These California House Republicans back Texas’ suit to overturn presidential election - San Francisco Chronicle

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court refused late Friday to hear a lawsuit brought by Texas to overturn election results in swing states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden, a long-shot effort that had the backing of House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and most of the rest of California’s congressional Republicans.

In an unsigned order, the court said Texas lacked the legal standing to pursue the case. It said Texas had not shown “a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.”

McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, and GOP Reps. Ken Calvert of Corona (Riverside County), Doug LaMalfa of Richvale (Butte County) and Tom McClintock of Elk Grove (Sacramento County) were among 126 House Republicans who signed a brief to the ourt supporting Texas’ lawsuit, which sought to block Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from casting their Electoral College votes for Biden on Monday.

McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, was added to the list Friday when a corrected filing was submitted to the Supreme Court to include more lawmakers. The day before, he had refused to answer questions about the lawsuit and only laughed when reporters asked him about it.

Texas’ lawsuit was an unprecedented legal effort that could have handed the election to President Trump, as the four swing states contributed to Biden’s Electoral College victory of 306 to 232 votes. The suit, which was backed by the Republican attorneys general of 17 other states, asked the Supreme Court to let the GOP-run legislatures of the four swing states select electors.

Texas and its supporters argued that the four states violated the Constitution with pandemic-related changes they made to the election process. They alleged that because those changes — mainly to facilitate mail-in and absentee voting — came from officials and legal decisions outside of the state legislatures, they were invalid and the results must be thrown out.

The lawsuit drew heavy criticism from legal scholars and from many Republicans, including some from Texas itself. But it had the support of Trump, who has a strong hold over his party’s lawmakers.

Among those who did not sign the House GOP brief were the two other Republicans representing California in Congress: Reps. Devin Nunes of Tulare and Mike Garcia of Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County). They did not respond to requests for comment.

Calvert said in an email that he signed the brief in hopes the court would have a chance to weigh Trump’s arguments. Although the case was brought by Texas, the Trump campaign asked to be made a party to it. Lower courts have roundly rejected dozens of legal challenges by the campaign in individual states.

“Any time you change the voting rules while an election is under way without changing state law — as we saw in many states due to the pandemic — there will inevitably be legal challenges,” Calvert said. “The Trump campaign deserves to have the opportunity to argue its case before the Supreme Court, and have the justices weigh its merits with a ‘careful and timely review’ as stated in the brief.”

McCarthy, LaMalfa and Garcia did not respond to requests for comment.

A seventh California House Republican, Paul Cook of Yucca Valley (San Bernardino County), resigned his seat earlier this week to join the county Board of Supervisors. His successor won’t be sworn in until Jan. 3.

Texas’ lawsuit was bashed by critics as an undemocratic and partisan effort to invalidate legal election results.

In a reply brief, Pennsylvania’s attorney general called it a “seditious abuse of the judicial process,” noting that Texas itself put in place similar changes to voting procedures in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Texas prevailed in a lawsuit challenging those changes.

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 10: (L-R) U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) testify during a hearing before the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee April 10, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The subcommittee heard testimony on the government's capacity to prioritize its duties and continue to function if the U.S. Treasury reaches its statutory debt limit.

“Texas seeks to invoke this court’s original jurisdiction to achieve the extraordinary relief of disenfranchising all Pennsylvanians who voted and one-tenth of the voters in the entire nation,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro wrote. “In support of such a request, Texas brings to the court only discredited allegations and conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact. ... Let us be clear. Texas invites this court to overthrow the votes of the American people and choose the next president of the United States. That Faustian invitation must be firmly rejected.”

In a letter to House Democrats, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco called the lawsuit “an act of flailing GOP desperation, which violates the principles enshrined in our American democracy.”

“Republicans are subverting the Constitution by their reckless and fruitless assault on our democracy which threatens to seriously erode public trust in our most sacred democratic institutions, and to set back our progress on the urgent challenges ahead,” Pelosi wrote.