Alison DurkeeForbes StaffBusinessUpdated Dec 9, 2020, 06:00pm EST

• Republican attorneys general from 17 states signed on to an amicus brief Wednesday supporting Texas’ effort to sue four states in the U.S. Supreme Court and overturn their election results, a widely-criticized lawsuit that President Donald Trump himself is trying to join, underscoring the extent to which Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud and a “rigged” election have become ingrained among Republican leaders.

KEY FACTS

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Tuesday in the Supreme Court against Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin, alleging that the states’ election results should be invalidated because of fraud and irregularities that occurred as a result of the states expanding their voting rules amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The lawsuit, which is based on voter fraud allegations that lower courts have repeatedly rejected, has been widely derided by legal experts, who have deemed it “laughable,” “utter garbage” and, in the words of University of Washington law professor Lisa Marshall Manheim, “legally incoherent, factually untethered and based on theories of remedy that fundamentally misunderstand the electoral process.”

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Trump and his GOP allies have touted the lawsuit as their key to their post-election legal strategy, however, with the president saying the lawsuit is “the case that everyone has been waiting for” and House GOP lawmakers reportedly preparing their own amicus brief in support of Texas’ efforts.

Trump filed a motion to intervene in the case Wednesday, which asks the Supreme Court to let the president join the case and declare that Biden’s electoral votes in the four battleground states “are in violation of the Electors Clause and cannot be counted.”

Republican state attorneys general said in their amicus brief that the case “raises constitutional questions of great public importance that warrant this Court’s review” and the Supreme Court should grant Texas’ motion for leave to file a leave of complaint, alleging that the battleground states’ supposed infractions “undermined the liberty of all Americans.”

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt led the brief, which was also joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia, and Arizona filed a separate, more limited amicus brief “respecting” Texas’ complaint.

SURPRISING FACT

The states’ amicus brief largely takes aim at the four targeted states’ expanded voting rules—but their arguments are often contradictory, such as opposing states extending their deadlines by which mail-in ballots must be received. The brief alleges that extended deadlines provide “a post-election window of time during which nefarious actors could wait and see whether the Presidential election would be close, and whether perpetrating fraud…would be worthwhile,” despite the fact that several states that signed on to the brief—Kansas, Mississippi, North Dakota, Utah and West Virginia—accept mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day themselves. Texas also allows mail-in ballots that arrive up to one day after the election, and despite chastising the battleground states for expanding their voting rules, Texas also changed some of its voting rules to accommodate voters during the Covid-19 pandemic.

CHIEF CRITIC

In addition to legal experts, the attorneys general of the states named in Texas’ lawsuit have blasted the complaint as “a publicity stunt” and “uniquely unserious,” with the office of Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, calling the legal challenge “constitutionally, legally and factually wrong.” “These insignificant attempts to disregard the will of the people in our three states mislead the public and tear at the fabric of our Constitution,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a joint statement Tuesday.

KEY BACKGROUND

Trump allies have repeatedly said that they want the election to be decided by the Supreme Court and its 6-3 conservative majority and pinned their hopes of success on the high court, even as more than 50 of their post-election lawsuits have failed in lower courts. The Supreme Court dealt the Trump campaign and its allies a blow by rejecting a challenge to Pennsylvania’s election results Tuesday, however, and legal experts say it is highly unlikely the court will take up the Texas case.

FURTHER READING

Texas Asks Supreme Court To Overturn Biden’s Win In Last-Ditch Election Lawsuit (Forbes)

Trump And The GOP Have Now Lost More Than 50 Post-Election Lawsuits (Forbes)

Supreme Court Shuts Down Pennsylvania GOP Attempt To Overturn Election (Forbes)

Analysis-Texas tries to overturn the U.S. election result. Can it succeed? (Reuters)

Texas can’t block votes cast in other states. Absurdly, it’s trying. (Washington Post)