GOP State AGs Urge Supreme Court to Overrule Pennsylvania Court’s Election Law Changes

Republican state attorneys general say the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has jeopardized the nation’s constitutional balance of power by legislating from the bench and allowing late-arriving ballots to be counted. Now, they’re calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. 

Three of the state attorneys general—Jeff Landry of Louisiana, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, and Mike Hunter of Oklahoma—held a virtual press conference Monday to announce the filing of an amicus brief in the Pennsylvania mail-in ballot challenge brought by the Pennsylvania Republican Party, which is before the Supreme Court.  

In unofficial results contested by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, Democratic challenger Joe Biden got 49.8% of the vote in Pennsylvania to Trump’s 49.1%. The president has not conceded the election, which major media outlets called Saturday for Biden after some put Pennsylvania in the former vice president’s column.

The matter at hand is the constitutionality of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling allowing mail-in ballots to be received and counted in the three days following the Nov. 3 election.

Opponents appealed the move to the Supreme Court before the election, but a split 4-4 ruling by the high court let the Pennsylvania court’s decision stand.

Nearly a dozen state attorneys general have come together to urge the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the Pennsylvania’s court decision, which allowed late-arriving ballots to be accepted even if no proof existed that the ballot was postmarked by the end of Election Day. 

Along with Landry, Hunter, and Schmitt, the attorneys general who signed the friend-of-the-court brief were Steve Marshall of Alabama, Leslie Rutledge of Arkansas, Ashley Moody of Florida, Daniel Cameron of Kentucky, Lynn Fitch of Mississippi, Alan Wilson of South Carolina, Jason Ravnsborg of South Dakota, and Ken Paxton of Texas.

The central concern of the attorneys general is that “the Constitution is very clear that it designates to state legislatures the ability to designate time, place, and manner frameworks for elections,” said Schmitt, who filed the brief.