President Joe Biden is using the national government to step on the power of the parliamentary unit, according to an elegance filed today with the U. S. Supreme Court.
The plea for certiorari, specifically obtained by The Federalist, argues that Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which commands federal authorities to organize an extraordinary, national get-out-the-vote work, violates the Constitution.
“The executive action taken by the President, nullifies the votes of the individual legislators, nullifies the enactment of the Legislature, violates the Electors Clause, violates the Elections Clause, deprives the legislators of their particular rights, and jeopardizes candidates ’ rights to an election free from fraud and abuse, ” states the request for the high court’s review, filed by 27 Pennsylvania state lawmakers.
But the defendants aren’t asking the Supreme Court to consider in on the merits of the case. They’re after the important question of position: whether individual lawmakers have the right to acquire such claims of national executive branch incursions on congressional duty to court.
Earlier this month, the senators appealed the situation to the U. S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals after a lower court dismissed the lawsuit for absence of position. But the politicians say time is of the essence, and they’re seeking extended attention from the Supreme Court in a plea to pass the normal pertains process. They’re positive that a majority of the judges will get in their pursuit and the lawsuit may come back to the lower court to act on the merits. And they’re pretty comfortable they’ll ultimately win an injunction stopping state and federal meddling in Pennsylvania votes.
“Petitioners ask this Court to solve the global conflict over unique legislator standing, ” the complaint says. “Petitioners have no other redress. The stakes could not be higher. ”
Duty and Nullification
Government auditors have described the Pennsylvania State Freedom Caucus ’ complaint as “the most significant election integrity complaint in the country. ” The results may ultimately decide political manage in 2025.
Biden’s fiat directs federal “departments and agencies ” to “partner” with state, local, tribal, and territorial election officials on voter registration and other GOTV initiatives.
Critics of the federalized GOTV drive call it “Bidenbucks, ” a nod to Zuckbucks, the hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg dropped on local election offices during the 2020 election. Biden claims his attempt is all about promoting the “exercise of the right to vote” and eliminating “discrimination and other impediments to election. ” Such lofty-sounding goals, however, get lost in the implementation of the plan, which appears to be created to target traditionally Democrat voters with the assistance of White House-“approved ” leftist groups.
In January, 27 Democratic state lawmakers — 26 members of the state House of Representatives and one lawmaker — filed a federal complaint against Biden and Pennsylvania Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, and Jonathan Marks, assistant director for state Elections and Earnings. The Election Research Institute ( ERI), a nonpartisan nonprofit working to restore confidence in the election system, is sponsoring this case. The lawsuit even names seven Trump case users, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. All of these companies, and many more, are in on the system.
The legislators say Biden has infringed on their legal rights and responsibilities to perform votes without federal and state professional branch meddling. “[ A]ll agency action in conformity with [EO] 14019 is without congressional delegation or funding, and conducted merely by executive fiat, ” the lawsuit asserts.
Biden’s attempt, the lawsuit alleges, has the power of changing Pennsylvania election laws, “which usurps the state legislature’s power and violates the state politicians ’ federal civil rights under the Electors Clause and the Elections Clause. ” The former offers position legislatures the authority to prescribe the “Times, Places and Manner of holding Primaries for Senators and Representatives. ” The former gives each state the power to “appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors ” to vote for president. That amount is based on each state’s two U. S. legislators and its entire U. S. House users.
The key to both basic provisions is that state legislature not only have the right but the responsibility to laid out the words of elections.
“EO 14019’s implementation is a usurpation of Pennsylvania state law, ” the petition charges. “The will of the legislators who successfully voted for the state law to be enacted was manifested through final legislative action, 25 P. S. § 107 ( 2022 ). EO 14019 nullifies the intended legal effects of the enacted state law, depriving the individual state legislators of the intended legal effects of their successful vote. ”
Same goes for automatic voter registration and other election-related policies unilaterally implemented by Shapiro and the secretary of the commonwealth. Pennsylvania’s leftist executive branch disregarded the will of the General Assembly — and the people of Pennsylvania — in enacting liberal election edicts, the petition alleges.
