet Again This Year

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman argued Saturday that any attempt by state lawmakers to reconvene and vote for a new slate of electors favoring President Donald Trump would be doomed to fail – ironically, because of a lawsuit filed by a pro-Trump lawmaker.

Republican Congressman Michael Kelly’s lawsuit argues that a 2019 law that allowed widespread mail-in balloting in Pennsylvania was unconstitutional, and that 2.6 million ballots should be thrown out as a result. That would erase the 80,000-vote lead of presumed President-elect Joe Biden and give Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes to Trump.

A commonwealth court judge this week granted an injunction to Kelly and his co-plaintiffs ordering that no more voting results be certified by state and local election officials. Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar had already certified the presidential race, earlier this week, but none of the down ballot races had yet received certification.

Pennsylvania officials have appealed the Commonwealth Court’s injunction to the state Supreme Court.

Fetterman, who also serves as president of the Pennsylvania Senate, said Saturday that while the injunction remains in effect, the clock is ticking on the terms of state lawmakers, most of which are set to expire at the end of the day Nov. 30 – this coming Monday.

According to Fetterman, every seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives would be vacant Dec. 1, as would half the seats in the state Senate – all of the seats that were on the Nov. 3 ballot.

“The so called ‘mic-drop’ case in Commonwealth Court blocks the certification of the PAGOP’s *own* races,” Fetterman wrote on Twitter. “The term expires on Monday, the 30th. This means we wouldn’t have a [Legislature] to vote on their other ‘mic drop’: a resolution going nowhere fast.”

A joint resolution was filed by Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate on Friday that calls for lawmakers to vote on a slate of electors, presumably one that supports Trump thereby reversing the certified results and the will of voters.

While the House and Senate are controlled by Republicans – and will remain so once the new terms begin, based on the Nov. 3 results – GOP leaders in both chambers have repeatedly insisted that the Legislature will not intervene in the presidential race. None of the top Republican leaders have signed up to sponsor the joint resolution.

Neither the House nor the Senate are currently scheduled to meet Monday; after Monday, the resolution, along with all other bills and resolutions filed during the 2019-20 legislative term, will expire and would have to be refiled – assuming a new Legislature has been seated to do so.

Meanwhile, a separate lawsuit brought by the Trump campaign that was dismissed by a federal judge Nov. 21 had no more luck before a panel of judges from the Third Circuit, who rejected an appeal of the dismissal on Friday.

Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, wrote that the lawsuit was legally flawed on a number of counts.

“As discussed, the Campaign cannot win this lawsuit,” he wrote. “It conceded that it is not alleging election fraud. It has already raised and lost most of these state-law issues, and it cannot relitigate them here. It cites no federal authority regulating poll watchers or notice and cure. It alleges no specific discrimination. And it does not contest that it lacks standing under the Elections and Electors Clauses. These claims cannot succeed.”

Statewide and in Bucks County, there have been no substantiated reports of widespread fraud.

Attorneys for the Trump campaign, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, responded that they would be appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court. As of Saturday morning, there was no indication that the appeal had been filed yet.

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