https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/529839-all-eyes-on-supreme-court-in-texas-fight
All eyes turned to the Supreme Court on Friday after a final round of briefs were submitted in Texas’s unprecedented and widely panned effort to upend President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, teeing up the justices to take action in the case.
The consensus among election law experts is that the court will roundly reject Texas’s extraordinary request to invalidate Biden’s win in the four key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin.
With the filing of its reply brief on Friday morning, Texas cleared the way for the court to issue an order on its request for a preliminary injunction, perhaps later that same day. Some court watchers expect the court will act no later than Sunday, ahead of the next day’s Electoral College meetings to formalize Biden’s win over President Trump.
The Texas brief Friday came after the filing of amicus briefs from dozens of state attorneys general who carved out positions on either side of the dispute, 106 House Republican members who are backing Texas and a request by Trump to join the Lone Star State as a party to the lawsuit.
If legal experts’ predictions are borne out and the court denies Texas’s bid, one variable that could affect the timing of such a move is whether any of the nine justices plan to write a statement accompanying the court’s order.
In two fairly recent instances, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two of the court’s most conservative members, expressed disagreement over their colleagues’ dismissal of a pair of disputes that pitted states against each other, noting their belief that the court is obligated to hear interstate suits.