Beyond Zuckbucks
Pennsylvania was one of many states embroiled in the Zuckbucks controversy of 2020. As a swing state, the Keystone State was a target of unprecedented private money — more than$ 22 million in so-called “Covid-19 response grants ” filtered from the Facebook founder to leftist “voter rights ” nonprofits. According to the Foundation for Government Accountability, more than 90 percent of that money went to counties that voted for Joe Biden. Philadelphia County alone received more than$ 10. 5 million in Zuckerberg-funded election administration grants.
In July 2022, Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, signed a bill banning private money in Pennsylvania election administration. It demands that elections receive “lawful appropriations ” from federal, state, and local governments. The bill barred public officials from soliciting or contracting with third-party, nongovernmental organizations “for the registration of voters or the preparation, administration or conducting of an election in this commonwealth. ”
Now the Biden administration comes storming in with its order urging “approved ” third-party groups to work with federal, state, and local governments on voter registration and GOTV initiatives. Congress never appropriated taxpayer funds for the enactment of Biden’s order, a fact the administration has acknowledged. The administration won’t even tell Congress or state elections officials what it is doing, and who’s doing what.
“Exactly what the legislators sought to prevent has now been facilitated by executive action by the President who is also a candidate in the 2024 election and stands to benefit personally from the executive action, ” the lawmakers ’ Supreme Court filing states.
‘Before the Consequences Become Catastrophic’
Last month, without delving into the merits of the lawsuit, Judge Jennifer P. Wilson of the Middle District of Pennsylvania granted the Biden administration ’s motions to dismiss because of the “Plaintiffs ’ lack of standing to raise the claims at issue. ” Wilson cited rulings from the U. S. Supreme Court and the U. S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals that found “individual legislators did not have standing to bring a challenge to an action that allegedly injured the legislature as a whole. ”
“Plaintiffs have alleged only an institutional injury resulting from ‘a general loss of legislative power, ’” the judge wrote. “A vague, generalized allegation that elections, generally, will be undermined, is not the type of case or controversy that this court may rule on under Article III. ”
The plaintiffs beg to differ. They note that their claim mentions nothing of “institutional injury, ” or a wrong committed against the entire legislature. They contend the district court judge omits other federal and state court rulings that have granted individual state legislators standing in complaints against the federal government. In fact, the petition notes several state supreme court cases and a key U. S. Supreme Court ruling from the late 1930s — Coleman v. Miller — that created a pathway to legislator standing.
But other rulings contradict those decisions. That’s why, the Pennsylvania lawmakers assert, the U. S. Supreme Court’s intervention is so imperative. The status quo, they argue, is “unsustainably paradoxical. ”
“The Court’s lack of clear direction on individual state legislator standing under the Elections Clause and Electors Clause references to the word ‘legislature ’ is disabling federal court remedies for state legislators against federal executive and state executive usurpations of state legislative law-making under the Elections and Electors Clause, ” the petition asserts.
Erick Kaardal, attorney for the plaintiffs, said Biden’s and Shapiro’s actions have circumvented the clear authority granted to these legislators, and the plaintiffs should have standing to prevent “nullification ” of that authority.
The petition points to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas ’ previous observation that a case involving federal elections “heightens the need for review ” because, as the court said in 1979, elections are “of the most fundamental significance under our constitutional structure. ”
The petition closes with a warning from Thomas ’ dissenting opinion in 2021’s Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Degraffenreid. The lawsuit, involving Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth Veronica Degraffenreid, took on the multiple broken laws and irregularities plaguing Pennsylvania’s handling of the 2020 election.
“Changing the rules in the middle of the game is bad enough. Such rule changes by officials who may lack authority to do so is even worse, ” Thomas wrote, commenting on the alterations the state supreme court made shortly before the 2020 presidential election to the laws passed by the legislature. “ When those changes alter election results, they can severely damage the electoral system on which our self-governance so heavily depends. ”
“If state officials have the authority they have claimed, we need to make it clear, ” Thomas added. “If not, we need to put an end to this practice now before the consequences become catastrophic. ”
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
