Why Trump Will Triumph In PA Litigation

The State Supreme Court has Violated the US Constitution

If you’ve been following the mainstream media, you’ve probably read that Trump intends to file a lawsuit in Pennsylvania to “stop counting votes.” Most likely, this has been presented as an outrageous evil, unjustifiable by any standards of common decency, and grossly unconstitutional. Is that really the case? Or is it more complex than that?

There will be a lawsuit, no doubt; and it will involve a lot of votes being thrown out. The plaintiff (Trump and/or the Republicans) will win, because Pennsylvania’s highest court has almost certainly violated the Constitution of the United States. That’s why, in the weeks ahead, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is going to rule in favor of Trump.

Let’s wind the clock back about a week to explain how we got here.

On October 28, 2020, in Republican Party of Pennsylvania vs. Boockvar, SCOTUS declined “a motion to expedite consideration of a petition for a writ of certiorari”. Let’s explain what that is, and what’s at stake, and why Trump is going to follow up.

1. A writ of certiorari orders a lower court to deliver its record in a case so that the higher court may review it.  In this case, SCOTUS was being asked to issue a writ against the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the highest court in that state.
2. A petition [for a writ of certiorari] is a request by a litigant in the lower court, to a higher court, asking the higher court to order the lower court to issue the writ. In this case, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had decided against the Republican Party, so the Republican Party petitioned the Supreme Court of the US.
3. Petitions can take a long time to resolve. A motion [to expedite consideration of a petition] is a request, by a litigant who has filed a petition, that the higher court accelerate its process of review. In this case, the Republican Party had filed the motion to expedite.

Translated into common English: In Boockvar, the Republican Party sent a request to the US Supreme Court to review a lower court case, and then asked them to hurry up about it. The US Supreme Court declined the motion to expedite, e.g. it refused to hurry up. But – and this is very important – it did not deny the petition for the writ of certiorari.

Thus the situation as it stands is that there is still a petition before the Supreme Court to review the situation in Pennsylvania, it just refused to do so before the election.

More