중요외신 US Supreme Court sets date for state response in Mike Kelly election suit. Is it a day late? U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito set a deadline

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Supreme Court sets date for state response in Mike Kelly election suit. Is it a day late?

PAULA REED WARD | Friday, December 4, 2020 4:08 p.m.

KRISTINA SERAFINI | TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Congressman Mike Kelly puts on a Make America Great Again cap during a Vice President Mike Pence rally at the Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin on Friday, Oct. 23, 2020.

 

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito late Thursday set a deadline for Pennsylvania officials to respond to a request to throw out the state’s mail-in voting results — or possibly the entire election.

But the date set — Dec. 9 — is the day after the “safe harbor” deadline, the date set by the federal government for states to choose their electors. That means, experts say, that the court is unlikely to upend Pennsylvania’s election results, which declared Joe Biden the winner in the presidential race by more than 80,000 votes.

“Reading between the lines, if there was a serious issue the Supreme Court was interested in, they would have asked the state to respond prior to the safe harbor date,” said Bruce Ledewitz, a constitutional law professor at Duquesne University. “I just can’t see them wanting to wade into this.”

If the high court was seriously considering stopping Pennsylvania’s appointment of electors for Biden, Ledewitz said, it could have asked for a response from the state immediately.

U.S. Supreme Court challenge

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly and congressional candidate Sean Parnell filed a challenge against Pennsylvania's Act 77 that broadened mail-in voting. On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court set a date for the government to respond.

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U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, along with Republican congressional candidate Sean Parnell, initially filed a petition with the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in which they alleged that Act 77, which vastly expanded mail-in voting in the state in October 2019, was unconstitutional.

Kelly’s congressional district includes Erie, Crawford, Mercer and Lawrence counties and part of Butler County, while Parnell ran to unseat U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Mt. Lebanon, to represent a district including all of Beaver County and parts of Allegheny and Butler counties.

The petition alleged that the only way to expand mail-in voting was via a constitutional amendment, and that the General Assembly’s passage of the act was illegal. They sought to have some 2.6 million mail-in ballots disqualified, or in the alternative, the entirety of Pennsylvania’s election results. In their stead, the petition requested that the Republican-controlled legislature be permitted to appoint electors.

Although the Commonwealth Court initially gave the petitioners a win by granting a stay on the certification of election results, Gov. Tom Wolf immediately appealed. The state Supreme Court on Saturday unanimously threw the case out, writing that the challenge was barred by the passage of time since Act 77 took effect.

That, said attorney Greg Teufel, who represents Kelly, cleared the way for them to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case.

Jerry Dickinson, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Pittsburgh, said he expected Alito to deny the petition outright.

That he didn’t, though, doesn’t mean the petitioners are any more likely to succeed, he said.

“It’s still unlikely the court is going to decide a case that actually affects the safe harbor deadline and upends the entire Pennsylvania election based off of the mail-in ballots,” Dickinson said.

Alito is one of the most sympathetic justices to these election law challenges, he continued, which means he might be more likely to entertain the argument.

“He may be interested in the question of the constitutionality of Act 77,” Dickinson said.

But, the high court typically does not take on state court decisions on state legal grounds, he said.

“Here, it just seems unclear there’s a legitimate, substantial federal question involved,” he said.

By setting the deadline the day after the safe harbor deadline, Dickinson said, “it certainly makes it extremely unlikely the Trump campaign is going to succeed.”

President Trump, who has been attempting to sway state legislators to change electors, invited Republican lawmakers from Pennsylvania last week to the White House.

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin, was among those who went to the White House on Nov. 25 to meet with Trump. The Associated Press reported that Mastriano abruptly left the West Wing meeting after being informed he tested positive for the coronavirus.

Trump has spent the last month claiming fraud in election results across the country and even sent Rudolph Giuliani, who hadn’t been in court in decades, to argue a case in the Middle District of Pennsylvania last month.

The judge in that case denied the campaign’s claims.

“These allegations [of fraud] are simply baseless,” Ledewitz said. “Every time the campaign is asked for evidence, all we get are people waving affidavits and press conferences.

“It’s absurd. There wasn’t any fraud.”

In the case now being considered for review by the U.S. Supreme Court, Ledewitz said, there are no allegations of fraud. Instead, it’s a legal challenge to Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting system. The remedy sought, made after two elections were conducted under the new system, he continued, is unbelievable.

“It’s fundamentally un-American,” Ledewitz said. “You can’t possibly throw out a presidential election after the fact.”

He was critical of Kelly for attempting such a thing.

“I keep thinking he’s not serious. It’s not just disenfranchising Democrats. It’s disenfranchising Republicans, too.”