WASHINGTON — Seventeen states on Wednesday filed a brief with the Supreme Court siding with a Texas lawsuit against four battleground states Joe Biden won — charging that they acted unlawfully by changing their election laws.
President Trump’s campaign also announced that the commander-in-chief was joining the suit, alleging that his “rights as a candidate” were affected by the states’ “failure to follow and enforce state election laws during the 2020 election.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit on Tuesday asking the Supreme Court to scrap Biden’s wins in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and delay the appointment of presidential electors in those states so allegations of fraud can be investigated.
The long-shot suit is the latest last-ditch effort by allies of Trump to overturn the election result before the Electoral College meets Dec. 14 to formally elect the next president.
Seventeen states that voted for Trump and have GOP attorneys general backed the Texas lawsuit on Wednesday: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia.
The states argue they have an interest in the case because “the unconstitutional administration of elections” in other states dilutes votes among their own constituents.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Tuesday called the Lone Star State lawsuit “a publicity stunt.”
“The Michigan issues raised in this complaint have already been thoroughly litigated and roundly rejected in both state and federal courts — by judges appointed from both political parties,” she added.
Wisconsin’s Democratic AG Josh Kaul called the Texas suit “an embarrassment.”
“I feel sorry for Texans that their tax dollars are being wasted on such a genuinely embarrassing lawsuit,” Kaul said in a statement.
Paxton’s office charged that the four swing states “exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws and unlawfully enacting last-minute changes, thus skewing the results.”
The filing came on the same day that the Supreme Court rejected and refused to hear another GOP legal challenge, which argued that a 2019 state law authorizing mail-in ballots was unconstitutional, meaning that Pennsylvania’s 2.5 million postal votes would have to be tossed.
In a one-sentence order, which suggested there were no dissenting opinions, the high court wrote: “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
Trump 2020’s court battles to overturn the election results are coming to an end without a significant victory invalidating enough votes to hand him a second term in the White House.
In a hopeful tweet Wednesday morning, Trump called the Texas suit “the big one.”
“We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!” he wrote.