Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., suggested this week that GOP state attorneys general should consider filing a class action lawsuit against other states that used executive or judicial authority to change election rules to allow mail-in voting ahead of the 2020 election.
Palmer, who is chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, referenced several policies passed in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York and New Jersey, where mail-in voting predominantly favored Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
In Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court ordered election officials to extend the mail-in voting deadline even though election law is technically the state legislature’s responsibility.
And in New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy forced the state to implement a universal mail-in voting system via executive order.
“What you have are unconstitutional acts,” Palmer said during a radio interview on Monday.
“Obviously, Pennsylvania is ground zero for this because the governor and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court usurped the authority of the legislature,” he said. “Constitutionally, only the legislature of the various states have the authority to set election rules.”
If Republican states do not stand up for Republican voters, the rest of America will suffer, Palmer argued.
“I’m very concerned, and I’m concerned that some of the states’ attorneys general are not standing up for their state’s rights in the context of when you have five or six states conduct fraudulent elections, and the only election that’s truly a national election, and that’s a presidential election—it does harm to everybody else,” he said.
“It basically makes the Electoral College irrelevant,” he continued. “And I think the states’ attorneys general should be getting together to look at a class action arguing that under the 14th Amendment, this violates the Equal Protection Clause and it also violates the Guarantee Clause of the Constitution that guarantees to the state a republican, and that’s republican with a small ‘r,’ form of government. And that’s what free and fair elections are about — so we can have a republic.”
Filing a class action lawsuit would guarantee that the presidential election goes all the way to the Supreme Court, Palmer noted.
“When one state sues another, you don’t go through this long, drawn-out start with the local federal court, then go to the circuit, then go to the Supreme Court,” he said. “You go straight to the Supreme Court.”
