If its fate had not been abundantly clear already, President Donald Trump’s dream of having Pennsylvania’s GOP-controlled legislature overturn the state’s election results received what appeared to be its final death blows Thursday with a late-night order from the U.S. Supreme Court and an unequivocal statement from the General Assembly’s Republican leadership that they had no intention of doing so.
The Supreme Court order came in response to a request from one of the president’s top boosters in Congress, U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R., Pa.), who has asked the justices to declare the state’s vote-by-mail law unconstitutional and to “decertify” Pennsylvania’s results, which cemented President-elect Joe Biden’s victory by roughly 81,000 votes last week.
But just hours after Kelly filed that appeal Thursday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. crafted a telling schedule for the case, giving state officials until Dec. 9 to file their reply.
That date set by Alito — who oversees emergency matters arising from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware for the court — comes one day after what is known as the “safe harbor date,” the federal deadline for states to resolve any outstanding challenges to their elections. Beyond it, the state’s slate of appointed electors is considered to be locked in for the Dec. 14 Electoral College vote.
It is still possible — though, election law experts said, unlikely — that the Supreme Court could decide to consider Kelly’s appeal about the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s mail voting law outside the context of the 2020 election.
But the schedule laid out by Alito appeared to foreclose any chance of the court weighing in before its outcome had been finalized….
But facing continued pressure from a segment of their party, Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R., Centre), and Majority Leader Sen. Kim Ward, (R., Westmoreland) joined House Speaker Bryan Cutler (R., Lancaster) and Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff (R., Centre) in issuing their most definitive statement yet declaring the matter dead.
“The General Assembly lacks the authority to take action to overturn the popular vote and appoint our own slate of presidential electors,” it read. “While we clearly recognize the need for legislative action to address the issues presented by the 2020 General Election, some of the actions requested by our residents would require us to disregard the statutes and Constitution we have fought so hard to protect.”…
After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected the latest Trump campaign legal challenge last week, lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis immediately vowed they, like Kelly, would take their case to the Supreme Court, where they felt confident that the conservative majority the president helped cement there would rule in their favor.
But seven days later and with time running out before the “safe harbor” date, they have taken no steps to file that appeal.