I find it very interesting that because Justice Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch all dissented in denying review of the Pennsylvania election lawsuits which were clearly unconstitutional, suddenly Thomas is no longer black but called the “most conservative” member of the Supreme Court. I have stated before that the Judiciary Act of 1925 is in itself unconstitutional giving the Supreme Court discretionary jurisdiction when they take an oath to uphold the constitution not when they feel like it. What Justice Thomas wrote in dissent was precisely correct. The denial of the Supreme Court to get involved in this election of 2020 is outrageous and a total disgrace. The bias in Washington against any outsider is going to bring down the entire country. Once there is no rule of law remaining, then there is no point in maintaining a government.
The refusal to take this case means that any official can change the rules during an election at any time. They would only be challenged again in an untimely manner in the middle of an election ensuring there would be no time to get to the Supreme Court. This denial is simply casting all American elections from here on out into the dust-bin of history. Remember this day. For your grandchild will one day ask, where you there when the Supreme Court threw US elections under the bus? This is all because in Washington, they do not want any outsider to mess with their swamp of corruption.
Edward Gibbon wrote in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, with respect to Commodus who was the son of Marcus Aurelius whose reign is where the line is drawn for the beginning of the decline and fall. Of Commodus, he wrote: Every
“distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse”
(Book 1, Chapter 4).
This is where we are at this point in the saga of the Decline and Fall of the United States. The Supreme Court has abandoned everything the Framers intended to preserve “We the People.” It was not even a matter of overturning the election. But in fact, what took place in Pennsylvania should have nullified the election results because they were simply corrupt. Justice Thomas argued that perhaps the net effect would not have altered the results. But that is really irrelevant because we will never know when you allow officials to act unconstitutionally, to begin with. Justice Tomas wrote in dissent:
Supreme Court Dissents: Sct Dissent Republican v PA
JUSTICE THOMAS, dissenting from the denial of certiorari.
The Constitution gives to each state legislature authority to determine the “Manner” of federal elections. Art. I, §4, cl. 1; Art. II, §1, cl. 2. Yet both before and after the 2020 election, nonlegislative officials in various States took it upon themselves to set the rules instead. As a result, we received an unusually high number of petitions and emergency applications contesting those changes. The petitions here present a clear example. The Pennsylvania Legislature established an unambiguous deadline for receiving mail-in ballots: 8 p.m. on election day. Dissatisfied, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended that deadline by three days. The court also ordered officials to count ballots received by the new deadline even if there was no evidence—such as a postmark—that the ballots were mailed by election day. That decision to rewrite the rules seems to have affected too few ballots to change the outcome of any federal election. But that may not be the case in the future. These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority nonlegislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable.
JUSTICE ALITO, with whom JUSTICE GORSUCH joins, dissenting from the denial of certiorari.
I agree with JUSTICE THOMAS that we should grant review in these cases. They present an important and recurring constitutional question: whether the Elections or Electors Clauses of the United States Constitution, Art. I, §4, cl. 1; Art. II, §1, cl. 2, are violated when a state court holds that a state constitutional provision overrides a state statute governing the manner in which a federal election is to be conducted. That question has divided the lower courts,* and our review at this time would be greatly beneficial. In the cases now before us, a statute enacted by the Pennsylvania Legislature unequivocally requires that mailed ballots be received by 8 p.m. on election day. Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 25, §§3146.6(c), 3150.16(c) (Purdon 2020). Nevertheless, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, citing a provision of the State Constitution mandating that elections “be free and equal,” Art. I, §5, altered that deadline and ordered that mailed ballots be counted if received up to three days after the election, Pennsylvania Democratic Party v. Boockvar, ___ Pa. ___, ___–___, 238 A. 3d 345, 362, 371–372 (2020). Both the state Republican and Democratic parties urged us to grant review and decide this question before the 2020 election. See Application for Stay in Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Boockvar, No. 20A54, pp. 2–3; Democratic Party of Pennsylvania Response to Application for Stay in No. 20A54, pp. 8–9. But the Court, by an evenly divided vote, refused to do so. Nos. 20A53 and 20A54, ante, p. ___ (THOMAS, ALITO, GORSUCH, and KAVANAUGH, JJ.,
noting dissents). That unfortunate decision virtually ensured that this important question could not be decided before the election. See No. 20–542, ante, p. ___ (statement of ALITO, J., joined by THOMAS and GORSUCH, JJ.).
Now, the election is over, and there is no reason for refusing to decide the important question that these cases pose. “The provisions of the Federal Constitution conferring on state legislatures, not state courts, the authority to make rules governing federal elections would be meaningless if a state court could override the rules adopted by the legislature simply by claiming that a state constitutional provision gave the courts the authority to make whatever rules it thought appropriate for the conduct of a fair election.” Ante, at 3; see also Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Bd., 531 U. S. 70, 76 (2000) (per curiam). A decision in these cases would not have any implications regarding the 2020 election. (Because Pennsylvania election officials were ordered to separate mailed ballots received after the statutory deadline, see Republican Party of Pa. v. Boockvar, No. 20A84, ante, p. ___, we know that the State Supreme Court’s decision had no effect on the outcome of any election for federal office in Pennsylvania.) But a decision would provide invaluable guidance for future elections.
