Keystone Today

In an amicus curiae brief, Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler and Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff requested the U.S. Supreme Court “carefully consider the procedural issues and questions raised by the Plaintiff concerning the administration of the 2020 General Election in Pennsylvania.” 

The brief notes that elections require all procedures of administration to be fair. 

“The unimpeachability of our elections requires clear procedures of administration so that everyone gets a fair shake,” the brief states. “Unfortunately, outside actors have so markedly twisted and gerrymandered the Commonwealth’s Election Code to the point that amici find it unrecognizable from the laws that they enacted.”

It contends that the plaintiff has raised several key questions on how malfeasance impacted the election. Their attorneys are hoping that additional background will help the court resolve the matter.

“As a key element of this case concerns election administration issues in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, amici, as leaders of the legislative branch constitutionally charged with governing Pennsylvania’s elections who have litigated a number of cases concerning these election administration issues, are well positioned to offer context to this Court concerning the events giving rise to this lawsuit,” the brief states.

The brief notes that attorneys are requesting that the matter be expedited without the 10 days’ advance notice to parties of intent to file.

Cutler and Benninghoff have a strong interest in the case’s outcome, the brief states.

“The House Leaders, as leaders of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, one of the two coequal houses of the Pennsylvania legislative branch, have been heavily involved in the implementation of election policy and procedures in the Commonwealth, pursuant to the powers granted to the General Assembly under the federal and state Constitutions,” the brief states.

The leaders contend that being in their positions, they have personal and direct insight into the goals of the General Assembly as well as how state courts and outside actors have subverted those intentions.

“This wholesale evisceration of the Pennsylvania Election Code had a deleterious effect on the procedural safeguards put in place by the General Assembly,” the brief states.