NEW: Trump election challenge now at SCOTUS. Pennsylvania state representative challenges election results in his state, saying it was illegal for state legislature to expand mail-in voting late last year.
correction: the suit comes from Mike Kelly, a member of the US House of Representatives from PA and not a PA state representative.
The application goes to Justice Alito, who is assigned to handle such requests from this region of the country. He told Pennsylvania officials tonight to respond to the lawsuit in writing by December 9.
Six days from now is an eternity on the electoral clock: Safe-harbor deadline (by which states must confirm results to make them “conclusive”) is Dec. 8, electoral college votes on Dec. 14. By the time Kelly files final brief on Dec. 10 or so, the challenge will be moot.
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After re-reading Kavanaugh’s concurrence in Roman Catholic Diocese v. Cuomo, I see it’s going to take a re-evaluation on his part if the Court is to uphold public health measures in CA, NJ & KY. 1/10
While I would hope that Kav & others would be more hesitant to meddle with state-level measures as covid reaches crisis levels in those places and elsewhere, I’m not confident they will. 2/10
Kavanaugh is more measured than Gorsuch and acknowledges that even severe restrictions on church attendance could be justified — but says that as long as just *one* secular venue is open while churches are closed, the state is violating free exercise. 3/10
Today a GOP state senator in PA filed an emergency request at SCOTUS challenging the election results in his state. And now @tedcruz is urging the justices to hear the appeal.
Gist of the claim: the PA state legislature violated the PA state constitution when, a *year* ago, it expanded mail-in voting.
And somehow *that* is a violation of the US Constitution.
The PA state supreme court tossed this by a 7-0 vote on Saturday mainly due to the "laches" doctrine, which says you can't wait to bring a lawsuit when the legal infirmity you identify was apparent so very long ago.
But the whole case has the logic of an MC Escher drawing.
The CA church asking SCOTUS for emergency relief to hold in-person services as the state struggles with a second COVID surge just filed its final brief. It's riddled with errors.
Brief opens by lamenting the "sea of purple" on the state's restrictions map
And complains that while houses of worship are entirely closed in purple areas, "food packing and processing, laundromats and warehouses" have no capacity restrictions.
As if those are comparable facilities with lengthy indoor gatherings. Of course, they are not.
There are still two religious liberty challenges to COVID regs pending at SCOTUS: one from a church in California and one from Christian & Jewish clergy teaming up in New Jersey.
This afternoon, California responded to the Harvest Rock Church's emergency application. (1/x)
CA lays out a few important bits of science re: gathering venues that Justice Gorsuch seemed to ignore in his testy concurrence last week in the New York cases: the (1) number of people, (2) nature of activity and (3) location all matter to spread. Gorsuch seemed to ignore (2).